One frustrating aspect of facebook, however, is its mechanism for assigning a URL to any person’s profile or any public brand’s page. Let us look at Metaverse Musician’s facebook page, for instance. At the instant in time that I am composing this blog, this page is only accessible at the URL http://www.facebook.com/pages/Metaverse-Musician-isjeb/253144691788 . Wouldn’t it be preferable if the URL was simpler? I think http://www.facebook.com/Metaverse-Musician would be just about ideal, don’t you?

This two minute tutorial explains how you can accomplish exactly this URL simplification. This can be done for both personal profiles, and for fan pages.

Personal Profile:

1. Go to your personal profile
2. From your Profile, type http://www.facebook.com/username into your browser’s URL bar, and hit enter.
3. In order to do this, you must have verified your account through your mobile number. If you have not yet done so, facebook will guide you though this at this point.
4. Facebook will present you with a number of choices for your custom username URL. If you like one that it has preselected, choose it.
5. If you would rather have a different choice for your custom username URL, click ‘More’ and enter your choice.
6. Click ‘Check Availablility’. If the username is available, and meets facebook guidelines, facebook will ask you to confirm your choice. Double check your spelling — once confirmed, you’re stuck with this as a custom username URL forever!
7. Click ‘Confirm’. Facebook tells you that “You can now direct your friends to facebook.com/<whatever-your-choice-was>”.

Fan Pages:

You must first have at least 25 fans. This is an arbitrary limit set by facebook.

1. Go to your personal profile
2. From your Profile, type http://www.facebook.com/username into your browser’s URL bar, and hit enter. This should take you to the page for setting your default profile username.
3. Click ‘Set a username for your Pages’.
4. A dropdown box will appear – choose the page for which you wish to set a custom username URL.
5. Facebook will present you with a number of choices for your custom username URL. If you like one that it has preselected, choose it.
6. If you would rather have a different choice for your custom username URL, click ‘More’ and enter your choice.
7. Click ‘Check Availablility’. If the username is available, and meets facebook guidelines, facebook will ask you to confirm your choice. Double check your spelling — once confirmed, you’re stuck with this as a custom username URL forever!
8. Click ‘Confirm’. Facebook tells you that “You can now direct your fans to facebook.com/<whatever-your-choice-was>”.

Now you can publicize your custom username URL outside of the facebook sandbox — on the internet at large — confident your friends and fans will be able to link to your profile and pages from outside the facebook walled garden.

Note: this guide is written mostly from memory. If you encounter any issues or discrepancies while executing this process, please leave me a comment so I can fix the procedure.

Personal Profile vs. Band Page

Individuals register a personal profile with facebook. Publicly-known brands, companies, figures, and most germanely musicians, can also register a Page. A Page is similar to a profile, but comes with some additional benefits. Among these benefits are the ability to advertise the page, and a relatively unrestricted number of fans (as opposed to the hard limit of the number of friends any given profile accommodates). Other benefits of the Page include:

• info tab tailored to your business type
• additional widgets such as a music player
• review section
• ability to share page administration tasks
• analytics on page interactions

Making others aware

Most bands and musicians are probably aware of the value of pages as opposed to profiles. Accordingly, most musicians maintain pages in addition to their personal profiles. But facebook does not automatically make others aware that a personal profile may also be related to a fan page. How does one create an awareness of a page’s existence? A person can become a fan of a given page. In doing so, facebook will by default display this linkage upon the Pages section of the Info tab of the profile. However, there is no way to force facebook to display an artist’s own page in preference to the other pages which are displayed therein. What is displayed there is a small random selection from all the pages of which one is a fan. As such, there is no guarantee that the artist’s own page will be selected for display at all.

The process I describe herein will allow the artist to permanently and prominently display a link to a given page from your profile. Further, this link will appear in the profile’s sidebar, so it can be seen whether the Wall tab or the Info tab is currently being displayed. Better yet, the link will also contain the page’s ‘profile’ picture, leading to recognition for your page’s graphical brand. You can see an example of this on the left sidebar of my personal facebook profile.

