Came across the Sky Larkin website about a month ago and I’ve been meaning to blog about it since. It has to be one of the best band websites out there. It ticks a lot of boxes and they’re utilizing the web in ways every band should.
UPDATE: site was created by http://wearebrilliantlydifferent.com/ et al.
First of all, the site is simple, WordPress based, clean and easy on the eye. The right sidebar is very impressive and is the best use of a website Friendfeed I’ve seen. On Friendfeed, you can make a profile which feeds into all your other profiles on sites out there such as Twitter etc. Sky Larkin have done just that, they’ve integrated their Twitter, YouTube, Blog, Vimeo etc. but they’ve gone one step further, they’ve also fed into their Friendfeed an RSS feed of search results from Twitter of “Sky Larkin”, easily done via Twitter. So anyone who talks about “Sky Larkin” in Twitter will automatically feed into their website, see below:
Their header image changes at random, making the site more interesting and seem fresh.
There are many ways to make updating various sites real easy. By having a Flickr plugin, and updating FlickR you can update your website automatically. Same goes with gig’s, other blogs etc.
So check them out, they’re a source of inspiration for and band or label. Their Vimeo channel is quite cool, Matador has a great drum beat.
RSS Reader
It’s a pretty fucking great website. You and Sky Larkin have inspired me Anthony to get my site sorted.
Any other recommendations for someone re their site?
Once again, a brilliant post!
Just make it really easy for people to share things they like, so the “share-this” plugin is an easy way to do that.
On wordpress, you have a separate RSS feed for comments, plug that into your friend feed too!
User generated content is the way forward. On your gallery/video page, have a separate feed for fan content, so anyone who tags “artist name” in FlickR etc will appear on the site. It is kind of open to abuse when you employ it as easy as that, but there are always ways around it.
Good luck!
Very underwhelmed..
Severely lacks creative content, in the form of – gulp – MUSIC.
I have never heard a sky larkin track, and it seems that their website is probably the last place I should look to hear one with any ease..
But I guess if blogs and twitter are your thing, its kind of alright.
I still hold on to the old fashioned belief thats its all abou the music, man!