MySpace Bands: It’s Not Your URL!
Nov 8th, 2006 | By Joe Taylor Jr. | Category: News|
|
Welcome to spinme.com, where we help working musicians make more money making music. If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed or our weekly newsletter. Thanks for visiting!
When the Fox television network wanted to promote the TV series Bones online, it turned to its corporate sibling, MySpace, for help. Obligingly, they offered up the screen name “Bones,” which would be pretty easy to remember. Except, that screen name already belonged to a band in Louisiana that had put together a list of 2,100 friends.
Fortunately, some kind folks at MySpace reunited the band with its original screen name.
However, it’s another reminder that promoting someone else’s domain name on your printed material and press kit is an invitation to disaster. (Remember, $8 a year is all it costs to have your own domain name, even if you just redirect it to your MySpace page.) MySpace’s terms of service indicate that they can — and will — take back your screen name if they want to. It’s really nice to hear that they stuck up for a member this time, but you can’t guarantee that they’ll do it again.
And, for all the folks that think MySpace is never going anywhere, ask the senior members of your favorite music business bulletin boards what it was like when MP3.com vanished after it was purchased by an international media conglomerate. (Some folks are still stinging from that one.)
Technorati Tags: music+business, myspace
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
November 8th, 2006 at 4:08 pm
Or $5.99 at 1and1.com:
http://www.1and1.com/
November 11th, 2006 at 11:46 am
That’s great idea, to get your own domain name and all - BUT here’s a even better one, how about you get your own REAL web site (you cheap and stupid bands) instead of that crappy free shit filled with hype and corporate adveryising crap that brings new meaning to the term “user” - you’re getting USED alright! You get what you pay for, and in MySpace’s case even less…
November 12th, 2006 at 10:16 am
Don’t Promote MySpace!!…
Joe Taylor tells a great story about a band who lost its MySpace URL… The same thing happened to bands who promoted URLs from mp3.com and songs.com. And I’m sure this won’t be the last time… Buy a domain and……