Two elements

There are two elements to pull together to obtain this benefit. The first is that we need the ability to place arbitrary content on our profile’s sidebar. The second is to create the desired linkage to place in the sidebar. The former we will accomplish with an application called Custom Profile Box. The latter we will accomplish with a native facebook tool called a Fan Badge. The following is a step-by-step tutorial on these objectives.

Custom Profile Box

Our first objective is to add the application ‘Custom Profile Box’. This application will create an element that we can fill with arbitrary content. We will later fill this element with our page link Fan Badge, and then move it to our profile sidebar.

1. From your personal profile, on the lower left select ‘Applications’, then select ‘Browse More Applications’.
2. In the ‘Search Applications’ field, enter “Custom Profile Box”.
3. Click on the desired ‘Custom Profile Box’ application in the search results.
4. From the application’s Fan page, click ‘Go To Application’.
5. Click the ‘Allow’ button.
6. Go back to your profile wall.
7. Below your status entry box, click ‘Options’, then click ‘Settings’.
8. Click the link ‘applications settings page’.
9. On the list of apps, a drop down ‘Show’ menu select ‘Authorized’ to show all the apps authorized to access your profile data.
10. Click on ‘Edit Settings’ link next to ‘Custom Profile Box’.
11. In the pop-up window, make sure the ‘Profile’ tab is highlighted. *
12. Next to the “Box” item is the word ‘Add’. Click on this to add a box to your profile for this app.
13. Decide and modify the Privacy — I suggest setting this to “Everyone”.

You are done setting up the app.

* There have been reported cases where there is no ‘Profile’ tab on the popup at this point. Further reports indicate that this may be alleviated by editing the Box, and adding some content, then returning to this step of the process. More as it develops.

This problem, and its solution, are now more fully understood. The issue is that the Custom Profile Box application will not have a ‘Profile’ tab on the Edit Application Settings popup until such time that some data (any dummy data is sufficient) has been added. The solution is to place some data in the Custom Profile Box as per steps 1-5 of ‘Place the Fan Badge in the Custom Profile Box’ below. After that, return to this process. Note that any data is sufficient — it does not yet need to be the code for the Fan Badge, and it does not need to be entered in ‘Source’ mode (though it will need to be later, as described below).

This also applies to the sister application ‘HTML Profile Box’.

Generate a Fan Badge

We have so far installed the ‘Custom Profile Box’ into our profile. Next we need to generate a Fan Badge for our page. Later we will place this Fan Badge in our Custom Profile Box and move the Custom Profile Box to our profile sidebar. Oddly, to make a Page Badge, you need to travel through your (personal) Profile’s Profile Badge link. The code for the Fan Badge will be copied and pasted into the Custom Profile Box’s editor. Accordingly, it may be easiest if you open another browser tab for this next bit.

1. Go to your personal page’s Info tab.
2. Near bottom left is a link entitled ‘Create  Profile Badge’. Click it to go to the Profile Badge page.
3. On the Profile Badge screen there is a column where you can choose what type of badge you want. Choose ‘Fan Badges’. This will take you to the Fan Badges Widget screen.
4. On the Fan Badges Widget screen, find the dropdown entitled ‘Select a Page’. From that dropdown, select the page for which you wish to create a badge. Note that you must first be a fan of that page.
5. From the 2nd field on the Fan Badges Widget screen, copy the HTML code for your Fan Badge.

Place the Fan Badge in the Custom Profile Box

At this point, we have installed the Custom Profile Box application, and created a Fan Badge for our destination page. The code for the Fan Badge is in out buffer. We next need to paste this into the Custom Profile Box. Later, we will move the Custome Profile Box to our profile’s sidebar. Go back to your earlier browser tab.

