Does Myspace work for local bands anymore?
 

I found some discouraging stuff on how myspace might be sneakally making unsigned bands suffer and making sure their "featured " or "signed" artists are reaping the rewards of myspace.

go to myspace dot com /forums/t/4659905?SortOrder=0

( darn forum rules.. )

Its hard enough trying to network yourself when you dont know what promoters or other bands live around you unless you play gigs together, but you'd think something as simple as a local search i.e. being able to type in "search for bands within 5 miles " on myspace would be such an important thing for them to give their unsigned artists, and they've mysteriously removed it...

To me it looks like their way of keeping the rich richer and the poor poorer

well i tried talking to them about the same issue when it comes to local search but you still need a profile because myspace is just basic nowadays fro musicians and bands it's where your fans will most likely find you. hopefully at some point they will resolve this issue but until then just keep on keepin' on

;)

Advertising...

In my opinion, MySpace has declined quite a bit, and other sites have been far better at the Local Band promotion for real music listeners and bands - Reverbnation I think already stole that audience from MySpace, and other places focused on music have been towering over the Social Entertainment place for years.

50% of MySpace's 1100 staff have been cut. I think MySpace is experiencing it's last days.

I never knew it did work. To many bands begging for me to listen to there music and when I do it's just ****. One band after the other. I gave up listening to the local band scene around here. A lot of screamo and pop punk.

myspace de evolved the human race. I would sue if money were a badge on the hamper brigade

Although it is not as much in the foreground anymore, it is still an effective medium for artists, musicians, producers, and indi record labels to get their music to a large network of users.

I am 100% thoroughly convinced the only thing that sells local bands is live shows because it's the only time you isolate distractions away from people long enough to listen.

Not really. You could have 10,000 friends on myspace and it isn't jack squat in terms of real fans. The website is just an online ghetto of people spamming other people. And with the newly implemented Facebook partnership they might as well rename to "FB's Bitch."

Musicians, DJ's Songwriters!
 

Speaking from a musician/songwriters point of view, I think that all social networking websites are great for establishing friends like Myspace, Facebook rockcraze linkedin. yet I only discovered a fairly new musicians and Fans website which interlinks with everyone else. for e.g., if you have 5000 Myspace friends, you can share anything with any SNS including Twitter. In my opinion this makes the promotional and marketing aspects of being a Band, DJ, Musician/songwriter a much easier task.
Although rockcraze is the new kid on the block, that shouldn't really concern musicians/songwriters, because you signup for free, then start selling your music on rockcraze to everyone on Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin, Twitter and so on. I have 2000 friends on my Myspace Profile yet I am able to sell my music to everyone of my friends from my very own profile on rockcraze dot com
I am unable to sell my music on Myspace, forget reverbnation with their poxy 128kbps compression ratio on mp3's which sounds like an old transistor radio.
All my stuff is mastered at 320kbps which is the Itunes and Rockcraze dot com standard. I believe by offering quality recordings, you stand a much better chance of achieving your goals as a musician.
As I mentioned earlier, whether your a Musician/Songwriter, DJ and have music to sell, join up to every SNS you can find, build friends, then sell your songs from Rockcraze dot com :)

I gave up on myspace. It's just too much of a loading hassle I think. Also, none of the people I really network with were on there. Most of the time in my band, I would set up a facebook event, and hope people would come out and spread the word.

I don't know about them working, but the local bands in my area that want to be my friends all sound like ****. I stopped adding local bands to my friends list a long time ago along with using myspace.

not a big fan, Doing all my own promotion related things atm

Myspace should and should have always been a place for music. I think when they decided to make it more of a social networking site for friends, that's when it started to really take away from the main focus. I mean...I won't lie, I found a lot of good bands because of myspace and because of people's songs on their profiles. It's also a good free website if a band is starting out, and they don't have the funds to get their music out to the public. I think having the ability to get the music out there in a simple way is a huge positive with myspace.

In my opinion there is never a bad site to advertise on. There will always be sites that are set up better than others. If you only try to get anywhere just by using these sites then you will most likely get no where. Before any of you post names of people that break this rule remember there is always a small exception in all rules. The only way to truly get in any where in the industry you have to play gig after gig. This is the best learning tool for any musician out there regardless which aspect you're pursuing. Record companies are more likely to sign someone that can do large gigs then someone that has alot of online fans or plays for that matters.
That's just my opinion.

That's a good way of putting it. Social networking definitely killed it.

There's no doubting Myspace's significance in the past, but if people's social habits have shifted to facebook then where are the possible fans within myspace itself?

It's a good platform for an artist who can't afford a domain off the bat, but it's losing face.

Recent Myspace statistics especially those that concern their ad revenue show a huge and very quick decline. Which clearly reflects in the sites traffic.

I guess reverbnation has pulled artists over.