ad-free alternative to myspace music?

teethoflions · Post by **teethoflions** » 15 Aug 2009, 21:58

i'm a musician, and am trying to make an alternative to myspace for other musicians. the problem that i'm running into is how to host it, without buying a bunch of server space, so i wouldn't have to get ads or charge for it. i'm pretty new to coding and programming, but i would at least like to be able to learn more about how to get this done.

the idea that i had is to write a program that would set up a template website on the user's computer, which they could tweak with, and add their band's songs, videos, and photos, all on a single page format. i am making my own site that is a local music website, and the idea is to have links to band's pages so people could hear local bands before they play. i live in a pretty big live music-oriented city, and the sheer volume of bands playing on a given night is pretty disorienting.

so, i was wondering how i would get around the server and host problem, if there was something i could do so each band's page would be hosted locally, on their own computer? or if i should just work with dreamweaver or a similar program.

any feedback, criticism, or info is welcome and wanted.

F4LSE · Post by **F4LSE** » 15 Aug 2009, 22:10

seems to me you'd be looking to build more of a downloadable, interactive program. If you were to code such a program you would allow these musicians to customize their own look,appearance, and presentation of their music. They could then use it to commune with other musicians that have downloaded the program as well. Once the musicians build their community you could release a smaller client version of the program that would allow "customers," and/or "fans," to check out the bands before they see them play.

Its an idea... do with it what u want

visser · Post by **visser** » 15 Aug 2009, 22:17

if your looking for something that is completly done over the web then you could use a social networking builder that F4LSE and I worked with a while back called dolphin

http://www.boonex.com/products/dolphin/

it has addons that you can use and lets people upload music or movies to your stuff. you can host it from a webserver that you make form your won at your house if you would like. I could help you set that server up, then all you would need is a domain name that you can get for free or for very cheap and thats all very doable. take a look at dolphin and get back to me if its something you would be interested in

teethoflions · Post by **teethoflions** » 15 Aug 2009, 22:28

@ visser: that dolphin program looks pretty good, the only thing is that i'd be looking to keep it free (for myself and others). if there is an open source version of dolphin, that would be even better. i don't know yet if it would be smarter/better to keep it all on the web or not. i would love your help on setting the domain up, thank you so much.

@ F4LSE: that sounds like a great idea, except i'd want to keep it more open ended and simple. a community would be great, but i'm not trying to make a social networking site per se. in terms of layout, i wanted my site to be the main hub of it all, with listings of all free house and venue shows for any given night, with all performing bands having linked to their respective pages.

thanks for the ideas, guys (gals).

visser · Post by **visser** » 15 Aug 2009, 22:36

dolphin is free and open source.... the only gimick is that you have to have an add for it at the bottom of the home page. but other than that add its all up to you and what you want.

what u would set up is something so that that front page itself is the listenings of bands for that night. allow people to browse the pages of the bands. just only allow it so bands can sign up and not people i would say... there is a whole backend to it that allows you to delete spam accounts or posts and comments. its very efficient stuff. I would show you around on it but I dont have a dummy site set up using that stuff and I prolly wont get a chance to any time soon as i leave for college soon here

teethoflions · Post by **teethoflions** » 15 Aug 2009, 22:41

huh, i'll poke around on it, thank you so much for the heads up. can i PM you if i have any questions?

visser · Post by **visser** » 15 Aug 2009, 22:43

Please do

i love to talk computers lol

F4LSE · Post by **F4LSE** » 15 Aug 2009, 22:44

in that case going vissers way may be easier.

with my idea it would get a bit more complicated. It would involve releasing some sort of SDK to make a web page and upload it to your main site where it would be noticed and viewed. Then it would be up to u to get people to create pages and get the site popular and worth their while to create a page.

But thats the hard way

vote dolphin