1. Click on the ‘Applications’ status bar menu and select the app from the pop up window.
2. An editor will load, and takes 30 secs or so on busy connection.
3. On the editors toolbar, click the button named ‘Source’. This allows you to enter raw FBML code.
4. In the editor window paste the (FBML) code for the Fan Badge, which should be in your buffer from the earlier objective.
5. To save your creation to the app box, click on the ‘Update’ button. If all is well your box should appear in the boxes section of your profile.
6. Click on your profile, and select the boxes tab. See your app box and your creation in it.
7. You can drag your box to any desired location on the page by left clicking the box and dragging around.

Move it to the profile sidebar

OK, we have added the Custom Profile Box application, generated a Fan Badge for our destination page, and placed the fan badge in the Custom Profile Box. The last step is to move our Custom Profile Box from our profile’s Boxes tab to the sidebar.

1. Go to your profile
2. Select the Boxes tab
3. Locate the Custom Profile Box on the Boxes tab
4. There is a pencil at the upper right corner of the Custom Profile Box. Click it.
5. Select ‘Move to Wall tab’.
6. Go to your wall. You should see the Custom Profile Box, with your Fan Badge linking to your artist page, in the sidebar. You can change the location of this sidebar element by left-clicking and dragging it where you want it. There is however, the restriction that it cannot appear higher in the sidebar than the standard facebook sidebar elements.

Collect more fans!

That’s it. Now all visitors to your personal profile will be met with a graphically branded link to your artist page. By making it easier for people to find your page, you should collect new legions of fans.

Got a facebook topic you would like to see covered? Let me know in the comments section!

So here’s the video, aimed at your average consumer:

Basically, users searching on keywords involving artists, album titles, song titles, or lyrics are presented with a simple means of listening to those tunes for which they are searching. Also presented at the top of the search results is a wealth of similar content that can be played and/or viewed. It is the playing of the material where things get interesting for musicians.

They playing of the songs is actually handled by Google’s partners — currently iLike and Lala. Clicking on the play icon at the top of the search results opens a popup song player, with the song of interest playing, and other songs by the same artist loaded. There is a link at the upper right of the song player to the retail outlet, where one can easily purchase the song in question.

Note that, while others have reported that the partner used to play any tune is random, my limited testing showed a decided bias to Lala. Out of perhaps twenty searches for an artist name, all but one came up on Lala. The last — Mahogany Rush — came up on an iLike player, but had no link to a retail purchase.

It should be mentioned that below the default links in the top search result are links to the artist on other sites — including iLike, Rhapsody, iMeem, Pandora, and possibly others. Note that MySpace bought iLike earlier this year. From my limited testing, however, it seems clear that Lala is a favored retailer.

As an online music retailer, Lala has a rather unusual business model. Users can stream every song on the service once for free. After that, customers can buy the right to stream it for $0.10 or buy the MP3 for $0.89. Users can also upload their own music library to Lala and then stream those songs freely over the Internet.

It is also interesting to note that Lala has recently partnered with Facebook, with an officially connected Lala Facebook application.

Google has also partnered with the major music labels: EMI, Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music. I assume this was required in order to smooth over the legal ramifications of being able to preview content in search results.

We all know what a giant Google has become. From it’s humble beginnings, it has risen in a few short years to dominate the Internet. Like iconic brands such as Xerox, the company name has become both a household noun and verb. Even given the central role of search in our daily lives, it has been reported that approximately 6% of all Google searches are music related. This points out how important Google is to all commercial musicians. Now with this major user-facing enhancement, the use of Google by consumers to identify and acquire new music seems certain to multiply.

So what does this mean to indie musicians? It will be interesting to see how this shakes out. From a personal perspective, I am in the middle of evaluating partner organizations to act as interfaces to online music retailers. As of today, I know that I need to re-evaluate my options, with a particular notice to which such organizations partner with Lala.

