Shagtastic Voyage

Ok, you’ve got a lot going on, right? You’ve got music to make and tours to play and social networks to maintain so, why should you throw anything else into the mix? Well, let’s see…somebody asks someone you know “hey, I need a band to play…” and that somebody hands them your business card. Now, two things can happen from here. One, they put the card in their pocket and go about their day. That night, when they’re cleaning out their pocket and getting ready for bed, they come across this bent up card and say “crap, I forgot about that.” They may remember it tomorrow but they may not. Now, scenario number two, they grab your card and pull out their phone. Bam! In just a second, they have your site up (or pulled up your app if you mentioned it on your card). Alright, now they, at the very least, know your image and they have an idea of your “brand.” This probably happens a lot more than you think.

The fact of the matter is, people are moving away from lugging a laptop around. The people who don’t use their phone for internet use their iPod Touch or other WIFI enabled media player.  3G and 4G networking allows quick surfing and the growing number of free WIFI hot spots serve as wonderful spontaneous search enablers. There is a great article on this here.

The reality is simple.  If you market in the physical realm, you HAVE to have a way to present your work on a mobile device. If someone sees a flyer for an upcoming show but has never heard of your band, they probably won’t remember your URL or band name when they get to a computer.

This really isn’t as hard as it seems. It can be as easy as watching what you put on your website. Phones don’t support flash yet so stay away from such intros and players.  Here are some rules according to a 2009 blog by Geno Prussakov, founder of AM Navigator.

Mobile is different in (a) bot algorithms, (b) simplified presentation, (c) sophisticated users, and (d) search being the primary way of browsing

You must aware of such difficulties as (i) plethora of browsers, (ii) different size screens, (iii) varying download speeds

Avoid embedding images, Flash, scripts, frames, mouse-over functions, objects, pop-ups/unders

Code your mobile websites in XHTML

Forget about .mobi domains

**If you aren’t familiar with some of the terms above, you need to get that way. Particularly if you have to handle any form of a website-  Even if you use a drag-and-drop style site builder. If you don’t do your own site, then show this to your designer.**

If you don’t want to “dumb down” your full site, there are a couple of options. One is a great tool called widgetbox. You can make tons of great widgets for your site and they now have a mobile site generator. Once you build the app-like UI (User Interface), they create a URL and a JavaScript code to embed on your site to redirect mobile users. You can start an ad-supported version for free but knock them off for a membership.

Another way to do it is to build an iPhone and/or Droid app. Droid is coming on strong (Droid users see a couple of my app suggestions here) but Safari (iPhone) is still the main mobile browser to access websites. This can get a little pricey but, if you have (or plan to build) a decent following, then it’s probably worth it. Not to mention you can sell them, too. One service that facilitates app development is iLike. One great aspect of an app is the fact that they synchronize with many of your accounts (Twitter, Youtube, Flikr, etc.) and will allow you fans to access it as soon as it is posted.

Musicians have to stay on top of tech trends just like every other business person. There is no choice if we want to stay relative to our audience.