I've decided to build a website for helping musicians find other musicians. I know there are a lot of musician finder sites already, but most charge money for certain features. I'm going with a slimmed down, no frills site. Here is a rough outline of what I'm going to offer. I'm looking for suggestions on other features to add or any other suggestions that you might have.
1. Setup profile - User ID, Name, location, zip, email, password, music style, intrument played, skill level, what you are looking for (instrument, jams or band member), comments, search distance, url to pic, url to music (may offer to host this on my site at some point, but bandwidth will be a concern at first).
2. Search - Location, zip, music style, instrument, skill level, band member or jam partner.
Once you have a profile, you will have a PM box for people to contact you. The system will then email you (optional) notifying you of PM. The two parties can then work out the details on meeting up. I'm going to provide each member a calendar as well so that jam sessions, gigs, etc. can be placed on it and shared with other members. There will be no forums, classifieds, or anything else like that. I'm thinking more of a "Google" for musicians. Simple profile, simple search, simple results.
So what do you think? Opinions and or suggestions welcome. Thanks!
Jason
"Rock And Roll Ain't Noise Pollution"
Are there alot of finder sites? Cause I think this is a very under-developed area. I would really appricate a utility like that. One thing that I think I would add would be a field for age. Some people might only want to play with people in their age group.
I would make the "genre" selection pretty flexible, because alot of musicians love to play all types of music.
Good luck. Keep us informed.
Geoo
“The hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn” - David Russell (Scottish classical Guitarist. b.1942)
Should I add just a "Your Age" field, or give an age range drop box? Good idea though. Thanks!
If you go to Google and search for "musician finder" or "musician search" there are a fair amount of them. Some of the sponsored links are pretty good, but want you to pay for advanced features. Some have too many features, IMO.
The only drawback to this type of site is that it won't be very good until enough people enter profiles. I build websites for a living though, so I know how to optimize the site for best search results, etc., so I'm hoping within a few months of going live it will be somewhat useful for people.
BTW, I've already registered the URL as Musicians4U.net. I'm going to be coding most of this myself, so I've got at least a months worth of work still. I may ask some of you guys to beta test the site for me once I get some stuff working (if that would OK).
Jason
"Rock And Roll Ain't Noise Pollution"
I dont know that it would matter one way or the other so, if that is the case, then a specific age would be better.
I have found a few people to play with here in Oklahoma but its just not enough.
Geoo
“The hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn” - David Russell (Scottish classical Guitarist. b.1942)
I think that this is a great idea.
Never been a beta tester before but I'm pretty good driving a keyboard. You can count me in if ya need help.
Michael
Playing an instrument is good for your soul
Thanks! I got started on it yesterday and will be doing a lot more coding on it this weekend.
No other suggestions?
"Rock And Roll Ain't Noise Pollution"
are u doing it in notepad??????? (if yes won't it take years :twisted: )
:lol:
I use Textpad. A lot like Notepad but with a ton more features. So I do code by "hand" instead of using those WYSIWYG programs like Dreamweaver or Frontpage.
As for taking forever, a month might be a bit optimistic as I find my time limited lately, but I program for a living. I'm going to do this site in PHP and MySQL, which I know pretty well so it shouldn't take too long. Plus I'm going to borrow as much code from other things as I can.
I'll keep everyone updated.
"Rock And Roll Ain't Noise Pollution"
i tried learning html using a volcano project and never completed it.I guess now i should find some time developing my web designing skills 8)
Browsed a few of those sites. First I noticed that a good portion of them were aimed at the professional musician or those wanting to become pros.
Second, and this is important in my mind. I did a search where they requested that you put in your zip code. I was under the impression the idea of the zip code was to find others in your area. I live in NY, the first 3 matches were California, Wisconsin and Florida. Not exactly around the block.
Build a better mouse trap and the world will beat a path to your door.
Mike
Playing an instrument is good for your soul
Dude, this is a fantastic idea. I've seen so many of these sites, but none of them work too well from what I've seen.
If you need any help, count me in!
Our songs also have the standard pop format: Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, solo, bad solo. All in all, I think we sound like The Knack and the Bay City Rollers being molested by Black Flag and Black Sabbath.
Kurt Cobain
The idea has been creeping into my head lately to produce some kind of software or web application that does something to help musicians and aspiring guitarists. I am not about to steal Jason's idea, matching musicians, but I am sure there are other underdeveloped areas that could use some neat and useful tools. There is always a better way to teach/practice guitar theory, write or save tabs, etc. Has anyone found themselves saying: "man this sucks. if only I had something that could..." Let me know what. My email is evan [at] kindasimple.com. Thanks
Evan
I use Textpad. A lot like Notepad but with a ton more features. So I do code by "hand" instead of using those WYSIWYG programs like Dreamweaver or Frontpage.
I'll keep everyone updated.
Why not use a WYSIWYG Editor?
And this sounds like a great idea!
Hope I can help
Why not use a WYSIWYG Editor?
And this sounds like a great idea!
Hope I can help
Just personal preference. Those types of editors can make you lazy (ie, you can forget the basics because they do it for you) and they also have a habit of producing bloated code. I write all of my stuff using web standards with as little markup as possible. I can actually write pages more quickly by hand now anyway.
I'll be sure to let everyone know how it's going and when I have some things for all of you to look at and give suggestions and/or opinions. I'll post here with links and such.
Thanks everyone!
Jason
"Rock And Roll Ain't Noise Pollution"
WYSIWYG is faster for me but I dont know all the stuff I did when I first leared in notepad. So I wish you lots of luck