In a similar vein, I need to learn more about the relationship between Google and MySpace — as MySpace has just announced an ‘artist dashboard’. This is an analytics tool which over time may aspire to much the same functionality as ReverbNation.

In this wild musical world defined by the demise of the traditional recording labels, independent musicians live in a sea of change. One thing is certain — while this constant change requires continual attention, it also brings a steady stream of opportunities for independent musicians to bring their music to new legions of fans.

However, it is not readily apparent how the site admin is to set this avatar. There are no settings anywhere in the Site Admin control panels for setting this. Accordingly, the admin is stuck with the default ‘phantom person’ for an avatar.

The key to rectifying this is to realize that WordPress does not use a local copy of your avatar. Instead, it uses an avatar that you upload to gravatar.com, and associate with your email address. According to the good folks at gravatar, their name derives from Globally Recognized avatar. By using this service, your avatar will automatically follow you to comments you make on random sites of others. This eliminates the need to upload an avatar to each site upon which you would like your avatar displayed.

Once you realize this, the implementation is pretty simple.

1. Go to the gravatar.com website
2. Watch the two minute video to get an overview
3. Log in with your WordPress.com credentials*
4. Click on ‘Add one by clicking here’. This will open a screen asking for the source of the picture to be uploaded
5. Choose from Hard Drive; Internet URL; Webcam; Previously uploaded — as appropriate
6. Assuming Hard Drive, a new window will open allowing you to browse your file system for the desired picture
7. Locate the desired picture, then click ‘Next’. This will upload your picture
8. Crop your picture as desired, then click next
9. Choose your rating – G, PG, R, or X
10. That’s it!

Allow some time for the changes to propagate throughout the internet. Clear your browser’s cache while waiting. Refresh your pages, and you should see your smiling face on your comments. WordPress knows your email address, so it goes off to gravatar to grab your picture!

*If you have a WordPress.com account, you also have a gravatar account. You are using akismet to fight blog comment spam, right? Akismet required you to create a WordPress.com account in order to obtain your API key.

First, open a browser and navigate to ReverbNation.

ReverbNation home page

Then enter your ReverbNation profile name and pasword, and click the ‘login’ button:

ReverbNation login

This should take you directly to your profile page. This is where you enter what others would see when they look you up by name.  We’ll cover some of that in a future installment. It’ll look something like the following – though the fan profile used for this example is ltb-rn-example – not you.

ReverbNation Fan Profile

Now we need to find the band of which you are interested in becoming a fan. Enter the band name in the ‘search’ box, and click the ‘GO’ button:

ReverbNation search

You should be taken to a list of likely matches for your search:

ReverbNation search results

Hmm… there’s a likely match. I wonder if it is the band I’m interested in? The photo looks like it could be them. Hey – there’s one of their songs. I’ll click on the ‘play’ button and see if it sounds like them. (Go ahead – click on it). A new window opens with the ReverbNation song player, playing the sample song:

ReverbNation song player

Cool! It certainly sounds like them! And now you have something to listen to while you complete your registration.

Click on the band name, and you will be whisked to their profile page:

ReverbNation band profile

Hey look – up near the top – they have another song available! Click the play arrow next to it, and this second song will cue itself up in the song player. Now when the first song ends, this second one will start.

ReverbNation play song

OK – now to do the deed. Below the band’s photo is a set of buttons:

ReverbNation fan buttons

Click ‘become a fan’. This creates the link between you and your band in the ReverbNation servers:

ReverbNation fan & street team hearts

Awww – we love you too!

Note that in this example, both the ‘become a fan’ and ‘join the street team’ buttons have been clicked. This also gives you a quick way of checking if you are a fan or street team member of a given band. Note that you may be a Fan without being on the mail list, or on the mail list without being a Fan. Likewise, Street Team and Fan are separate relations.

