Improvements to the 'become a fan' function

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You must be out of your head to limit fanning at 25. THis is the general idea, as you already should have noticed in the other topics.

You will lose a lot of bands.

The limit only applies to artists fanning each other, not fans fanning artists.

Happy to hear about why an artist would need to fan more than 750 other artists each month.

-Jed

well, Im glad you removed the 1000 limit. Now, you can change the limit of favorite back to yesterday and you will make us happy again. As for the artist on this site, we know how the networking goes. I for one don't really see the "abuse" you are referring to, and I network on this site EVERYDAY. I have spent a lot of money and a lot of time networking...people only removed favorites because REVERBNATION put the limit of 1000...since that limit is removed I doubt you would have seen the band doing that. I am extremly upset about the limit of favorites and the randomization you have added to the website. the point of fanning is NETWORKING...getting exposure for your band. Now when somone fans me, you can't see them on my page and vice versa...how is that "helping"....So my question to you is are you going to remove the limit of daily favorites or not? And what is it with RN and limits? Shouldn't the artist be able to network as much as they want? I know that my time and dedication to networking is what sets me apart from the band that logs on once a week to fan a few people...Can you see where I'm coming from? I can outrank the likes of Tim Mcgraw and Faith Hill because I come to this site and work my ass off!!

so u mean to tell me dj blackzone web page can only except 2 fans a day? how can i promote my music like dat, so wat if a person wants stay on certain pages. maybe the person page he/she goes to support the artist and the music.. man let us grind the way we need to. thats wat the page is for..

the reason an artist would like to fan more than 750 artist is because YOU set up a chart system. YOU GUYS made a chart that srtist could climb by networking...so the artists on this site used the tools provided to network...because of this networking I have gotton radio plays and interviews, and it is because i worked my ass off crossing genre lines. You maight fan 100 people a day, but only a few will have the connections you need. Its all in the numbers and exposure. You never know who you are going to run across that knows somebody who may be able to help your career...six degrees of seperation...I am a country artist, but I know a guy who signed with Master P...not my genre, but its a contact that I can pass on to one of my fans...but I can't pass that on unless I have that fan or can be their fan...

It is a prevailing law of numbers...if 1 out of 100 people truly listen to me and pass that along I'm happy...but I gotta expose my music to the other 99 to find the 1!!

Half of the people will leave. I repeat, you are making a big mistake..

YO LEAVE THE FAN BUTTON ALONE.. MAN I DONT CARE IF A PERSON WANTS TO PLACE HE/SHE ON MY PROFILE REPEATLY....WAT U NEED TO STOP IZ ARTIST USING LINKS TO GIVE THEM CLICKS ON THERE SONGS. WITHOUT GRINDING HARD.. YO I WORKED HARD ON YA SITE PUSHING MY MUSIC
TO MY FANS. RIGHT NOW IM #1 ON DA LOCAL CHARTS IN MY HOOD. HOW IM GOING TO STAY ON TOP IF U LIMITE ME TO TWO(2) FANS A DAY.

YO LEAVE THE FAN BUTTON ALONE.. MAN I DONT CARE IF A PERSON WANTS TO PLACE HE/SHE ON MY PROFILE REPEATLY....WAT U NEED TO STOP IZ ARTIST USING LINKS TO GIVE THEM CLICKS ON THERE SONGS. WITHOUT GRINDING HARD.. YO I WORKED HARD ON YA SITE PUSHING MY MUSIC
TO MY FANS. RIGHT NOW IM #1 ON DA LOCAL CHARTS IN MY HOOD. HOW IM GOING TO STAY ON TOP IF U LIMITE ME TO TWO(2) FANS A DAY.

So whats the problem on Server side, the traffic ??
I need to understand why do you need this LIMIT.

It's like on Myspace....first small changes and at the end Myspace was dead.
Do you like to go the same way ?

YO LEAVE THE FAN BUTTON ALONE.. MAN I DONT CARE IF A PERSON WANTS TO PLACE HE/SHE ON MY PROFILE REPEATLY....WAT U NEED TO STOP IZ ARTIST USING LINKS TO GIVE THEM CLICKS ON THERE SONGS. WITHOUT GRINDING HARD.. YO I WORKED HARD ON YA SITE PUSHING MY MUSIC
TO MY FANS. RIGHT NOW IM #1 ON DA LOCAL CHARTS IN MY HOOD. HOW IM GOING TO STAY ON TOP IF U LIMITE ME TO TWO(2) FANS A DAY.

