FANtastic4bands: Free Drag-and-Drop DIY Mobile Apps For Musicians

FANtastic4bands is a mobile app and website creator with a special focus on bands. They offer free and low-cost ad-supported options as well as a pricier but fair ad-free option. While you won't be creating your own version of Bjork's complex array of apps you could use FANtastic4bands to create your own album app without destroying your budget.

FANtastic4bands is a project of Infinite Monkeys, a company that seems to take a great deal of joy in identifying as monkeys. They even call their mobile app marketplace The Monkey Market.

The basic concept is to provide drag-and-drop mobile app creation using predesigned modules that leverage a variety of services and offer the following features listed on the homepage:

• Secure free full music track previews bundled in the app
• Lyrics, description and cover art for each track
• Click-to-buy your tracks from iTunes/AmazonMP3
• Twitter feeds of band members
• Blogs by or about the band
• Photos Sharing
• Calendar of upcoming shows
• Your produced / live videos
• Live chat room for you and your fans
• Links to Band logo'd merchandise shopping website
• Band contact form in the app

While these options are designed to offer an all-purpose app for working musicians, you can see why it struck me that you could also use FANtastic4bands to produce an album-specific mobile app.

FANtastic4bands offers three pricing options:

• Free: HTML5 mobile website and a Native Android App available via the Monkey Market, ad-supported, distributed for free to all takers.
• $49: Native App for one external market, ad-supported, free to all or for a select group. Paid apps are "coming soon."
• $499: Native App for all supported app markets, no ads, published under your name to whomever you choose.

I'm still checking on which app markets they support beyond their own Monkey Market but got the email in a bit late for this post. I would assume the options would include Apple, Google and possibly Amazon.

If you know anybody involved with a nonprofit that wants to go mobile, FANtastic4bands also offers free mobile apps, the $499 version, for 501c3's.

More:

• ShareSquare Offers Quick & Easy HTML5 Mobile Sites For Musicians
• 5 Top Channels For Mobile Music Marketing: Journey Beyond The App
• Adva Mobile Offers Free Mobile Websites Designed for Musicians

Hypebot Features Writer Clyde Smith maintains his business writing hub at Flux Research and blogs about dance at All World Dance. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.