Gigdoggy has unveiled a new version of its service last week, nicknamed Fanteraction™ release. It comes up with a new music blog, written remotely by a sound engineer, and of course the Fanteraction™ mobile platform, which allows music bands to interact with their fans during gigs.
Strangely, the blog post announcing the release is very sparse on the product’s features, namely on the why and the design of the system, and I’ll try then to decode what the creators of the service wanted behind the service.
I think it’s fair to assume that the creators were thinking about every music fan having mobile smartphones at hand when going to shows, at least in the near future. The music fan would click through pages to find out about upcoming songs and features, comment & tweet about performances. There’s also a tune downloading feature (which would be the monetization path).
The scenario above can be found easily in barcamps and startup conferences, with digital natives finding out very easily (and on their own) if there is any online information about the current speaker, only if you give them some kind of Internet connection. I am not sure how it plays out for the casual fan. Picture this in a standard Francophofolies show, where GigDoggy would be able to display an url to invite fans. Would fans & casual listeners tune in? Would they spend a few minutes to go through the information online? That’s a lot to ask imho, unless the band asks specifically for it.
That’s where the application seems lacking in polish. One can see the core of the product & the vision, but there’s still a lot to do in terms of presentation and working on edge cases.
I also understand it’s a new service, but I would have expected much more interaction and marketing for the service. I’d love to hear how this plays out vs other music portals and platforms such as myspace. I’d love to see a more dynamic homepage where you would see activity coming from bands. Also read: I’d love to love this service, only if it could give some material to give me the reason to.
Comments
heri August 12, 2009
@paisible http://bit.ly/4qmCE7
Montreal Tech Watch August 12, 2009
Gigdoggy releases mobile fan interaction service for bands http://bit.ly/UDzj3
Mike Deutsch August 12, 2009
RT @mtw Gigdoggy releases mobile fan interaction service for bands http://bit.ly/UDzj3 — very cool idea, slightly ahead of its time?
Greg August 12, 2009
(small correction: the service is called Fanteraction – not FanInteraction)
You’re right about the lack (need) of marketing for this release – although people who sign up and browse through the site will come across numerous links that shed light on the “why” and “how” of the site, our message still needs to be polished quite a bit.
Being a very small team, our strategy is to get things out as quickly as possible (as unpolished as they might be), in order to get real feedback from a functional point of view. We work behind-the-scenes with our users at this point to make sure they understand the service.
“If it’s not working, improve – don’t promote” is the reason we’re not going on a marketing-blitz at this point, as we want to make sure that all our users are really “active” users.
I’m really interested in knowing what other entrepreneurs who don’t have “a full marketing package” ready for their first release think about this.
Cheers
Heri August 12, 2009
all right about building the product, but imho your next efforts should be in getting a minimum number of customers trying out gigdoggy and gather their feedback
Illa Vondrasek January 24, 2011