Re: To the myspace users.....a question

"Mike" <tetrickm@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:3f7ea68f-0b9d-4c7a-9e9e-5e0adf27823b@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I'm officially the last one to the party - I'm just getting around to
creating a myspace page for myself. I figured it might be nice to be
able to point people that are considering using me as a sub to it.
Anyhow, my 15 year old nephew got the page started for me and I
finally found a little time to upload a handful of gig pics to the
page (made a nifty little slide show using the myspace software). I
have a few mp3s and/or wav files that I wanted to upload to have them
play while my page is up. I see a link for adding music, but it says
something like "find a myspace band and add their music to your
page" (or something like that). Here's my question: when my nephew
was initially signing me up for the myspace page, was there a way to
designate your page as a band/artist page? If my page was NOT created
as a band/artist page, can it be changed to that kind of page?

Thanks for any input from the group. I would do this research on my
own, but I cannot get to myspace while at work, and with 3 small kids
at home it's difficult to find the time to sit at the computer.

Mike

I ran into the same issue, and as I recall, I ended up deleting my original
personal account and starting over. I don't recall a way to convert an
account. Cancel your account, then go to www.myspace.com, and DO NOT LOG IN
with your old email address (yet). Click on "Music" in the menu bar. All the
way to the right in the next menu bar, click on Artist Signup, and proceed
from there. Myspace may still remember your email address for the account
you just cancelled, so you might need to wait an hour or a day because their
databases are hosted on an old Casio calculator. Rupert Murdoch bought
MySpace for $590 million, but a lot of the cash was diverted to the
founders' cocaine and party bus fund, rather than to computer improvements.

Suggestions - and these are based on the assumption that you might like to
generate gigs or other business from your myspace page. If, on the other
hand, it's just a playground, you can ignore all this. I'm really picky.

1) There are many 3rd party tools for customizing your page, and myspace may
also have some of its own. Whatever the case, many of the special effects
are not implemented in a way that works with all browsers. Some of them will
crash Mozilla-based browsers, for instance. Avoid making the page look like
flashing clown pants on acid, even if your nephew thinks it's mad cool.
Think about the commercial web sites that please you the most and use them
as models. Keep it visually clean, unless your target audience is 13 year
old girls.

2) Please don't change your page so you have dark beige text on a black
background, or a photo background, parts of which are the same color as your
text. What a pain in the ass, but all too common.

3) In the blogs - the journal things you can write in, the default text size
is way too small. It's easy to change as you write each blog, but a lot of
people don't.

4) Make sure your posted music DOES NOT PLAY AUTOMATICALLY when people
arrive at your page. That's a gross violation of good web design rules. You
can control this option from your home page. Click Account Settings. Some
people will respond to this by saying "Musicians expect noisy surprises".
Bullshit. That's like saying polio is bad for everyone except musicians.

5) Don't load your main page with so many photos and embedded videos that it
takes forever for the page to load. Web marketing research tells us that
users will abandon your web site if a page doesn't load in a very short
time, usually 5 to 10 seconds.

6) Some users have way too many barnacles, also known as "friends". Some
people will want to be on your friends list so they get more visibility.
Your page is their roadside billboard. But, what good does it do if you're
in Seattle and a friend is in Miami? Maybe it's a good idea for you, or
maybe it's not. Consider each friend carefully, and be aware that you can
rearrange their order so the most important ones are visible first. Also,
look at each prospective friend's page to be sure it's not booby trapped
with bizarre special effects that will piss off the visitors you want.

Here are some nice clean examples:

http://www.myspace.com/kinlochnelson

Jeff Witkop's page!
http://www.myspace.com/busterrocksband

http://www.myspace.com/danielballjr

Here's a great jazz sax player whose page could use a little housecleaning:
http://www.myspace.com/jimmiehighsmithjr

Here's a visual disaster:
http://www.myspace.com/TilaTequila

Bordering on too much:
http://www.myspace.com/drstevegadd

Girly-cute, but at least the photo doesn't munge the text, which is too
small:
http://www.myspace.com/thedebbiekendrickbluesband

Busy, but it works:
http://www.myspace.com/tommycastroband


.

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