Supernova.com is a community that grew out of the largest Battle of the Bands operator in Canada, and into the ‘web 2.0’ world by building the most active Canadian social community dedicated to music. They currently have over 21,000 independent bands and artists, and over 200,000 total community members including fans and industry.

The site’s mantra is to provide new / undiscovered musicians with the same caliber of experience as a rockstar would get.

The Battle of the Bands shows put these young acts up on big stages, provide professional sound and staffing, and DO NOT take any payment from the bands. Instead, they front all the costs and provide bands with the tickets to sell (or return, if unsold). They also coordinate industry and media attendance at the events, and have seen some really impressive acts play on our stage: Billy Talent, Sum 41, Three Days Grace and many others have played the Supernova stage.

Breakingband.com provides a free platform, which allows independent bands to sell digital and hard copies of their albums. The Web site also exposes indie music to fans searching for the top indie bands.

Breaking Band’s goal is to create profiles and sell albums for the top 2,500 independent artists in the country, according to the Web site. The Web site wants to create a valuable tool in connecting your band with new fans as well as create a platform to distribute both digital and hard copies of your music.

Their concept is essentially, “A mix between Myspace and CDbaby, but without all the spamming and bad music.”

A key component to online marketing for independent bands is creating a Web site, so they can place the URL on their social networks to gain a strong online presence.

Ebandlive.com offers indie bands the service to generate customized or ready made Web sites for them. The site also offers online marketing services to expose the band’s domain for their content.

All come with a subscription and integration into our content management system, site hosting and much more, according to the Web site.

You have just seen a great performance by a new independent band touring the country.  You are already a fan after hearing two hours of fresh heart-thumping sound, and stopped to pick up their self-released album earlier during the concert break.  You gaze over at the crowd surrounding the merchandise stand, contemplating whether or not you should join the masses. 

You are hesitant because the line seems long, filled with other eager fans hoping to speak with their idols of the evening.  Many concert-goers are paying for posters to have signed by grateful band members, and some are proudly donning their new T-shirts.  Do you wait and sacrifice another hour of sleep?

DigiMusicBids.com is the first online marketplace that is geared toward the music business. Independent bands need to take advantage of this great opportunity to grow their projects.

The Web site’s mission is to connect musicians and the people who want to work with them in the music industry.

The online platform gives artists and labels a platform to post projects for services they need completed.

Spin have unveiled the tracklisting and album art for Brand New’s, soon to be released album, Daisy. The band is set to release Daisy September 22nd on DGC/Interscope/Procrastinate Music Traitors.

Brand New will embark on a fall headlining tour of North America in support of their highly anticipated new full length album, and will have a trio of independent bands to open for them.

The coast to coast trek kicks off on October 1st in Cleveland, OH and the band has tapped a few of their friends as main support along the way. For the first leg they’ll be joined by Manchester Orchestra, for the second leg Thrice will be joining them and on the third and last leg they will be joined by Glassjaw. 

RepublicProject.com is an interactive platform where music fans can connect with independent bands within the community.

Republic Project is a music technology company that works with major labels, independent labels and artists directly. Creativity is entirely in the hands of the artist.

The site allows artists a platform that can monetize the creation of the album, and fans get to be part of that creative process.

As we see the significance of digital music downloading services dominating the competition, independent bands are utilizing digital music distribution as a method to market to the world.

There has been an increased amount of indie bands that are releasing well-polished music, which is ready to be marketed and sold. But being a sole proprietor of a product that you want to sell around the world could be a daunting task for bands.

Contacting a distribution company to help spread the word about the band’s music is an alternative, which is effective, but the bands need to read the fine print.

Rock Band Network will permit independent and unsigned bands to submit their own songs for users to download later this year. This offer is exclusively for Xbox 360 versions of the game with the intention of providing the most downloadable tracks to Playstation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii moving forward.

Indie bands can price their songs between 50 cents and $3, netting 30% of track sales. Users of the game will be able to preview Rock Band Network songs before they purchase.

A set of professional tools, which will allow people on the front line of writing and recording songs to completely control their destiny. They will also have admission to interactive products and then giving them direct access to the download store.

I am pretty sure most fans of YouTube are aware of this site, but Listentoyoutube.com has given us the ability to convert our favorite YouTube videos into mp3s. What a great idea! I have been wanting to archive many live videos and new music that I saw on the Web site. Now we all have the effortless ability to do so.

I especially wanted to do this with independent bands who do not have the ability to record an album, but do have videos of live performances of the songs.

The way the site works is this: Once a user enters the YouTube URL, the software retrieves the FLV file (flash video) from YouTube, saving it to our server, according to the site. We approximate the time needed to transfer the file, and give the user a countdown, as well as showing them a thumbnail image of the video, also retrieved from YouTube.

There are many independent bands trying to break into the music industry, but lose their focus about the business aspects of the career.

Obviously, a record labels are not going to sign bands right off the bat, or after a first listen. The labels want to see an established fan base, which means albums are being sold, tours are getting sold out and they have a strong online presence.

Indie bands should be up to date with the new technological resources, which can help them take on their careers utilizing the internet. The Web could even be a bit too easy of a resource for bands to create careers if you think about it. They have so many social networks and Web sites that cater to help indie bands institute a foundation.

Independent bands and unsigned bands need the most exposure as possible to gain a following, which comes with a dominant online presence.

How do I get my band’s Web site links on the first page of Google, Bing and Yahoo search engines?

Create profile on solidified social networks and start-up social networks, but make sure to use your band’s name in the URL name (www.socialnetwork.com/bandname).

Why should I use other sites, besides the major ones that are known like Myspace and Facebook?

Online digital music stores have become a dominant way for independent bands to expose their projects and gain revenue to continue evolving their art.

With iTunes established as an industry leader, there are other Web sites, such as Rhapsody and Amazon, trying to be more innovative and using every angle to develop the idea. Cdbaby.com actually caters to the independent music community and offers several services to up and coming bands.

Cdbaby.com is a service exclusively for  indie bands, unsigned artists and independent record labels. The company is a full service digital distribution company for anyone in the music business for a small fee.

Can any indie band, or artist submit their tracks to iTunes? Yes, Apple is essentially a record label, distributor, and retailer all in one.