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Sonic Wallpaper
Joined: 05/22/01
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 1266
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ArtistServer Updates - Coming Attractions
Monday, March 7, 2011 at 6:40 PM
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I tend to jump around on a few development projects at a time here at ArtistServer, and since it may not be known or clear what I'm working on, I thought it I'd post a list, and include an estimate of how far along I am with the work.
Beyond the listed development projects, you may notice some changes to the ads on the site. I'm trying to monetize the site better so we can cover our hosting and bandwidth fees.
Is there anything you'd like added, fixed, or modified here at ArtistServer? It doesn't have to be something big, it can be something simple too - like changing how a tool works in the settings area.
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ArtistServer Development Projects
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Site Music Player [97%] - an mp3 player that loads at the bottom of the screen so there is no need for an external mp3 player when streaming single songs. The only drawback, is that the player reloads with each page, while using an mp3 player like WinAmp or iTunes allows you to steam as you browse. You can turn this feature off and resume traditional streaming. This is now live - I just need to integrate it in a few more locations.
Site Newsletter [50%] - for notifying members and artists of what is going on here at ArtistServer. The Newsletter may be customized per member, so artists get some stats on their music, etc, and possibly music recommendations. The idea is to keep people informed, and hopefully visiting the site more.
Music Stats Improvement [15%] - adding referrer support, to show where the song was linked from, adding data on favorites, and song reviews, geo locational data of fans, and a better interface, including a map view of fans.
Tutorials [5%] - a new section on the site listing video tutorials from YouTube, organized by musical instrument, and top software. While anyone can simply go to YouTube and search for tutorials, I thought it would help by making it easy to find these videos by organizing them by category.
New Mobile Site for iPhone / Android [4%] - little progress - just some initial framework. The first version will have artist profiles, song search/browsing, streaming music, and browsing photos.
Mobile Apps for iPhone and Android [2%] - just initial plans sketched out - most likely the first version will have artist profiles, song search/browsing, streaming music, and browsing photos.
Streaming/Downloading Improvements [15%] - moving music to Amazon S3 servers. I've been hesitant to work on this, as it is a significant amount of work to setup, as well as moving 10,000 mp3s. This would improve music steaming and downloads by allowing more concurrent users, and faster transfer speeds.
Artist Newsletter [5%] - a complete redesign, moving from text to formatted HTML for better looking newsletters, high quality templates that are preloaded with links to your content, and a means to import/export contacts.
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Questions from the Admin
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1. Do you feel we need a 'groups' feature? If so, what would you use the groups feature for, and what would you want from it?
2. Do you want more support/integration into Facebook? If so, what do you need?
3. Do you have any suggestions or changes that would help attract more artists and bands?
4. Do you have any suggestions on changes that would make artists and bands want to upgrade their accounts?
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Brillman
Joined: 10/08/02
Location: Norway
Posts: 136
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RE: ArtistServer Updates - Coming Attractions
Tuesday, March 22, 2011 at 11:22 AM
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As ever Gideon you are incredibly busy making improvements and changes to make the AS site better! 
However, I´m not exactly sure what all the changes you describe entail, i.e. moving music to Amazon S3 servers? I´m sure most of your ideas are good though
But to answer your questions.
1. no
2. no (don´t have a facebook account would you believe :lol
3. Allow som sort of system where non paying-members get a trial period (3-6 months) and after that would be obliged to upgrade or limit their amount of uploads/downloads/streaming from the site. But that would surely mean that artists would have to come to some sort of agreement and not just allow free downloads so i´m not sure about the implications of this suggestion? 
4. Minor suggestion but would be good if reviewers received some sort of bonus (rating system for best review?) and i´m not thinking about my self here!  I mean that reviews create a more lively community and may attract people to check out tracks/artists that they would´nt otherwise find. A more interesting page for reviews?
On the Juno records site you can request an e-mail when your favourite artist releases something new. Creates more traffic or pisses people off with loads of spam that they forgot they asked for.
Btw i miss the genre definitions that helped you learn about the difference between Tech House and Techno or House.
Don´t think any of these ideas will help you in your quest to "monetize the site better so we can increase the monthly revenue..." 
I think the AS site has an image that is geared more towards being a free download site.
