First let me start off, that there are very few people on the planet who rely on the internet more than I do. It's how I make enough money to eat and continue to produce bands (for little pay). There are a only a few situations that don't warrant a website in my opinion, and I can't think of a single one of those.

This week, a forum member emailed me about advice for starting a website for his band. I could have started in how he is going to need hosting (which I sell), a domain name, a content management system of some kind, proper budget for search engine optimization, etc.

Before I jumped onto the technical side of things, I took a second and thought about what a musician needs to do online.

#1 They need to get their music in front of their target audience.

#2 They need to take advantage of as much word of mouth as possible when it comes #1.

#3 They need a way to communicate with fans with text, video, or images.

    a) They need to let fans know of shows, events, cd releases, new merchandise, etc

    b) They need a way to chit-chat on a one on one basis

#4 There needs to be an emphasis on targeting people in the area of shows. It does little good to promote a show in Nashville to a dude in Tennessee.

#5 Some musicians need an objective way for label types to understand how popular a band is.

There are probably other requirements that aren't springing to mind right now.

Well boys and girls. It looks like Myspace, as much as I hate to say it, pretty much has all of these covered more or less. I'd love to find an excuse not to use Myspace because it's a sickening website that represents the apathy of our generation. Ironically, this IS the buying public (when it comes to music anyway).

While there are probably a few things that Myspace can't do, most bands I know don't take advantage of all of Myspace.com's features anyway.

Off the top of my head, the only thing a website can do fairly easily that Myspace won't allow is the acceptance of the credit cards. It's tough to sell T-shirts and cds to a guy with a VISA card on Myspace. Of course, I don't know any bands who accept credit cards on their site either.