Well, that completes that. However, maybe you need something to do while the songs are still playing. How about leaving a comment on the band’s profile? Click the ‘comments’ tab, then click the ‘add comment’ button:

ReverbNation comment tab

This will open a new window for you to enter a comment. Fill out the form, enter the captcha, and click OK:

ReverbNation comment form

You’ll get a confirmation:

ReverbNation comment confirmation

Your comment will be put in a queue for review by The Moderator (the band’s RN page maintainer). Upon approval, it’ll be posted on the band’s profile for the entire world to see!

Well, that’s about it! I hope this brings you and your band to a new level of intimacy. I am most certain that they are grateful for your support. And both your act of registering as a fan and your playing of their tunes contribute to their rankings! You are helping your band achieve international fame and fortune! Doesn’t that just make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?

Here’s how to enhance your WordPress blog to support this player:

1. Log in to the WordPress Site Administration panel
2. From the Dashboard, select Plugins > Add New
3. In the search box, enter ‘wpaudio’ and click the ‘Search Plugins’ button
4. The search should return ‘WP Audio Player’ select ‘Install’ for this list entry
5. When the plugin description page opens, click the red ‘Install Now’ button
6. Once the install completes, click ‘Activate Plugin’

That’s all there is to it! Your blog now provides embedded mp3 players.

First, make your way to the ReverbNation website (you can click on the image below to navigate there):

ReverbNation landing page

Click the ‘signup’ on the upper right:

ReverbNation fan signup link

This will navigate to a new page where you will specify what type of signup you wish to do:

ReverbNation singup category selection

Assuming you select ‘fan’, you are met with a form into which you can enter your data:

ReverbNation fan signup form

Note that the form provides a shortcut if you are a member of Facebook or MySpace. Essentially, this will use your profile info on these sites to fill out this form. This is merely a minor convenience. In order to keep this general, we will ignore these shortcuts. The long form process works whether or not you are a member of one of these social networking sites.

It appears that much of this information is optional. However, it would be encouraged that you fill in as much information as you are comfortable in yielding. In this manner, it is unlikely you will receive a concert announcement for a Nome gig when you live in Sarasota. Also, ReverbNation implies that the Birthdate is required – likely in order to ensure the signee is at least 13 years of age. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that singup works just fine without this information.

After filling in the form, click the ‘sign up’ button. You will be directed to a confirmation screen:

ReverbNation fan signup confirmation

Within moments, a confirmation email should arrive at the inbox corresponding to the email address you entered in the signup form. It should resemble the following:

From: reverbnation@reverbnation.com
[mailto:reverbnation@reverbnation.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 3:38 PM
To: ltb-rn-example@LeeThomasBand.com
Subject: Welcome to ReverbNation.com

ltb-rn-example,

Welcome to ReverbNation.com!

Here is your log-in info:
    LOGIN: ltb-rn-example@leethomasband.com
    PASSWORD: ******

Please click on the following link to confirm your registration:
http://www.reverbnation.com/<inscrutable key>

If you didn't sign up, please click the following link to deactivate this account
 http://www.reverbnation.com/<inscrutable key>

Sincerely,
Your Friends at http://www.reverbnation.com

________________________________________________
You can view our privacy policy at http://www.reverbnation.com/c./cms/PrivacyPolicy.  Physical inquiries can be sent to: 501 Washington St. Suite J, Durham, NC, 27701, USA.

Click on the confirmation link to complete the process. This will send you back to ReverbNation. You will be prompted with the optional step of entering a profile photo:

ReverbNation profile photo prompt

All done! Enjoy your ReverbNation membership!