The new system totally sucks, I want my new fans posted on the page as they become a fan, I could'nt care less if people refan themselves 50 times a day, I am not too dumb to sort it out, and if it helps them, it helps me, that is what reverbnation is for isn't it?

Leaving RN as quickly as possble - you guys are mental to call these "improvements" - seriously flawed thinking that only suits you..... go back to your ideas people nd linch them - you're going the way Myspace went.... remember them?

25 a day is just as idiotic thinking as a 1000 limit - how do we netowrk? Are you going to set up a parallel service? ARG!!! Why are music websites so utterly unaware!?!?!?!? You CLEARLY have never read your suggestions unless it's to profit you and you alone....

That "minority of sub-users" (gaaads what a wizard of Oz marketing term) fanning and refanning served a fun ction that went beyond just getting coverage - it serves to let eachother know you're about again and dropping by for a listen!! I had that idea in my hints and tips blog for ages - now some morons taken it to far and screwed it for the rest of us... sigh.... as you on RN don;t let us know at first glance without having to waste endless clicktime to know if someone's already OUR fan or not - it was a neat way to use your daft layouts...

The real reason you 've stopped it is because it reduced traffic through your email exchanges and peoples stats weren't counted as "promoting" - hence the chart has been static for months now.... look - I know you guys think you're really smart - but you're not when it comes to seasoned artists how know business, webdesign and marketing... stop treating us like idiots and patronising us...

You will ALWAYS have people abusing the systems you have set up, because they are transparently in YOUR favour as a company - no changes you make are for "us" or from feedback... if you want a propper fair chart system that judges our music and not how much we help you to spread your website through widgets and links and apps through "promotion" - then introduce the following:

Put thing s back as they were - and read your feedback better - or better yet - why not actually ask the silent majority, rather than a few desperate wingers. I'd lay my house on the line to bet that the people who complained about "re-fanning" (as it's called amongst the users of your site) where the established artists and those paying you money to be at the top.... sad really.... happy to take but not to help out those below... well - that's gonna change soon!

I could stay on here for hours and moan to no one and even give you the right way to run a music site FOR the artists and fans properly... but you won't listen - I'll just get some patronising pro-forma reply - like thie entire feedback site!!!!! -

I will hate losing my friends and fans on my page /vice versa. It has really helped us to have such awesopme artist that want us to be seen as their fan and help expose us and we love when artist come back to our page over and over again until someone else sees them and gets them on the radio, etc. Does this mean that new people or people needing help can't keep refanning on my page so other people see them ? I am confused.

RIDICULOUS!!
we want mor than 25 by day
think about it cause a lot of band ll leave the place

this is worth a repeat:

I'm here to tell you favoriting is the TOP way to network. the reason being is that you show up on that persons page...the next band to come along that page looks at the fans and clicks on another band to fan them...if im not on that page they won't click me...THAT IS WHY THE 1000 FAVORITE WAS A PROBLEM.

people complained about that because even though you can be a fan, by clicking the email and street team box you WERE NOT on their page. Sending an email to every individual is way more time consuming. This is YOUR site...why don't you step in our shoes for one month...heres how

1. create a BAND...(like, JED and the dream killaz)
2. now your goal is to climb the charts
3. email 100 people a day and ask them to be your fan...but also read the 1000 emails you get from every other artist asking you to be their fan
4. Go to your regular job, cause you gotta work because you aren't really getting paid for music yet...
5. neglect your family cause its gonna take you 5 hours after work to email that many people
6. unfortuantly, your wife leaves, taking the kids because you spent too much time on Reverbnation
7. through your pain you write a heart breaking and earth moving song...but in order to promote it you have to repeat step 3-5...see a pattern?

Good luck...I'll look for your band....Hopefully you will pop up on my randomized fan list one day
Booo Reverbnation

If I "fan" a band, by default I get access to their own fanbase too. If I try and access a "pure fan" on RN it's next to impossible. they're hard to search, there's no info on when they last used the site (and even if they still do use the site) and to msge them some random invite is pure spam. So why would i want to blatantly spam a fan like that?
Artists fan artists because
a) they get a shared fanbase
b) many (a solid proportion?) of us are producers who want to fan singers and instrumentalists
c) artists huddle together like bison protecting themselves from the snowstorm. Artists like to stay in the huddle.

