Website Wonder

I was between that and 'Website Wun' -like "fun" with a "w". No? Okay.

In my last blog post I discussed social media extensively, since it is an essential part of the work I am doing with the band. What I didn't discuss was websites, because they're not social media outlets. Websites are definitely not as popular with Generation Z as social media, but they're still a big component of every band (and also required by Cambridge). A website is an accessible medium where a lot of information can be compiled for easy viewership, which makes it so wonderful.

I'll be discussing Red Hot Chili Peppers and Cage the Elephant once more and Coldplay as well, but first I'd like to discuss what they all had in common.

Website pages:
- News: a place to keep people posted on upcoming shows, ticket sales, new albums or videos... news on the band
-Tour: even if the band is not on tour, but the three bands I researched are on tour right now. It has the venues, dates and links to buy tickets
-Music: where the albums are posted
-Photos/Videos: could be photos and videos together in one page or split into two pages; the videos are mostly the same ones posted on the band's YouTube page, never content exclusive to the website
-Shop/Store: merchandise and albums! Fun for fans!

The websites follow the theme of the band's latest album. When you think about that it becomes even more clear that the website is very much a marketing tool, a reminder for the people who access it what the band's brand is and also what they're selling at the time.

The last feature I want to make note of is that all websites have VISIBLE icons that link to the social media. Important to keep people connected to the band in every medium possible.


Red Hot Chili Peppers

• One really cool thing is that they have a special website for their live content, where people can browse a venue and buy the show or even single songs. 
• Two things I didn't like were: the pop up tab with all the links to the pages, because I thought it left the social media links rather hidden, and the bees walking around the screen (only because they kinda disgusted me).
• I included the picture on the left so you can have a notion of how the home page is (it's not the whole thing, but a good portion). They include a link to their new album, some news, tour dates, and some merchandise products.
• They follow the pattern of pages within the website, with a few special features:
• In the 'music' page, you can click on each album and the set list will be displayed -till here, nothing new. But then next to each song there is an icon that displays the lyrics to the song. Pretty cool, right?
• They have a page called 'media', in which videos and photos are included, but the photos are completely exclusive to the website, and many of the included are submitted by fans.
• There's something called the "RHCP Community", which gives the fans tour pre-sale codes, exclusive videos and photos, and a fan message board.

Cage the Elephant

Website homepage. I circled the social media links so you can see how well positioned they are.

• The website follows all the conventions with only one thing I'd like to note: in the 'photos' page, you can scroll down and see this

• The icon for their Instagram account is centered and then below you see all the posts from the social medium. It's a way to make the website more interactive by connecting it back and forth to the social media accounts which I thought was very interesting.
• One slightly annoying detail is that when you click the logo you expect to be taken to the home page, right? Yes. But here, when you click on the logo you are taken to the new music video, not the home page. Once on the site for the video you can go back to the main website, but if you're just going through the pages you can't really go back to the home (or maybe you can, I just haven't found how). BUT, annoying or not, it is smart. How? Why? Well...

You are on the music video website and you click on the little mask at the top and this (picture to the right) shows up. As you can see on the bottom right it says "enter site", which takes you to the main website, but before your eyes can reach that link you see all these other bigger links that relate to the music video. It's a very interactive medium that transforms the video into something larger and lasting. I personally loved the storyboards, and "consult the doctor" is a hashtag people can use on Twitter or Facebook to communicate with band. It's a pretty cool concept.

Coldplay
The Coldplay website was my favorite because of the style -it's super cute.

Soo pretty!!

• The big rectangle is a slideshow with links to videos, news, and the album. The psychedelic mix of circles (A Head Full of Dreams album cover) is a link to buy the album on Amazon (interesting). The squares are news. 
• The rest of the website also follows conventions, and like the RHCP's, they have lyrics to each song in an album's page. The bottom has all the links to their social media and it's there in every page of the website.
• The coolest aspect of the website is the 'timeline' page. SO DAMN COOL. 

The timeline, in this case, serves as the 'music/videos' tab, even though the website already has a videos page. As you can see, the timeline is composed of squares, each standing for an event. You can click on a square and a page will pop up with information on the event, displaying videos, pictures, or an interview, maybe live shows (it varies depending on the event). You can also FILTER IT ~OMG SO COOL~ by category (release, article, concert, scrapbook, audio, video, images, interview, blog) and by era (each album).

Aaaand there's also the MAP! It's the same content available in the timeline, just displayed differently. You can still filter the same way you do the timeline, and the same details will still pop up, but you see it by place instead of dates.
Both are really cool, unique means to layout a LOAD of content in an interactive and concise manner.



I now have a clear idea of the conventions of a band's website and some varying ones as well. The research on social media was necessary, as I've already mentioned, and it'll help me set up the accounts, so I can include the links on the website. The band already bought the domain for the website + an account on Wix, so I plan to start working on it this week. I'll probably have the skeleton all set up and fill it up with content as it goes.

P.S. Right after I saw the Coldplay timeline I went ahead and searched how to do that with Google maps. I have already made a selection of 5 articles to read and try to do it on my own... It just look so damn cool.

http://coldplay.com/
https://cagetheelephant.com/home/
http://redhotchilipeppers.com/