In an effort to add some life to the electronic tumbleweeds floating down Myspace’s main street, the Rupert Murdoch owned website has teamed up with the band management site Reverbnation to create a plug-in which will allow bands to better manage their fan base. Artists will be able to track analytics on Myspace and on other social networking sites and contact their fans.
The new tools are based on Reverb’s Fan Relationship Management application, FanReach. Bands will be able to sort fans by age and location for instance, as well as checking email open rates and co-ordinate the way in which they market themselves to fans. Reverbnation has just notched up a million bands who are now members of the website, so why would they be jumping in to bed with the flailing Myspace?
According to Reverbnation’s CEO Michael Doernberg, “The first question is: ‘Why did we do this deal?’…. MySpace is still the de facto music destination on the web,” he reckons. “If you want to go to a single place to see a comprehensive presentation of a band, MySpace is still the biggest. There’s a lot of fan relationships built up in MySpace. It’s really up to us to try to unlock that MySpace value for the artist.”