Look, if i wander into Tower Records and i'm looking at a Radiohead CD, i'm going too see a "Rush" CD in a rack pretty close by. So I buy that too.
I don't resort to following around some spotty 14 year old holding a copy of "Kid-A" waiting for him to take me to the Tom Rush album selections.
Following Fans = limited response
Following Artists = interchange/ overlap responses

Sorry if none of the above makes any sense.

I've met so many great people via Reverbnation after they re-fan themselves to my profile page - without this facility, I wouldn't have listened to their music, started chatting and finally become friends - Sorry, but imo Reverbnation have just shot themselves in the foot and denied me access to lots of friends that I've not met yet! R.I.P. Reverbnation!

Sorry, back again, lol.

If you really need to make it 25 new fans or whatever then fine. It's sad to see that you have to create a limit, but I will come back to this at the end.

Firstly, the main thing I don't like is the randomized fan list on the profile page. This is where people were able to promote themselves on other musicians profiles and maybe get more return views of their own page. It shows that you're active and more likely to fan somebody back. This is probably part of the abuse problem you refer to, but this feature you just locked out is probably what made the site really work!
Secondly, I create a playlist and listen to this while I am clearing some old fans from page 50 that are no longer active, or re-fan to those that are active to clear some space for new fan adds. Then I find more people to add that have shown up on my page fanlist or from the hot charts. Then I re-fan myself to my friends. This gives them another page view, another song play and my picture shows up on their page for a little while to give me some extra promotion. They know I've been back to visit and sometimes they come back to my page as well. It's a win / win situation. Whats wrong with that!
Lastly, OMG, I've hit my limit of 25 fan adds before I've listened to my full playlist!
I've only been here for half an hour, but I can't do anymore promotion. Hmm, there's no point sitting here just listening to songs when I can promote my music elsewhere. Its time to logout :)

Well done, you've just lost your committed bands, musicians, singers and labels that would normally sit here for hours at a time promoting their music.

Jed, you are the only one in this room smiling, and there are only 16 of us here, wait until the rest of reverb finds out where to reach you at, you'll have an angry mob.

I don't see what the problem is. The 1000 fan limit has been removed(which is what a lot of people wanted). Even if you can only fan 25 a day, that is still quite a lot. That's 9,125 artists you can connect with in a year. I don't think anybody has that much time on their hands. Do you really need to sit down and randomly fan a whole bunch of people in one day? I don't mind people becoming fans of me so long as they LISTEN TO MY MUSIC.

If I get a new fan and my play count hasn't increased that means they didn't listen to my music and just want to advertise themselves via my page. I don't like that. Having "fans" doesn't make me feel good, having people listen to my music and liking it makes me feel good. When I visit an artist's page I ALWAYS LISTEN to their music, and if I like it I become a fan and/or leave a comment. If I don't like their music, I don't become a fan. It also upsets me when I think I have a new fan and it turns out to be someone that justs wants to use me to advertise themselves. I am at the top of the charts, #1 in my area and I have been in the top 100 on the Global Charts(peak #80). I got that high without doing any random favoriting or re fanning a page. I just check out people, ask them to listen to my music, and become a fan if they like it. That's it.

Also, you can still view the most recent fans! Just click see more. The randomization is a good thing too. That way other people can be seen instead of just the most recent fans. Now someone who fanned me 6 months ago will pop up and maybe one of my visitors will click on the link. There's also the artist recommendations thing. All of you are just overreacting I think.

Reverbnation is still the best. I don't know anyother site that has so many promotional tools and pays artists a share of their revenue. I have made so many contacts and real fans through Reverbnation, there is no reason to leave it!

If you really want someone you fanned before to know you are visiting again, or to have a listen to you again, just leave a comment on their page. I have friends that visit my page, then they say "dropping by for another listen". It makes me feel good that they are listening to my stuff, then I will most likely visit them again. It is not the end of the world people, just simply send a comment or message and you will get what you want.

