By Jason Epstein

In the world of business presence, professional demeanor, and corporate culture, music (especially the non-mainstream kind) seems to have no place at all.  Music is an expression of emotion achieved through hard work and talent.  Unfortunately, all too often luck and image are what propel far too many bands to success.

So why is Onesheet, “a private community where/entertainment industry professionals display their work in the most visually beautiful way possible.” aiming to turn themselves into “LinkedIn for the music industry”?  In essence, this is taking a simple tool that sums up a band or artist’s work in a pleasing, simplistic manner and turning it into a glut of information that seems to be selling a band as a commodity.  Not to mention, this change turns Onesheet from a free service into a subscription-based ($60/year) service for the use of an existing member’s “old” profiles which are now called “Splash Pages.”

Here’s a quote from a Onesheet blog post that was posted on Monday: “We want to help your career grow not by building your fan base, but by building your reputation.”  As clever as that sounds, what this does is cheapen a band’s core talents by allowing it to tout its accomplishments, rather than its music.  Bands that are better wordsmiths (and I’m not talking about lyrics, unfortunately) may have a better chance at getting recognized than those who have more dedicated fans who stand behind their music and live performances.  Can you imagine a music label representative sifting through fleshed-out electronic resumes and watching pre-recorded videos instead of going to a club to check the band out in a live setting?

Sonicbids, a social music platform that brings fans, bands, promoters, and brands together, allows artists to create electronic press kit (EPK) “resumes.”  Unlike Onesheet, though, Sonicbids is less community-based and does not thrive on invitation-only membership.  Is Onesheet attempting to build the type of buzz Spotify did when they began as an invite-only service?  Regardless of their intentions, a niche service like the one Onesheet hopes will rival LinkedIn’s (from a musician’s standpoint) may not be necessary when sites like LinkedIn and Sonicbids already exist and offer similar features with a broader reach.

Onesheet’s blog post comments that “LinkedIn falls short and many of the other options are embarrassingly ugly.”  So, while this may not be without credibility with regards to Onesheet’s visual cleanliness, it’s most certainly an opinion and even points out that there are many other options.

But hey, you can decide for yourself.  Onesheet’s new features will include the following (copy taken from their recent blog post):

  • Highlighted Media. Pick the video or audio that shows off why you’re awesome and add it to the top of your new Onesheet. It’s big, bold, and the #1 thing people will see when they get to your page.
  • Press. You get lots of great press, but there’s never been room on Onesheet to show that off. The new Onesheet solves that and makes adding the press exceptionally easy. Just add the URL for the article that’s been written about you and we’ll pull in the title, blurb, and image. You can (and should) add all your press to your Onesheet in minutes.
  • Endorsements. Ask people you’ve worked with to visibly endorse you. It is further validation of your skills, and tells others that you are reliable and good at what you do.
  • Tags. You can add what skills you have, what instruments you play, etc.. Adding this structured information will make you a lot easier to find.
  • Privacy. You can password protect any new project Onesheet. This means if you have a new single, movie, album, or other project that you want to share with people, you can build a Onesheet for it and only allow access to those that should have it. Plus, you can track if they actually accessed it!
  • Content from the Web. We’ve long believed that if you’re publishing content around the web, it should be easy to pull into your Onesheet. The new Onesheet is no different. Many of the pages stay up to date with content from other sites!
  • Projects (Coming Soon). Now add your entire filmography or discography to Onesheet incredibly easily. Just add projects on your Onesheet. You’ll appear on all those pages.
  • Representation (Coming Soon). List your manager, agent, publicist, etc.. Make sure they’re on Onesheet so people can find you and your people.

Do you think Onesheet can stand out among the competition?

Comments

comments