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Synerdata Net Radio
Joined: 04/01/04
Location: Canada
Posts: 102
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RE: ArtistServer Updates - Coming Attractions
Monday, March 28, 2011 at 10:05 AM
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The new player is nice. The inability to fast-forward in songs keeps the site hard to review music on unless one downloads everything first, and then reviews tracks internally. That has always been a deterrent to reviewing music at the site, but only impacts a few, like myself.
I would really like the ability to stream a m3u playlist of all the latest releases (last 200 tracks uploaded) as well as the ability to stream the charts too (play all tracks).
* Inform me when this artist releases new tracks.
* Station Playlists featuring this artist.
Answers to Questions from the Admin:
1. I can not see a need for a groups feature at this time.
2. I would like less Support/Integration for facebook because Artist Server.com -IS- a social networking site and Facebook is a lower quality competitor. ArtistServer instead should focus on developing greater social interaction within it's own site.
3. I have been studying the issue of attracting more bands to the site closely. This is important, and a difficult issue which requires team spirit among site shareholders working together, rather than everyone leaving it for Gideon to do all by himself. No easy answer here, but a free one year account to anyone who refers and signs up ten or more fellow artists might work, or other rewarding solutions that engage currently registered artists.
I personally continue to promote the site with all artists and advise they sign in here also.
4. I am in the process of working on a long overdue new album, and I plan to upgrade my account prior to presenting the new project. I have not upgraded yet because $40 is a considerable outlay on an already tight budget, but tentatively plan to upgrade in the next month or two. The price is right for a serious artist who values their music production, however, many artists fit into a category just below this, and so an idea may be a tiered system where for $15, one can upgrade one's free account to level 2, allowing 10 tracks to be listed and offered at any bitrate, however, while this may inspire more to upgrade their accounts, it may result in the loss of $40 accounts which the site needs to keep operating...
The $40 account is a price/service which truly represents "artist server" functioning, and is fair and not an issue to any artist who has selected this site as their main site for their artwork, as represented by those who have already upgraded their accounts... However in terms of paid internet services, the price is extremely high (due to the small number of accounts and the needs of the site to cover costs), when compared to other online services which tend to view $15 as the average amount an internet user would pay for a service... $40/year is not an issue to a serious artist, but to the average music producer using free services across many sites, the benefits do not justify the cost, apart from spending the money to be a contributor and site fan and supporter.
It does not seem realistic to think that a lower price to upgrade accounts would be any more effective than the current price, apart from providing some rare and desirable service to generate a buzz. For example, if the $40 price included the ability to assemble and press and process CD's, that would undoubtedly result in many people upgrading their account, though such a function is beyond Gideon's means to implement at this time.
At this time, upgraded accounts seem to be more about supporting the site, than about gaining any greater functionality or features, and those upgrading their accounts are making a statement of community support, and are buying some respect, and are making a statement upon how they value their music and other artwork as serious artists.
Perhaps you could try a limited time special, where currently registered artists can upgrade their sites to some degree for a special low price (and currently upgraded artists can add another year at the special price to be fair), and in this way, many artists that are here may go for a $20 special, where the idea is to get them signed up, and appreciating the upgraded account, and then they would be more into paying the $40/year, thereafter, while increasing site revenues and paid clients.
During my last harvest (85), I was visiting the home sites of many of the best and most well known independent artists from over the years, many of whom have ArtistServer pages, and I noticed something consistent across all of these artist sites, and that is that they list on their sites the music download sites they can be found at, and they list myspace, and facebook, and soundcloud, and soundclick, and itunes and other paid download sites, but in every instance, no one had a link to their ArtistServer.com pages, and this stood out to me.
Why are artists who are registered here not promoting their ArtistServer.com pages along with their other music download site links? What about this site finds them excluding it from their links? This seriously concerned me, and I suspect they may have just forgotten about the site over the years. Perhaps there should be an email sent to all registered artists to remind them of their accounts here.
Anyways, the new player seems very slick.
Keep up the great work!
Gordon
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Sonic Wallpaper
Joined: 05/22/01
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 1266
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RE: ArtistServer Updates - Coming Attractions
Monday, March 28, 2011 at 10:38 AM
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Greetings Brillman - thank you for taking some time to drop in and post a reply
I haven't been too busy with the site these days - I rarely have time to work on it as compared to years ago. But - she continues to evolve!
>>i.e. moving music to Amazon S3 servers?
to allow the music hosting to scale in size and improve the streaming both in terms of the number of users we can concurrently support, as well as improved streaming. Right now, we are greatly limited by hosting and streaming the music on our own servers.
