General Music Chat

OOH I just found out that you only have a small window of time to reply back to paying people who mssg you.

I waited to reply back to a drummer and have come to find out that the link to REPLY doesn't work.

It's just like as if I came in here wanting real help.. (not going to happen) lol

The music connection has a place where you can sign up for free and message people (it's a magazine), and this is just a forum, no bells and whistles. I think more people would participate here thus getting them more clicks on their ads.

Chaeya

I've always felt that the biggest anchor in the Bandmix business plan was the pay-to-chat features. I'm sure they don't make a lot of ad revenue simply because the traffic is minimized, and traffic would considerably boost if they opened the chat features.

It's a double edged sword as their existing memberships would probably go into the toilet, unless they had some extremely worthy content within the site that people would be willing to pay for. On that level, I don't really know what kind of content would make me want to whip out the wallet with gusto.

Also, the monthy fees are a bit high, even considering the chat. There's some sites that charge $4.99 (for other similarly simple services) and it seems like a brilliant price point.. many people are far more willing to drop $5 a month than $10.. I don't understand the psychology behind it, but it's a fact.

In the end, there's two leading national and major sites for connecting musicians- Bandmix and Craigslist. To say CL is killing Bandmix in the race is an understatement. In my area, There's probably anywhere from 3-10 ads daily for bands looking for members or vice-versa. In nearby Philadelpiha, the figure is closer to 75-100 daily posts.

Add in that CL also offers (for musicians) the buy/sell listings, etc..

And it's all not just free, but AD FREE.

Bandmix CAN compete with that, as the site is dedicated to musicians and has far more depth and content. The key is for Bandmix to drop their pants and open chat for a year or two, accept the losses, and compete for that #1 spot and rip it from craigslist, and during that time, program some worthy and exclusive content and develop a members only section where benefits can have a better value vs. the non-members sections.

In my mind, the differences between member and non-member sections would be simply along the lines of non-members being able to use the public forums, band pages, and private messaging.

Members could enjoy members-only forums, buy/sell gear listings by city, enchanced private messaging (maybe longer history, bigger inbox, instant messaging?), enhanced band pages, member-only invites and free or discounted access to workshops, contests, benefits, etc.. you name it- there's 1000's of things a site can do to sponsor members-only exclusive content and outings.

The sky really is the limit. The only problem is traffic. Bandmix can't take CL's market share with the current model, it's that simple.

Well said. I also want to say that I'm the member of a big romance authors' forum and it's free to join and particiapte. There are a number of moderators who keep everyone in line and so threads don't escalate out of hand, and we have so many members that we've had to periodically stop accepting people. They support themselves on paid ads from authors marketing their books, ads from companies, and so on. Periodically we have fundraiser drives to handle upgrades and technical issues that have to be paid for.

I also go to several other forums that have the same format as Bandmix, so they're paying about the same. You can get a forum for a cheap monthly fee, and you don't really need to pay a company for top placement because the word of mouth here is strong enough where people can find it. I mean, I can have a forum on my own website and I only pay $19.99 a month for it.

Chaeya

anytime I had "feelers out" I was a paid member. I'm not presently nor have I ever had issues with responding to messages.
But then I don't go days without checking my mail either.