How Long
Thank god the Eagles’ fans are not tech/web-savvy.
First lesson, OWN YOUR URL!
There’s a story here, as to why the URL is www.eaglesband.com/, not eagles.com, or theeagles.com (sure, the band hates the "the", but most people don’t know this). Yes, a search will turn up the right site, but will it turn up the right MySpace page?
No.
My Google search on "MySpace Eagles" didn’t turn up the band’s MySpace link on the first PAGE of results. I could go further, but who goes further?
But I know the band’s got a MySpace page, I was there once before. So I search on "MySpace Eagles band music". And the site comes up. It’s www.myspace.com/eaglesmusic. Now, that’s so far from intuitive, maybe that’s why the band’s new song "How Long" only has 33,333 plays, even though it’s been available for almost a week.
So, does this mean the URL sucks? Or that the target audience doesn’t know to go to MySpace to hear the song? Or that no one cares about a new Eagles record.
I think the target demo does care about the music, they’re just not hip to the fact that you can hear all bands’ new music on MySpace. But, I also believe plays are reduced because of the bad URL.
If you go to http://eagles.com/, you get a Network Solutions page. Was the name really unavailable? The Eagles couldn’t afford to buy it? Irving Azoff couldn’t INTIMIDATE someone into coughing it up? As for http://myspace.com/eagles, it’s owned by someone named "Jack". You couldn’t make him an offer?
I mean help yourself out. If you’re too stupid to own the URL of an almost forty year old band, at least come up with a URL that makes intuitive sense, and pay someone to make it come to the top of Google results if anyone puts appropriate search terms in.
But it gets worse. The Eagles site has POP-UPS! Which are blocked by Firefox! And, although they appear in Safari, the QuickTime movie never loads.
How did this happen? Isn’t anybody tech-savvy over at the management company? Didn’t anybody think about the pop-ups being blocked? Didn’t anybody test the site?
Utterly ridiculous.
If a boomer is too stupid to go to MySpace, or find the MySpace site, and can actually find the band’s homepage, they expect to hear the new record. But they don’t.
Don Henley is famously tech-averse. But he’s only hurting himself here.
I do believe boomers are the last audience into physical product. That many want the CD. But plenty have iPods. And they’ll pay for music at the iTunes Store. But "How Long" isn’t available there. What, are we living in 1973? How long does a track have to be in the marketplace before you can BUY IT?
Well, maybe you need to go to Wal-Mart’s site.
But if you go to the Wal-Mart page, if you’re savvy enough to know that the band has made a deal with the mega-retailer and it’s actually selling music online, you find pictures of everybody BUT the Eagles, and a site that’s ultimately incompatible with Macs. Couldn’t the band make a deal with Wal-Mart to sell this ONE track at the iTunes Store? Maybe cough up a few extra pennies to make it happen?
The band is trying to come back. But their digital strategy stinks.
As for the track itself… First time through, you’re disappointed. You’ve waited all these years for THIS? A lightweight trifle? The most famous Eagles cut is not "Take It Easy", but "Desperado". The Eagles can come with a ballad, hell, "Love Will Keep Us Alive" was the big hit off of "Hell Freezes Over", not "Get Over It".
"How Long" grows on you with multiple plays. But does one even GET multiple plays of a boomer act anymore? Too much second-guessing results in a mistake.
Or else they’re waiting for the second track for the killer ballad. Proving the band is living in the EIGHTIES!
You don’t even get a second track most times today. You lead with your best. And, if "How Long" is their best, we’ve waited a long time for nothing.