>>trial period (3-6 months) and after that would be obliged to upgrade or limit their amount of uploads/downloads/streaming from the site.
I think that would kill the site off - or it would have to be changed so it was more of a collective or label than a music service/community.
>>> Minor suggestion but would be good if reviewers received some sort of bonus (rating system for best review?) and i´m not thinking about my self here! I mean that reviews create a more lively community and may attract people to check out tracks/artists that they would´nt otherwise find. A more interesting page for reviews?
I'm not sure I understand how this would work. Do you feel your suggestion motivates people to do reviews? I ask, because I don't consider there to be a lot of reviews posted.
>>>On the Juno records site you can request an e-mail when your favourite artist releases something new. Creates more traffic or pisses people off with loads of spam that they forgot they asked for.
I'll think about this - it seems to cross over a bit with the artist newsletter option, and the artist RSS feeds, which do notify you when the artists you like have new songs, as long as you use an RSS reader.
>>>Btw i miss the genre definitions that helped you learn about the difference between Tech House and Techno or House.
I'll look at the genre pages and see if they could be added. I still have the content in the database, but we don't have descriptions for most genres, since we only have descriptions for electronic genres. Would you be interested in collecting descriptions?
>>>Don´t think any of these ideas will help you in your quest to "monetize the site better so we can increase the monthly revenue..."
No problem - i'm just putting the word out that I need help. I can no longer afford to cover the costs of the site, so it's either generate more revenue, or prepare the site for sale later this year [note - corrected this statement, sorry, was being dramatic!]
>>>I think the AS site has an image that is geared more towards being a free download site.
Yes, but I don't think that is a bad thing, do you? Artists don't have to give their songs aware for download - that's just an option.
Hope all is well take care,
Gideon
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Synerdata Net Radio
Joined: 04/01/04
Location: Canada
Posts: 102
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RE: ArtistServer Updates - Coming Attractions
Monday, March 28, 2011 at 10:48 AM
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Hmm.
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Sonic Wallpaper
Joined: 05/22/01
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 1266
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RE: ArtistServer Updates - Coming Attractions
Monday, March 28, 2011 at 11:35 AM
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Hi Gordon - Quite a reply there - I'll try to respond to everything now - but I may need to return and update later.
>>The new player is nice.
I like it - and plan to no longer use my local/pc mp3 player with ArtistServer, I tend to only stream to get a general feel for a song, then download for listening, so it works well for me.
>>>The inability to fast-forward in songs keeps the site hard to review music on unless one downloads everything first, and then reviews tracks internally.
I'd love to allow This would add more weight to the systems - which are already working quite hard to keep up with the streaming and downloading. Moving all the music to Amazon's S3 hosting would solve this, but that's a change I'm not sure I can afford to make.
>>>I would really like the ability to stream a m3u playlist of all the latest releases (last 200 tracks uploaded) as well as the ability to stream the charts too (play all tracks).
That would be great - but we'd need a budget to afford the added expenses that this would bring. I understand there's a bit of a chicken-n-the-egg problem here, but the only things I can consider have to be things that do not require any additional expenditure.
>>>* Inform me when this artist releases new tracks.
You can do this with RSS. The best way to do this is with a start page, like http://www.netvibes.com - here you can add RSS feeds that will output on your page, and you can trigger it to update as you want, or it will update on a set cylce. You can also get an RSS feed of the 15 most recent songs:
http://www.artistserver.com/webservices/songs_rss.cfm
and here is an RSS feed of the most recent song reviews: http://www.artistserver.com/webservices/reviews_rss.cfm
Each artist also has an RSS feed.
>>>* Station Playlists featuring this artist.
I don't have this setup, but each song page lists the playlists that contain that song. I'll consider this - just not sure where it would go.
>>>2. I would like less Support/Integration for facebook because Artist Server.com -IS- a social networking site and Facebook is a lower quality competitor. ArtistServer instead should focus on developing greater social interaction within it's own site.
Thank you Gordon although - it does come down to numbers and eyeballs - and if people want to market their music, they need to put it out and in front of people where they're at, as it's not easy to get them to go somewhere else - especially when you're referring to Facebook. Not only do they have an ever growing user base, the amount of time people are engaged on that site is unbelievable. We do have a lot of socializing elements to ArtistServer, but as time has passed, we have to acknowledge that people are not using the site as a social network so much as a music download site. It is also important to point out that there are many case studies that show how Facebook integrations do benefit sites, and can increase your userbase - especially Facebook Connect, which can allow people to join the site without registering.
