I'm re-launching my indie music webzine that's been stale for about a year. The site is AudioXposure.com. It's not quite done yet (only have one new interview up, and still preparing a few others first, haven't done anything with the sidebars on the inner pages yet, etc.). I'd like some feedback from indie artists on what they might like to see. I added an indie music forum just a day or two ago (obviously dead), with a section for musician classifieds. I'll be adding an indie music directory in the next day or two. While I won't have time right away, I'm also planning to add a section to the directory (or separate area) for a collection of indie music media contacts (people that will review their CDs, etc.). I'm also planning a few short music publicity reports, and to add an email list before the official launch (the reports will likely come a few weeks after the launch). Either right before, or shortly after, the re-launch, I'm going to be setting up a section of the site as an "indie music newswire" kind of service for bands to post their press releases. I think I have most of this stuff together, but I wanted to know if you can think of anything else worth looking into either in the near future or the long run. I know what I don't want to add is anything like audio, video, or image hosting for the bands, because that's going to all be a part of BandEPKs.com when I launch that in the much more distant future (hosted, professionally-done band press kits including all of that stuff). Can you think of something that I should maybe add to the forum before I start promoting that? Something missing from the classifieds? Any thoughts of things I should consider before announcing anything? I know that was a lot to read, but I appreciate the feedback. Jenn
Looks pretty good to me. You might want to think about adding a spotlight section; like "Artist of the week" or something where a really deserving band/artist participating in the forums is selected by AX, then featured and promoted on the forums for a week or so... I already saw the "Featured Indie Music Video" on the main page but I'm thinking like maybe you could put a tiny banner ad of the "featured band" on the forum pages and not just the site. Just my thoughts anyway.
We've tried that in the past, and it didn't work out, so we moved to an editors' picks list (top ten weekly). I don't have the time to do that on top of the rest of the site this go-around though. However, the spotlight might be something to consider for the forum side of things, as a way to get people registered and in there (take nominations for bands not covered on the site yet, narrow it down, and have people vote). Thanks.