Hey folks - there's a "rate RN" button on here - rate RN based on it's performance - I just rated it 0 until it improves.... they want feedback? let's give it to them? in a way they will comprihend? Also, sign off premium services until it improves it to something better! I have NO issue with artists refanning my page as often as they like - we're here to help eachother - if someone abuses that system (which works nicely for us too) then you can block them... RN didn't have to change that function!! Also, the 25 a day limit is finite - it make take ages, but it inhibits lower end users from ever catching up with those already at the top - because those at the top of the charts now are already heavily promoted on many sites and don;t need to network and spread their work in the same way. In no way does a 25 a day limit help struggling artists!! We're at No one in ours and high on the national and global charts - if we fan 25 people a day every day frm now on, people will have to turn to other sites for more promotion to get more "fans". Also, unless RN comes up with a better way to get the artists true on-line fans (yes, that's right, it's only America that has an obssession with "putting out a CD" and gigging yourself to death to get anywhere.... the rest of the world moved on years ago - no offence to our fellow artists in the US, but you guys get screwed by the industry far worse than we do over in Europe - for starters - the Gorillaz are a virtual band....? Need I say more? - Hello RN, are you listening?) So RN - get with the prgramme - there's bags of cash from happy artists where you help them - hell, I sang your praises for a while there - not any more - over the last year, I've been ripped off using the Pro services, had 295 removed when I cancelled it, I can't access my own fanbase details without paying you for them, I get audio spam and a full inbox everyday of the week, you promote "Pay to play" promotions, you ask us for money to promote us on FB, you expect us to pay for advertising whith no guarantees of a good return - I'm sure we'd have to do the promoting somehow as well - I get rewarded for whoring myself to this site to promote my own work as well and network - payment enough I think!! WE provide ALL of your content, WE provide you with viral promotion and advertising so powerful it's destroyed Myspace, WE helped you do that!! US!! THE ARTISTS! Not you on your own with a few templates and a few nifty - but not entirely useful - widgets... widgets that soundcloud can do for FREE!!!!

You need to focus on what WE as artists need, and you'll have the most loyal and happy to sing your praises bunch of supportters you've ever seen.... now stop trying to be greedy and reach out to your bread and butter providers, rther than trying to get us to do all your advertising leg work AND pay you for it!!! YOU are a SERVICE - not a pimp!! WE are customers, not hookers!! You get MORE than a fair vut out of what we do - through merchandising and CD sales.... If you really want to help us, then add a "buy this" button next to each track we do as a standard and take a cut from the download like any other normal online music site....

Try changing the charts to something that rewards us based on what people like, not based on how many times they come back to listen to it so we're caught up in an endless cycle of hassling all our fans 24/7 to come and listen - I mean hell!! All you have to do is have arating system from one to ten like Amazon, or itunes... one profile, one rating, a rating for each track - nbot that stupid and pointless "dig or ditch" button, I mean what is this? the 70's? Then link that to how many people visit your page and email us - also, if you want to reward us promoting you, then find a way to assess how much traffic we sen your way - give us unique promo codes so our top ten listeners get a free download of one of our tracks each month to get a clear picture of who's contacting fans and who's not and whos sending traffic to your site - you can keep the fair share money then - it's pittance anyway, you make more working an hour in a fast food restaurant than you do all year on RN - it's patronising!! Add a button that tells us who's your fan when you're on THEIR page so we don't have to spend hours searching through our fan lists looking to see if someone is a fan back. Also add a "Networking buddy" button so we can have our own list of favourite networkers that WE rate accordingly - this can also go towards their Networker rating - this will tell us new people who the best "tippers" are, who's active and willing to share their knowledge - those who don;t can stay that way if they like... I have loads of these by the way - which ever way you see it - you're going to make less money if you keep acting like this than if you took on board some more rational management that isn't so obssessed with impressing shareholders with fake "Activity numbers" for your web advertisisers you might actually get something that in the long term would provide you all of those things in bucket loads and a great service user support!! YOU CANNOT BUY THAT _ YOU HAVE TO EARN IT BY REALLY PUSHING THE LIMITS and collecting thinking - get us to help you to help us to help you.... it's cyclical.... if you restrict us, we'll walk off elsewhere - many of us here are NOT naive and young and impressionable.... we use your service for convinience, nothing more.... you are one of many service providers world wide. And while you have some nice toys for promoting our songs - you're not the only ones at that either.... you have no actual network outside the US - in a limited market with finite people making music, you will find that the internet has provided us with a very rapid way of spreading bad service news... you already have a number of people on google calling you a scam site - and recently it's becoming more and more obvious you're not listening to people that matter - there's only a few hundred really big name industry supported bands/acts out there in the world at any one time - and they will be telling YOU what to do if you want a share of their money.... however - WE on here are those future artists, and one day, we'll remember all the silly hoops you made us jump through and never use you again... because we'll have our own sites....