>>>a free one year account to anyone who refers and signs up ten or more fellow artists might work, or other rewarding solutions that engage currently registered artists.
I've considered this, but also have to consider that nearly everything with the site has to be done in software, so I'd first need to build something that managed this, as I would have to wait after 30 days or so to give credit, to ensure that the upgraded account wasn't canceled, etc., then have it setup to expire the account in 1yr, etc. Often things are so much easier to say than to build software for. It's all possible, but I have to think about how I'm going to invest my work time, and what will bring the most benefit and if the feature would work. I'm not so sure we would get very many artists who can manage to get 10 other artists to upgrade their accounts. I may sound negative here, but I also have nearly 10yrs of data showing the numbers of upgrades. I'd love for the site to make it on account upgrades alone, but as we are today, to most artists and bands, this type of service is seen as free - and I understand this, it can be difficult wrapping your head around the idea of paying for the opportunity to give your music away for free. Granted, there's a lot more to ArtistServer than free downloads - but I think that is how many people see it.
>>>I personally continue to promote the site with all artists and advise they sign in here also.
Thanks man your support and passion are appreciated - thank you for your ongoing support.
>>>I have not upgraded yet because $40 is a considerable outlay on an already tight budget, but tentatively plan to upgrade in the next month or two. The price is right for a serious artist who values their music production, however, many artists fit into a category just below this, and so an idea may be a tiered system where for $15, one can upgrade one's free account to level 2...
I'd like to just lower the price of the current account upgrade - but I'm not sure how to do this with the current subscriptions. I'd keep the services as they are, and lower the rate to $25/yr - which is dirt cheap considering the accounts provided, unlimited bandwidth, and never having to pay for updates.
>>>Perhaps you could try a limited time special, where currently registered artists can upgrade their sites to some degree for a special low price (and currently upgraded artists can add another year at the special price to be fair),
I'll look into Paypal, I think there's a means to set that up w/ subscriptions. The only issue here, is that I 'personally' have never thought it was fair to people when companies offer special deals that are lower than their early adopters rate was - it just doesn't seem right to do that to those who first supported you.
>>>During my last harvest (85), I was visiting the home sites of many of the best and most well known independent artists from over the years, many of whom have ArtistServer pages, and I noticed something consistent across all of these artist sites, and that is that they list on their sites the music download sites they can be found at, and they list myspace, and facebook, and soundcloud, and soundclick, and itunes and other paid download sites, but in every instance, no one had a link to their ArtistServer.com pages, and this stood out to me.
This goes back to the eyeballs, traffic and marketing - to best market your music, you need to be where the public is, therefore, you promote the sites which have the most users and traffic, that way you have a better chance of making a connection. Interesting to hear you list SoundClick - I never see lnks for this site, yet they do get a lot of traffic.
>>>Perhaps there should be an email sent to all registered artists to remind them of their accounts here.
Yes, this is one of the updates I'm working on. I already have the means to email blast all the artists and members - but I want to make the mail that is sent to look good, have valuable information and is useful, and to hopefully be customized per user - so you get some info about your music. I need to plan this out well so people don't delete or unsubscribe, and so I can set this up to send an email each month. This will definitely help. With members joining 10yrs ago, they've gone through loads of live changes and may not remember that we are here still.
>>>Anyways, the new player seems very slick.
Cool - so glad it works - that was not fun!
Take care - and thanks for your time,
Gideon
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Synerdata Net Radio
Joined: 04/01/04
Location: Canada
Posts: 102
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RE: ArtistServer Updates - Coming Attractions
Monday, March 28, 2011 at 12:01 PM
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Thanks for your insight Gideon...
You are right about Facebook, and I am just no fan of Facebook, which I find to be a useless site, but yeah, the idea is increasing traffic and convenience to the artists and fans.
I was wondering how the move to Amazon's cloud was going, and so it's good to know where you are at with that proposed solution.
I have been watching with interest how SoundCloud.com appeared, one of the first new music community sites to appear in many years, and how it has quickly grown to be very popular while not exactly being widely promoted anywhere apart from artist word of mouth.
