- They take hours to load thanks to pointless Flash intros put there to impress the client – who has never actually used a web site in his life – and the artist – who doesn't even have a computer.
- They play music when you don't want them to.
- They don't play music when you do want them to.
- They contain official biographies that have NO FACTS in them.
- They never have any news on them. Or if they do it's generally weeks after the news has found its way into the public domain.
- They invite users to sign up to newsletters and then use the mailing list as a cross-marketing tool.
- They have something they call "a store" through which they try to knock out unsold tour merchandise labelled "extremely limited stock".
- Like a badly maintained shopping centre suffering from urban blight, the community areas are overrun by nutcases and spammers.
- They have links to "good causes" that nobody in their right mind would ever visit.
- The money spent will have been enough to feed a family of five for a year.
"World-class thinking about music, business, publishing and the general world of media" - Campaign
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Thursday, March 15, 2007
This is why we use Wikipedia
Record companies must spend fortunes every year on having websites built for their acts and they are, almost without exception, unutterably useless:
Also, they now bring out websites specific for the new album. I noticed today that Rufus Wainwright has helped himself to a dedicated album site to go with his bog-standard one!
ReplyDeleteOn the PSB's website, Neil kindly sends in photo text messages from where ever he's touring in the world, so you get pictures of him in New York or Rio. Makes you feel so much better when you look out of the window at work on a drizzly Wednesday afternoon in Yorkshire...
Yes I was looking something up the otherday and went to the bands website which didn't even have track listings for their own albums. There is annoying trend for cd's to automatic link to these sites when you stick them in your pc (to provide you with personal content whatever that is). It seems the record industry wants to destroy the last vestige of it's mystic and cool with the most bland coporate rubbish.
ReplyDeleteHonourable exception is the Steely Dan website which is obviously administered by someone pretty close to the Don/Walt axis and features hilarious memos from D&W to their tour manager/studio engineer/anyone else in the line of fire about all and sundry. A hoot.
ReplyDelete