-The last few months I’ve been talking about the pros & cons of using My Space-which used to be THE place to go for not only discover new music/bands but also all your social networking needs. The later is now with Facebook-with more & more people migrating to there daily. Worse, many bands are also leaving for a multitude of reasons. There are other sites a band can sign up for to help expose their music-but the one that I’ve seen come closest to classic My Space-and even surpass it in some areas-is Reverbnation.

-Sign up on Reverbnation is free & similar to My Space in many ways. People can leave comments/messages, you can have pics, a blog, music videos and a flash player for your songs-with a limit up to 8 MB. You can upgrade to Mega Song Storage for a yearly fee, but 8 MB is more than enough for most bands.

-So if it’s like My Space, why join Reverbnation? There are a number of reasons. With Reverbnation you can manage your mailing list-which can also be tied into a street team feature-without having to go to an outside service like Yahoo or gmail. The also a feature where you can even message all your friends on My Space. The stats feature ties into almost everything you do on Reverbnation-which gives you a lot of info to work with. You can open a store here & sell merch, albums,downloads-even ringtones-all made up on your page (none of that Snocap stuff). There’s even a section where you can add your press clips.

-One thing you can’t do (that I know of) is to just add people at whim like you can on My Space.You can either post links from your Twitter/Facebook/My Space etc. asking people to join or send messages directly to listeners (yes-it’s not only just for bands) asking them to become a fan.

-Of course, you can’t discuss Reverbnation without discussing one of their best features-widgets. They were doing Widgets way before they became trendy. You can post them on other sites, blogs, bulletins, all over. It’s not just a simple player either-you can have mailing list sign ups, music videos, free downloads, your store and more in these widgets. Course, for the more advanced feature you need to sign up for “Pro” which costs a little but it’s not much-especially for what you get for it. Reverbnation also allows you to make an Electronic Press Kit (a la Sonicbids) as well as many other extra such as helping you build your own website, digital distribution, links to insurance quotes & much more

-While there are many social networking sites out there, Reverbnation is specifically made for those in the music business. It is what I call “Classic My Space (for bands) on steroids”. Check it out at http://www.reverbnation.com/ (and no, I’m not getting paid to do promo for them-HA!).

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