There was a nice article on Hypebot last Friday (8/5/11) and Clyde Smith from Flux Research, who reviewed the site and interviewed me, got it right. Here's his post, and you can get to the Hypebot Article at http://bit.ly/advahypebot where there are some spirited comments!
Adva Mobile Offers Free Mobile Websites Designed for Musicians
Adva Mobile focuses on mobile websites for musicians. The basic service is free and the sites are dubbed "Mobile Fan Clubs" though you don't have to think of them as fan clubs per se. However, they are designed to build mobile contact lists, meet the needs of fans on as wide a variety of phones as possible and to monetize that activity.
I recently spoke with Adva Mobile's CEO Jack Kelly who shared their perspective on a number of aspects of musicians' mobile needs as well as future development plans for the service.
Currently Adva Mobile offers tiered pricing with a basic free account that allows you to evaluate the service for yourself. When you join, you can provide your MySpace account info and they'll automatically fill in some of the sections of the site to help you get started. They're currently working on a similar integration with The Orchard and they also offer tour updates from Artist Data and Jambase.
The sections of the sites are organized by templates with such features as gig schedules and ticket sales as well as a merch store. Sales are conducted via PayPal and artists provide their own fulfillment though digital downloads can be managed in conjunction with Bandcamp. However, they intend to develop their own digital fulfillment service.
Adva Mobile encourages artists to get fans to register via SMS which allows them to collect contact information for future text messages with band news. Some musicians are doing things like telling audiences in concert that the song they just played is available free if they send a text message to join the club. Kelly says they've gotten up to a 20% response during concerts for that call to action.
They do discourage overuse of text messaging but point out that such registration allows for building a contact list whereas downloads of native apps don't provide that information just as QR codes don't provide analytics. However, they will create native apps for bands that feel they're necessary which are then updated when you update your mobile site.
We covered more than I can jam into this post but I think it's a solid service that, according to Kelly, currently has around 1280 bands on board. He also points out that smartphones are still in the minority of mobile phones and that mobile websites such as Adva Mobile provides can reach a much broader range of fans including those with the simplest of mobile web access.
If you're in need of a basic mobile site for your band, I would definitely recommend checking out Adva Mobile's services. Even if you have native apps in the works, it's ideal to also have a mobile website to reach as many fans as possible.
Hypebot contributor Clyde Smith is a freelance writer and blogger. Flux Research is his business writing hub and All World Dance: World Dance News is his primary web project. To suggest websites and related topics for review, please contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
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