BandFind.com is a network where people can find their favorite music.
bandFIND
Description
bandFIND.com is the world’s first fully integrated social network designed specifically for musicians, bands, and the professional music industry but not the fans. Founded in 2006 by Chris Purifoy and Amy Piazza, the website offers all of the core social networking features developed and proven by applications such as Facebook, Myspace, and Friendster. The founder Chris Purifoy claims that bandFIND is a "social utility.""At bandFIND, we consider ourselves a ‘social utility’, offering a line of impressive services for musicians, bands, and professionals built around and within the community that a social network provides. The social platform is just the tip of the iceberg," says Chris. "A social utility is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a social network offering services with real professional application. Web 2.0 is about communication, ease of use, and viral content. I guess that’s why people say that social networking is the fusion of all web 2.0 principles. I tend to disagree with that statement. We believe that the social network is simply the core of a much larger web 2.0 movement. Web 2.0 is about ‘Utility’. The ‘social’ is just a precursor.”
History
The company was originally founded in November of 2006 by Chris Purifoy and his sister Amy Piazza as Purifoy Enterprises LLC. Chris Purifoy studied Recording Industry Management at Middle Tennessee State University located in the Nashville metropolitan area. He began his career in the music industry reping for Aware Records and occasionally helping Matt Kearney on his Nothing Left To Lose tour. In addition to is rep position and his studies, he also managed a singer songwriter act on the side. He was asked to find a replacement for the act's lead guitarist. This task lead him to discovering the need for an online based 'utility' for finding band members. His sister Amy Piazza, a professional graphic designer located in Belfast Northern Ireland, gave the initial seed investment, and in the winter of 2006 bandFIND.com was born.
In the months that followed, Jeff Spangler a Greensboro web developer, joined the team in early 2007 as the Program Director. He put together a team of programers including John Cravens, the SR developer, and Brad Paterson, SR Flash Developer. Amy Piazza was responsible for the design aspects. Over the course of 2007 and 2008 the website was conceptualized and built.
In the spring of 2007, Cole Thornton joined the team as the EVP. And, in the summer of 2007 the project was funded by a few AR based angel investors. In July of 2007 Bandfind, inc. was officially formed. The new venture put together a marketing team and a business management team and began planning it's future. Led by Chris Purifoy's vision for new horizons within the music industry, in only a year and a half the company has now grown to include business offices in Fort Smith, AR, a marketing and promotions office in Nashville, TN, a development office in Greensboro, NC, and a creative development office in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
In December of 2007 the new venture moved into a private beta state. In March of 2008 the website opened to the public in what they called a "soft launch". The site is scheduled to launch officially April 1st of 2008.
Social Networking Features
The bandFIND environment is built on a rich and intuitive platform. Though it has been dubbed a social utility, it can also be classified as a fully integrated social network. It features all of the core services of the social network. In fact, the bandFIND platform features a full internal messaging system, profile pictures, and headlines as well as all of the core sections of a social profile including: a comments section, a info section (including the artist or bands influences, talents, equipment, bio, contact info, label info), and a photos section. Each profile contains numerous fields of musical data that is indexed and searchable. This allows for very specific musician searches enabling bandFIND's users to find exactly what they are looking for. It also allows for users to become friends with one another and build large networks of artists, bands, and industry professionals. In fact, bandFIND.com contains all of the core social features found in facebook and myspace.
In addition to the core features, bandFIND.com also allows users to share their original music with other artists, bands, and music industry professionals. The photo viewer and music players each have a rich and inviting design.
Social "Utility" Features
In addition to the social networking features, bandFIND.com also contains services that fulfill many of the music industry's needs. Two of these services are are "bandFIND | Invites" and "bandFIND | Ads".
With ‘bandFIND | Invites’ musicians and bands have the opportunity to send a number of different invites to other artists and bands including: Friend Invites, Band Invites, Fill-In Invites, Gig Share Invites, Gig Sit-In Invites, Jam Session Invites, Lesson Requests, Recording Invites, Tryout Invites, Writing Session Invites, Backing Band Invites, and Collaboration Invites. They are great for breaking the ice and creating new opportunities.
‘bandFIND | Ads’ is the first fully featured and categorized musician ad system featuring internal applicants for each ad, internal and private dialogues for each applicant, and over fifteen filterable and searchable elements.Each Ad features a category and subcategory to help bandFIND file and index the ad and allow users to easily search and find what they are looking for. Also, each ad contains a “requirement” of “details” section specific to the category of ad selected that can be filled out based on the individual needs to the user creating the ad. Each of the elements are searchable. Each ad features an applicants section. That way users can apply for an ad and the creator can review the applicants and make a decision as to who to award the project to. Each applicant will have the ability to begin a dialogue with the ad’s creator. The dialogues are private (between the creator and the applicant) and are located within the ad. Each time a comment is added to a dialogue the user is notified on his homepage. This allows the users inboxes to remain “unspammed” by applicants.“Fully featured ad systems have become fairly popular with career websites like monster.com and guru.com,” says Cole Thornton, the Executive Vice President of bandFIND.com, “However up until now, musicians and bands haven’t had that luxury. We’re glad to provide it.”
Innovations
Along with the core social networking features and the social utility features services, bandFIND.com also includes a few other innovations brand new to the music industry and Web 2.0 Industry. The first is an unprecedented musician search. The wide range of music related user data provides bandFIND users the ability to search for exactly the right artist or band for their specific project. The second is the introduction of a new generation of music jockeys. Originally, there was the Disc Jockey (DJ) and the Video Jockey (VJ). Similarly, bandFIND introduces the first Internet music jockey, the Web Jockey™ (WebJ™). The Web Jockeys can be found on each users homepage and present a wide variety of visual media content including: updates, music industry education for musicians, interviews, and tutorials to help the users navigate the site among others.“We believe in harnessing the power of innovation and foresight,” says Cole Thornton the EVP of bandFIND.com.
Aesthetics
The site is not only packed with new breakthroughs in the technical arena, the bandFIND team also pride themselves on their eye for presentation and design. The site features a clean layout with and a "mac" friendly design.“We believe in a healthy mix of ingenuity and aesthetics,” says Amy Piazza, bandFIND.com’s VP of Creative Development and CO-founder.
“bandFIND.com is the first ‘hip’ social network,” says Chris Purifoy, bandFIND’s founder, “It would have been irresponsible of us not to take our time during the design process. We believe our users will thank us.”
The Orange
Oddly enough, bandFIND.com displays an orange with a Coaxiel cable plugged into it all throughout the website. It is not explained anywhere on their site. The meaning or reason for the fruit is up for debate.
Location
Nashville, TN
Languages
English
Contact
- bandFIND | contact: bandFIND.com/contact
Related Domains
External Links
- bandFIND | social: bandFIND.com