Time to add another two musical sites that are challenging MySpace Music when it comes to selling tracks from independent bands.
Perhaps I'm biased towards the social aspects, but I get the sense that INDISTR should involve the "buyer" more - even calling you a buyer is a bit behind the times in the days when creators and consumers are one and the same. INDISTR probably don't want to replicate all the features of MySpace, since they'll never win there. But if the idea is to provide a lightweight store and attract custom by plugging in to social sites, it would at least be nice to have full tracks in the embedded player.
Beyond designing a profile page, there are obviously band pages, photos and YouTube videos to explore, plus the ability to "stack" external links for future reference. All this content can be ranked by popularity and recency, and there are search filters to drill down even further. Like many of these sites, there's a player to add tracks to - you can launch a pop-up player if you'd like to continue listening while you explore the site.
It is, in short, a pretty decent attempt going up against lots of other good music communities - ReverbNation, MP3.com, MOG, MusicHawk, Last.fm, iLike, Jamglue, Pandora and all the other nominees in the music social networks category of the Socnet Awards. These sites may survive if they stick to their various niches, but the fact that MySpace and iTunes can also serve these niches (MySpace in particular), means that we won't have a breakout hit here.
[via CenterNetworks]
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