I attribute most of it's appeal to the all new way of presenting music and connecting artists with one another, that where ArtistServer.com follows a more traditional model, SoundCloud.com started from scratch, and rather than focusing on presenting music and artists to the public, it's site was geared towards presenting the work of artists to other artists, and promoting interaction within the community. All very interesting in a setting where the big sites have been wiped out, and what remains are mostly just smaller sites, in a climate where there is no single predominant site around which artists are excited as in the halcyon days if internet music distribution and promotion.
I think it was merely the innovation of displaying the complete song wave with comments in flash format that has appealed to artists to sign up at SoundCloud.com, that it was something new, and so everyone would like to try, and not be left out on a new service.
I suspect many ArtistServer.com artists are not aware of the improvements made to this site over recent years. Creating a buzz and viral interest in a music download site up now is no easy equation to crack, but seems to be invoked by anything noticeably new and innovative that stands out as different. SoundCloud.com is an interesting study in a new music site which has somehow come to wide appeal and prominence in a very low-key manner.
Keep up the great work!
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Sonic Wallpaper
Joined: 05/22/01
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 1266
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RE: ArtistServer Updates - Coming Attractions
Monday, March 28, 2011 at 12:41 PM
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SoundCloud certainly has momentum - a lot of that is due to being very well funded and staffed - If we had 1/5 of their resources, we would be ROCKING SO HARD!
It looks like they have 31 full time employees - http://getsatisfaction.com/soundcloud/people
* 2007 - seed investment from the founders of Ableton Sofware and others - undisclosed amount
* January 2009 - Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures invests $3.5m
* January 2011 - VC firms Union Square Ventures and Index Ventures invest an undisclosed amount (previously rumored at $10m)
That's a serious amount of cash!
I do agree with you - it is more of an artists' site as opposed to a site where the general public goes - although, word is getting out, and they're growing in other ways - like providing the music hosting for other services - like RootMusic - who just scored $2.3m in funding last January, as well as some mobile apps. Here, they function as an audio 'utility' that you can use in other services - which appeals to today's era of Web mashups and startups build from APIs of other services.
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Synerdata Net Radio
Joined: 04/01/04
Location: Canada
Posts: 102
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RE: ArtistServer Updates - Coming Attractions
Monday, March 28, 2011 at 1:00 PM
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Re: SoundCloud Backing:
yeah, it seems that in the last part of the past decade, the way to progress online
has generally been with good financial backing, where the net has become so diverse
and "crowded" with competing services by everyone and their dog. Up now, the high
traffic sites have been consolidated by the big media companies, and so the way to
get effective promotion online has become to buy it, and the days of massive growth
by general public interest and word of mouth and free links seems to be gone now,
with established smaller players either losing, or just holding their ground over time,
while some continue to slowly grow by their familiarity to people.
I guess that with enough money, anything online can be "the next big thing".
I have been watching another trend lately as well. Many talented artists have been wrapping up their presentations and abandoning their domain names, large numbers of artists seem to be disenchanted with the inability to gain any considerable traffic up now in the wake of the big traffic sites being crippled and/or destroyed by the competition, undoing presentations such artists worked hard on, and do not want to have to redo somewhere else, where the one product that independent artists can no longer seem to arrive at is wide scale promotion like mp3com once presented. In the end, putting one's music online is about the traffic it gets, and without the traffic, it's not worth the time and effort. I am saddened each time I find an artist has abandoned their domain name, and have gone offline. Free music as a promotional currency seems to have had it's day, and artists seem to be far more interested in charging for their music... It's interesting to watch the wider-cultural shifts in these areas of the independent music industry.
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Neotone
Joined: 04/22/02
Posts: 70
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RE: ArtistServer Updates - Coming Attractions
Monday, March 28, 2011 at 9:38 PM
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Gideon... I think there is one feature Soundcloud has which ArtistServer ought to have: embedded flash player. I've already ran into a problem promoting my music for people who are used to Soundcloud: they want to be able to play the music on their web browser! So if it were possible to take that site music player and break it out onto an embedded code, that would be fantastic.
Personally, I like the traditional model. I think you need both a bottom up and a top down approach. ArtistServer provides a way to do both. Soundcloud does not: it relies solely on a bottom up system, making the artists have to do all the marketing themselves. While there aren't a lot of people visiting ArtistServer, at least here you get SOME marketing, while on Soundcloud you get none.
