DJDossiers: Hosting for DJ's
Jan 3, 22:30 by Stefan KoopmanschapDJDossiers contacted me through ReviewMe for a review. As I always want to be able to write an honest review, maybe even more when I get paid for it, I checked out the site before accepting the offer. What I found was a very interesting service.
At first glance, the site looks nice. There are a lot of niche hosting providers out there already, but I’d never heard of one for DJ’s yet. And the features that are offered by DJDossiers are good. Instead of offering simple webspace, DJDossiers offers a ready for use system to set up your complete website without any knowledge of the technology behind the site.
The features list looks amazing, with essential features for every DJ such as a calendar and photo gallery, and useful extra’s such as a booking manager, media hosting and the currently very popular weblog.
Based on that, I decide to create a free account (more on pricing later). This is the first point where I am surprised. After filling in the registration form and confirming my registration by clicking on the link in my e-mail, I get the message that my account will be created within 12 hours. I would’ve expected this to be automated, but it’s no biggie of course. And DJDossiers is a young site, this may well be added as a new feature soon.
After waiting for over 12 hours, and not getting any e-mail, I decided to check if my account was created. I checked for my website address and it exists! Going to /admin indeed took me to a login page, and I could log in! Shame the e-mail did not arrive to tell me my account was ready, but no biggie, I could log in and work on my new website!
The control panel to manage the website looks very clear on first sight. A clear navigation makes it easy to find all the parts of the new website. Management is very easy using simple forms to fill in all necessary information. Some of the information is hidden a bit, such as the information-texts that are on the homepage and on the bio page. But once you’ve found out that this information can be found under Options -> Manage Snippets, you’re all set to fully manage your website.
One of the best features of the whole system is the automated booking system. Interested promoters can fill in a form to book you for a party. In your management area, you will automatically see this booking request in the ‘Marketing’ section. Once you decide to confirm the booking, the party will automatically be created in your ‘Events’ calendar on your website! No need to manage this seperately for booking done through your site. If you’ve already booked an event for a certain date, and you confirm another event on the same date, you’ll even get a warning that you already have an event booked for that date! The only thing I’m missing here is start and end times. But again, DJDossiers is a young site, this may be something for the future.
For people who are a bit more tech-savvy, and have knowledge of HTML, it is even possible to manage the design of your site. The default design it pretty good already, but by editing the template, you can have even more control over your website by giving it your own custom design.
Then, something about pricing. DJDossiers offers five different packages. As the price goes up, you’ll get more in return. The main difference is in the storage space and bandwidth usage, but other features such as e-mailaddresses and video hosting is not available for some accounts. The free account already looks very interesting, it supports all features except video hosting and e-mail, but it will be enough probably for starting DJ’s. As a DJ gets more popular, the paid accounts will be more interesting. The price change is quite big though, from free to a first starting package of $19/month. Also, it is quite a surprise that a free account would have no setup fee, but paid accounts do have a setup fee. But for serious DJ’s who get or intend to get income from their DJ work, and who have no or little technical knowledge, the prices seem fair. Just on the high edge of fair, but fair nonetheless.
It is clear to me that this site was set up by a DJ, and not some “smart” company trying to make a quick buck. The features available clearly offer those that a DJ would need. The only thing I really currently miss is documentation. But by experimenting and getting to know the management system, you can figure out how things work as well. Of course, as mentioned, some things can be approved, but for a site that has only been available for a few months, I find this site quite impressive already!
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