First, an example of a webpage, with the widget embedded within. The widget is the item outlined in red:

RN Fan Collector widget on web page

To sign up for the mailing list, simply enter your email address…

RN Fan Collector widget: sign up for mail list

…and click the ‘submit’ button. After a few moments, you should receive a confirmation:

RN Fan Collector widget: mail list confirmation

If, rather than simply receive the postings from the band, you would also like to help to promote the band, then you probably would want to join the Street Team while signing up for the mail list. This can be accomplished by clicking the ‘join the Street Team’ checkbox after entering your email address and before clicking ‘submit’:

RN Fan Collector widget: sign up for Street Team

Again, this should lead to a confirmation after a few moments:

RN Fan Collector widget: Street Team confirmation

Whether signing up for the mail list, or both the Street Team and the mail list, your enrollment is not active util you acknowledge an opt-in email. Within moments, you should receive such an opt-in in the inbox corresponding to the email address you entered on the form. Here’s what to expect in that email:

From: Lee Thomas Band [mailto:joe@LeeThomasBand.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 1:23 PM
To: ltb-ml-example@LeeThomasBand.com
Subject: Verify your email to join the Lee Thomas Band mailing list

ltb-ml-example@LeeThomasBand.com,

Thanks for joining the mailing list!  To complete the signup process, click on the link below
http://www.reverbnation.com/<inscrutable key>&action_code=opt_in

If you didn't request to join the mailing list, please click the link below and we won't bother you again.
http://www.reverbnation.com/<inscrutable key>

Thanks again for joining the mailing list!

Lee Thomas Band
Longmont, CO

Privacy Policy: http://www.reverbnation.com/c./cms/PrivacyPolicy
More Information: http://www.reverbnation.com/fanreach.
Physical inquiries can be sent to: 501 Washington St. Suite J, Durham, NC, 27701, USA
Unsubscribe: http://www.reverbnation.com/<inscrutable key>
Report Abuse/Spam: http://www.reverbnation.com/<inscrutable key>

Click on the link in order to complete the signup process. If you are already logged into ReverbNation, that’s all there is to the process.  Yay! You’re done!

If you are not logged into ReverbNation, your browser will be opened, and it will navigate to an information entry screen:

RN Mailing List completion

It appears that all this information is optional. However, it would be encouraged that you fill in as much information as you are comfortable in yielding. In this manner, the band is unlikely to spam you with a concert announcement for a Nome gig when you live in Sarasota. Also, ReverbNation implies that the Birthdate is required – likely in order to ensure the signee is at least 13 years of age. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that singup works just fine without this information.

Note that this is another opportunity to sign up for the Street Team.

That is all there is to it! The next time your favorite band sends a notice to their mail list, you will receive a copy!

1. Go to the Profile page within which you wish to embedded the blog.
2. Slightly down the page is a row of approximately ten tabs. Select the one entitled ‘BLOG/BUZZ’.
3. On the upper right of the BLOG/BUZZ tab is a button entitled ‘Blog Preferences’. Click it!
4. Select the Blog radio button for Default View.
5. In the Blog section, select the radio button entitled “I would like to show a blog I maintain on another site.”
6. In the text box entitled “The URL for the blog RSS feed is “, enter the URL of the blog RSS feed*!
7. Click the ‘Save’ button.
8. Watch your RN blog populate itself with the source blog’s contents! Cool!

*Bonus section – what is the URL of the RSS feed of the blog in which I am interested?

There are several correct answers to this question. Perhaps an example would help to illustrate. In my case, I just wanted to use the entire blog contents, and I did not care in which specific format it was published. My blog is located at http://www.joebear.net/blog/.  In this case, the proper feed to be typed into the text box for Blog Preferences was http://www.joebear.net/blog/feed .  Simple, hunh?

To see how it looks, compare this blog with its RN representation at this link.

Note: this post was copied from joebear.net. You’re reading this at metaversemusician.com. Conseqently, these blogs are likely to be out of sync. Compare the RN Profile with this other blog.

Essentially, the default format just appends a ?p=index_number to the directory and calls it good. That works, but gives nothing for search engines to hang onto. The search engines especially like to see keywords in the URL. In order to give something for them to chew on, that simple integer has to go.

Upon some googling, I have arrived at this custom format: /%postname%/ . This will use the slug version of the title as the generated URL. Done.