I wrote about Fandalism in a previous post where I likened it to Myspace because it’s geared to solving a problem for musicians (networking and finding cool musicians to form bands/create music with) in much the way that Myspace solved the problem of getting a web presence and music online for free back in the mid 2000’s. I decided to take a closer look at the site and see how it worked for me personally to see if it was a fair comparison.
The video is a little bit long, but shows me doing a custom search for other bass players in my immediate area within a certain age bracket with similar influences.
- You get to see the results of my search as well as the profiles of the musicians that I take a closer look at.
- I also fill out a profile myself so that I can experience the site on an even deeper level.
My Fandalism Takeaways
I think Fandalism is very helpful if you want to narrow down and find musicians based on location, instrument type and age. It really lives up to the hype in this regard. I like how it asks questions that are geared to get others to understand you better as a musician to hopefully find better working relationships with other musicians that are in line with the same influences and outlooks on making music.
However, I was surprised that there wasn’t the option of promoting a URL – either for yourself or your band. I think it was left out intentionally since the entire site appears to be geared entirely to the individual, but I still would love to see this option added.
Also, I didn’t like how it returned 50% of my results for people who weren’t actual bass players – in the sense that it wasn’t their primary instrument. It should filter the primary bass players to the top at the very least. Lastly, most of the information is optional (except for the data that Fandalism grabs from your Facebook profile – there’s no avoiding that), so if musicians don’t take the time to actually fill out their profile, you’re not going to get the full benefit of what Fandalism has to offer.
With all that said, it is still ‘early days’ for this platform and I’m sure that as growth continues it will also continue to mature. Being able to narrow down musicians in a closely targeted range and reach out to them with a direct message will be handy for many of us that need to reach out to new musicians; Fandalism should only get better at this as more people discover it for themselves!