The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
Quick Pitch: Aggregate all your band’s info in one place, without the hassle of building a website.
Genius Idea: About.me or Flavors.me for bands.
Nowadays, bands are expected to be on an increasingly large number of networks — from Twitter to Facebook to Soundcloud to YouTube, you name it. Which means that a musician’s web presence is often scattered all over the place, floating about the web like so many half notes.
The obvious solution is to build a website that centralizes all that info, making it easy for fans to keep up with all your online going-ons. However, if you’re not particularly tech-savvy or you don’t have the funds to hire someone particularly tech-savvy, that whole website thing might be an issue.
Onesheet aims to solve that quandary by providing musicians with a way to tie together all of their online outlets in one place: from music to videos to concert dates to online stores to social sites, etc.
The service was founded by Brenden Mulligan, who has been involved in the music industry for five years, doing everything from working at a major label to living on a bus as a band’s road manager. Mulligan is also the founder of ArtistData, which allowed bands to distribute info across all of their web presences at once (that service was acquired by Sonicbids).
“I think a band having their own branded web presence outside of social networks is incredibly important,” Mulligan says. “Bands are told they need their own website, but setting one up and keeping it maintained is sometimes too much effort. So they either need people to help them, or their website becomes stagnant quickly.”
Since Onesheet is plugged into your social networks, it updates constantly as you tweet, Facebook and upload music.
If you’re familiar with Flavors.me or About.me, you’ll be able to figure out Onesheet rather rapidly. The service is still in beta, but bands can sign up to reserve their Onesheet in the coming days. Once you have one locked down, simply log in via Facebook and Twitter, and all of your artist data will be transferred to the page (you can tweak at will).
Next, you will be asked to connect third-party services, including ArtistData, Bandcamp, BandsInTown, Bandzoogle, Facebook, FanBridge, NextBigSound, Posterous, ReverbNation, Songkick, Sonicbids, Soundcloud, Tumblr, Twitter, Vimeo, WordPress and YouTube. CD Baby, Instagram, iTunes, Moontoast, Nimbit, Rdio and Topspin are coming soon. Choose a background image and adjust the appearance, and you’ll end up with a clean, slick page featuring all of your info, all in one place.
Right now, Mulligan is funding the service via bootstrapping, but he plans to introduce premium features in future iterations in order to monetize.
What do you think of Onesheet? If you’re in a band, would you create one to promote your music?
Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark
The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.
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