Revebnation iphone app for bands

If you have the dosh and a decent following to justify it, then this cheeky wee uncomplicated widget may just be for you!

A wee while ago I got an email from reverbnation pushing a beta version of an iphone app exclusively for “selected” bands and artists. As far as I know, this is now available to everyone as a option on artist only accounts at the cost of $100 which depending on how you’re fixed, seems like a decent enough price. Now most bands will have a facebook page anyway and its important to stress that this is free and of course its the very definition of “pushing” your alerts and news toward anyone that’s subscribed or “liked” you, though depending on how many “friends” your captive facebook audience has your news could get unnoticed and buried in the mountain of updates from others, making it largely ineffectual?

So whats the solution, if there is in fact a problem? is it an app?

Home screen

In my experience every band has at least 3 or 4 outlets online? Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Soundcloud, Reverbnation etc are all very good, contain music and blog options and usually you can sync them to update from one place anyway, saving time and multiple log-ins too. So again why would you bother with an app, what with all this free digital marketing and networking? especially when you can update it all from your mobile phone/device too.

I guess the main reason would be that it’s simply another arm of the above but should you convince people to check the app now and again, there could of course be the chance of creating a kind of intimacy with your fans that you just cant get in say a facebook feed with everyone elses crap above and below your “latest news”  The big thing going for the usual suspects above is the two way nature of the experience, with fans being able to comment, add files and photo’s and basically interact on a few levels in a quick and easy manner.

With this app, you cant do that, its purely an information engine allowing you to update your status through your reverbnation account. Despite this being the case, the updates are instantaneous, appearing on your app straight away and the same goes for any photo’s, songs, gigs and biography changes. If your fans really want to know whats happening at your end, a quick tap on this app will most likely tell them all they need to know. There is a certain amount of interactivity, with fans able to visit a section listing all the social networks you are a member of and the option to visit or share them with a touch, also there is an option within the app to sign up for your RN street team and mailing list. Oh, and by the way, there are also a few colour combination options when you first build the app too, white and black is the one displayed here (cool, moody and all Rock n’ Roll!)

As mentioned above, the content is pulled directly from your reverbnation account. Now those of you that have an RN account will know that its a pretty comprehensive package and there are some great extra features (if you want to pay for them) one of them being digital distribution, so you can list your tracks on itunes, last FM, Zune, Spotify and a whole lot more. If you want to give your fans the gift of streaming your music, then this app does the business for sure. Any time you add a track, the app automatically updates your new tune and adds it to the embedded playlist, allowing your faithful followers to enjoy your music through their iphone without web access or having to browse for it.

Get fans to your gigs!

The app also shows your upcoming and past gigs too and is advanced enough to use the GPS in your phone (location services on in the settings) to show you on a map and offer directions to the venue, a nice little touch that is interactive and encourages fans to dig a little deeper through the app. After they find what they are looking for, they can automatically add the gig to the phones calendar to make sure they don’t forget! The gig section also has a share link and a ticket link to make everything as easy as possible for your fans to attend and lets face it, all bands want that.

Also supported are your RN gallery pictures and again when you update the gallery on your account, they show on your app too, where fans can have a peek into your awesome rock n roll lifestyle or just laugh at the sex faces you make whilst on stage.

To dwell on the dynamic content for a while, obviously there is no crazy ass high bit rates going on with the audio, but I can’t really fault it to be honest as there’s no noticeable break up or lack of quality in the playback. The app is fast to react to your commands, with forward and reverse scrubbing and a play pause button and the option to play tunes in the background whilst browsing through the app, with an option to buy them just a click away (assuming you have digital distribution)

I don’t really know too much about the nuts and bolts of all this stuff, only to say that there’s no way of knowing how many downloads you’ve had or how often the app is being used, I guess that you just have to make your content as interesting and dynamic as you can to get people coming back on a regular basis.

I guess that this is nothing but a short technical review of the capabilities within the app itself and doesnt really answer the original question, but for the band featured in this one, it was simply a cool thing to have and gives a fan all the info they need without having to visit all of the above social media sites.

Give the band app a try by downloading it from the itunes store HERE

For more details visit the Reverbnation band app page HERE

You can see some screen shots of the app below: