Bio, photo, and links sidebar

Posted byEthan DiamondPosted inUncategorizedTags:

You can now display your bio, photo and links in your sidebar. Above, for example, is what that looks like for Cristina Bautista. In the past, we’ve seen artists resort to placing their links and bio in each of their albums’ liner notes (where the information just gets buried), so we’re excited to provide an official, prominent spot where you can tell fans a bit more about yourself. It’s a simple feature, but there are some nice touches, like zoomable photos and URL prettification for the more common services (e.g., just “Facebook” rather than “http://facebook.com/goldparts”). All of this is of course optional, but we hope you’ll consider adding it, since a carefully selected image and a few thoughtful words can help establish an emotional connection with your fans (and in turn, boost your sales). Setup is done on your profile page:

45 thoughts on “Bio, photo, and links sidebar”

  1. Interesting. I’m looking forward to figuring out a way to exploit this and turn it into something crazy creative. Like having the profile pic almost seamlessly look like an extension of the header. My brain is swollen with ideas! Thanks.

  3. This website keeps getting better with each addition made to it.

    You’ve nearly made any other band profile website obsolete.

  6. Fabulous work dudes!!!
    This is a great step forward to what to expect from a great indie site -2011.
    It’s a great pleasure to be on board your
    now handy & shiny spacecraft.

    HANX!

    Jesper/paradors/sweden/Canada

  8. Hey this is just great. how about being able to put that in the box for your main page along with your discographies?

  10. Awesome! I’ve been waiting for this feature.

    Also, in the future I would love to see Bandcamp have some sort of blogging feature. Right now I use Tumlbr as my blog, but it would be awesome to integrate it into this website somehow!

  11. I like how, even though Bandcamp keeps adding features, they keep it clean and functional and still make me want to come back and keep using it. Fantastic job, Bandcamp, fantastic job.

  13. thanks for this guys, but Ive set this up and the info doesn’t seem to be showing on my landing page (where I think it would be very useful, because currently you only see two album covers)

    It does show ok on the individual album pages, but there it’s competing for attention with the important info about the album ..

    any thoughts?

    Rich

    1. Hi Rich, we may add the bio to the index page in the future, thanks for the suggestion. BTW, if you’re an artist with one or two releases, I’d recommend setting your landing page to your latest release (rather than the index page), just to avoid making fans jump through the extra click.

  16. It’s funny, I just saw this the other day and updated it when I was uploading my new single (only $2!! /shamelessplug). It somehow didn’t occur to me that this was a new feature, I thought I’d just missed the field.

  20. Another great addition, thank u bandcamp. Maybe a couple of months ago, u guys introduced a feature for pre-orders on upcoming albums. Where can I find more information about that? Thanks again, God bless!

  21. you guys should integrate comments to your profiles… some kind of comment engine where one could sign in with google +, facebook, twitter, myspace, etc.

    seriously, you guys are the best music site in terms of usefulness and graphic design opportunities. you can reclaim the throne myspace had.

  22. Thanks! It would be great to have the option of making the profile pic link to a website! Keep up the good work.

  25. You really need to organise this all a bit better.

    I commend you for adding the bio/picture section because it’s great to be able to use this website as an EPK, but there is always so much space under the album cover art. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE utilise this area!!

  27. @David – I respectfully disagree with the idea of filling in the space under the album cover art. The layout needs some space to breathe, and not having every blank space jammed with info is what helps Bandcamp’s layout looking pro, rather than like a Myspace design nightmare.

  28. As an artist manager, I would appreciate the opportunity to use one website for everything.

    Bandcamp, in its current format, is the closest any one website has ever been to “getting it right”. As far as a fan store/site goes, bandcamp is absolutely perfect. If fans want to experience more from the band (ie. photos and boring updates like “check out our new video clip”) then they can go to the Facebook page.

    As an EPK, the thing that’s missing is the ability to display excerpts from album reviews. This is something that all bands use in their EPK (and especially when it comes to the artists I manage) because it’s the best way for a band to say “see?? we aren’t just talking out of our ass when we say we’re good!” because every band claims to be the best band in the world, but very few actually get good critical acclaim. Referring back to my previous comment, would LOVE if I could post something (preferably album reviews) in the section below the album cover.

  29. Bandcamp is like an oasis of sensible design and function choices in the desert of the internet. I support this addition with the general caveat that, like the constitution of the united states of America, bandcamp’s format is not something to be altered lightly. Judicious light touches can burnish the gilding without removing any.

  30. Oh and I respectfully disagree with comment adding feature. People use this site because it is NOT a social networking site, and their page is NOT cluttered with spam, virii, slow-to-load animations of dubious artistic merit, and other thnx4thadd BS that killed myspace, oh so long ago. IF this feature is ever added, keep it simple; with no images or even HTML/other tags available, let the owner approve comments before posting them, and keep character limit low (100, even 75).

  31. Finally, a bio section! I’ve been waiting for something like this. 🙂 Thanks Bandcamp! I was wondering though, do you think you could extend that “URL prettification” to links to other Bandcamp sites? See, on my bio I have a link to my second Bandcamp (where I make electronic music) and right now it’s a lil’ sloppy ellipsis filled affair.

    In any case, thanks for this great feature, guys! Keep up the good work.

  32. Once again, Bandcamp proving themselves to be the best!

    If you could take a minute and check out my band Year on a Mountain, it would mean a lot to me. Our single is free too.

    yearonamountain.bandcamp.com

    Please check us out! you can also follow us on facebook if you like it.

    THANK YOU!

  34. Bandcamp has truly impressed me w/their updates since their inception. What I’d like to see next and I know this may take a while, but Bandcamp gift cards for purchase at select retailers, (Wal-Mart, Target…) Sometimes pay pal is not the best option for me and the ease of purchasing a gift card would be so ideal. I look forward to the possibility and keep up the good work.

  35. I heavily agree with all in Post #33: In a world where everyone able to write rudimentarily feels the urge to spread his latest fart, I left all “social networks” and came to bandcamp because here the world seems still to be in order. For heavens sake NO comment system or at least only after approval by the band and not flashing in the middle of the page.
    Watching my bandcamp site is always a pleasure for the eyes and being on my myspace site always something unwanted, just do it not to miss anything important. A complete redesign for example that seems to happen quite often. Or let us call it “re-cluttering”. Or to see that the player is not working this day. or or or. Please bandcamp stay as you are or improve slowly like you just did. And thanks for that: great news!

  40. I can’t believe we can do that. Thanks a lot. I’ll get a couple of cool pics and see what else I can do. Thank u people.

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