RN, you are very short sighted... and you are not consulting with the rest of the world... you're ppicking up feedback from people who moan about being refanned because they get upset that others are somehow "feeding off their popularity" rather than seeing the positive that all those peoples fans will see them refanning you regularly, showing they like what you do enough to come back day after day to be there... so have your share of my "popularity" - it doesn't matter if people refanned you all the time - HOW MUCH MORE VISITS ARE YOU GETTING?? you completely missed the point there!! Limiting 25 fans a day? Petty compromise designed to help you get more "activity" to show to advertisers - cynical at best - while saying it's what "we" asked for - no WE asked you to remove all caps!! end of story!! If you don;t tell peple what needs to be done to raise stats, then we can'thelp you out in full can we? DOH!

Anyway, I doubt you'll have the forsight to see what I'm saying - and it's not just me, I get this from talkng to people I meet on RN... I have my own hints and tips blog for this very purpose! WE SHARE!! A lot of us don't like this treatment and see what you're doing....
Change, or we leave.... up to you...

"I want to thank all of the users of the site who have given the feedback that prompted these improvements. You have been heard, and we will continue to listen. " - what an insult.....

To Jed (Co-Founder),

ReverbNation could be just so brilliant but first you need to have a political system that differs from Google, MySpace and Facebook which are Dictatorships. I'm certainly sick of Facebook continuing to change their layout and rules without consultation, and Google is appalling to deal with - their rules change by the day and are imposed from above to suit themselves.

You could have RevebNation as the first true democracy amongst social websites. A site that acts for the best interests of its people. I suggest the following processes for implementing changes.

1) Collect feedback and suggestions from artists and fans (You do this already but you could be even more pro-active with surveys, voting on ideas)
2) Announce new proposed changes and collect feedback
3) Revise proposed changes based on feedback
4) Implement changes for a trial period
5) Collect feedback from trial and modify changes accordingly
6) Final implementation of changes
7) Goto step 1 and repeat

I would also add that I think where possiable you should make changes optional. For example with Fan randomising function - make that an option that an artist can choose rather than the only default. If you let artists (and non-artist fans) choose what suits them best, they will be happier and you will see for yourself through market forces what options work the best.

Finally one of the big problems I see with RN are the lack of non-artist fans on the site. As a result I have spent tons of effort recuiting fans from Facebook and MySpace and Twitter and anywhere else to my website and ultimately to RN. But the social functions for non-arts fans on RN do not match those of Facebook or other purely social websites and until that happens there will always be a lack. How can you make RN a more attractive site for non-artists so that when we lure them here they want to stay?

Jed,

One more thing about the Charts. A lot of what goes on here helps artists climb the RN Charts with the hope that that will lead to more exposure and ultimately success. I have had feedback from music industry people that they consider RN Charts very poorly or not at all. I think the idea of being rewarded through chart success for both musical talent and social marketing efforts is a good one. Today the modern musician needs to be both. It could be sour grapes on the part of industry gatekeepers who liked it what they could control who they let in and who was successful. It would be great if the RN Charts were more respected in the industry and more widely known to the general public.

The STATS/BES page told me to get more visits to gain listers. My new account was # 7,136 National. Logic told me to be visible in high traffic areas. Logic further told me to maintain a presence. I was never informed by Rn that this is "abuse".
I rose to # 4 National. Currently #9, as though it matters now. SO I'll be losing BES with no comparable way to gain visits. I find this out by reading that i am a "sub set abuser?" Thank you for the insult.
What will you do about those that trade 40 second song plays with the speakers off? What will you do about the ones with 24 accounts to trade plays with themselves?
I'm further told that my fans will be shown in a random order on my page?
Here's my solution. I won't be paying for Fanreach Pro anymore. I will select a small number of fans that I want rotated on my profile page, and delete the rest.
I won't need Fanreach Pro to message 27 fans. I truly regret the hard work that I have done on this site to promote myself and others. I wish you well. I will use the remaining paramaters to suit myself. PLEASE feel free to insult me further, if you believe that I am abusing anything. Good Day Sir.