This life is a joke, and nobody's laughing.
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Neotone
Joined: 04/22/02
Posts: 70
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RE: ArtistServer Updates - Coming Attractions
Monday, March 28, 2011 at 9:39 PM
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I think the embedded player idea answers questions 3 and 4, and my answer to questions 1 and 2 is no.
This life is a joke, and nobody's laughing.
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Sonic Wallpaper
Joined: 05/22/01
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 1266
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RE: ArtistServer Updates - Coming Attractions
Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 9:16 AM
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>>>Gideon... I think there is one feature Soundcloud has which ArtistServer ought to have: embedded flash player.
We do, but it was never made public - as it would crush the site. I can't afford the bandwidth and systems required to handle the increase in traffic caused by off-site players. Even without off-site players, it is difficult for ArtistServer to handle a lot of users streaming because we have a limited amount of system resources. With soundcloud - they have no limitations because they use Amazon S3 for hosting, which is essentially an unlimited scaling platform, as well as the budget to afford such a system.
BTW - posting your song to Facebook works just fine, a flash player displays on your post - give it a try, you can set the test post to just 'you' to see how it works.
>>>So if it were possible to take that site music player and break it out onto an embedded code, that would be fantastic.
I thought you were referring to embedding a player at other sites/locations - but the above sounds like you want a popup player that opens in a new window while you are on ArtistServer. I was looking into this for the new site player - but it was tough getting that sucker to work right, so I'm taking some time off before working with it again. I'm also not sure how this should be done so it is intuitive. For example, does 'popup' become one of the options when you click on settings on the player - to me, this makes the most sense, but a user won't know that is an option until they click on the settings icon for the player. Fortunately, after you set your preference - it will remain each time you visit the site.
>>> at least here you get SOME marketing, while on Soundcloud you get none.
not sure about none over there - but I see what you mean. I tend to see them as file host as opposed to a music site, which has worked very well for them. Others doing well are focusing on providing a 'band site' like bandzoogle.com and bandcamp.com
-----
I try to understand the business world, and the investment market and how that relates to music - but there really isn't any 'sense' to it. What is happening is that people know things are changing, and traditional markets are getting disrupted by streamlined Web based solutions. The problem here, is that there is loads of money being tossed at companies to fund this disruption, but there is rarely a true business going on... meaning... a company working to generate something to earn revenue to stay in business, etc. Hardly any of these startups are making enough money to cover their business expenses, they are all burning through investment capital. It's more akin to a well funded playground... "Here you go kids... have fun building... keep disrupting... don't worry about revenue... the party will last a few years - then we'll shut it down, sell it all... and DO IT AGAIN!"
----
Thanks for the support guys - and I'm sorry I have to shoot down suggestions that either require money to be spent or invested. I am currently trying to make payments to our ISP for the last few months of hosting that we owe, and adding to that just isn't possible.
Maybe this isn't well known, but even after 9.5yrs, I cover more than 50% of the expenses each month to keep this online. What is a drag, is that it only takes $6,800/yr to run ArtistServer in it's current state, and most of my competitors spend that much to send a few staff members to a trade show like SXSW, or to 1 developer for their monthly salary - yet, we are able to run everything on that amount.
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Synerdata Net Radio
Joined: 04/01/04
Location: Canada
Posts: 102
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ArtistServer Updates - Coming Attractions
Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 3:49 PM
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Gideon wrote: >>>>> Maybe this isn't well known, but even after 9.5yrs, I cover more than 50% of the expenses each month to keep this online. What is a drag, is that it only takes $6,800/yr to run ArtistServer in it's current state, and most of my competitors spend that much to send a few staff members to a trade show like SXSW, or to 1 developer for their monthly salary - yet, we are able to run everything on that amount.
Heh. I knew when I started building Synerdata Radio, that I had to design it to run on next to nothing, from the ground up, lest it could go down in the first set of hard times, and so I have been able to run the station for $240/year as my own expenses, while listener support over the past 11 years has covered the server costs. As far as I am concerned, a dotcom business which can run on under $10,000 per anum is a success if it persists, and is well managed. Anyways, it's not fair that Gideon pays half the operational costs, even where a work of love, it seems really important to me that ArtistServer.com should at least cover it's own costs, and so it's nice to see the new ads appearing on the site to help towards that end. This startup is ripe for substantial investment funds, and I believe that they are coming in time. For now, arriving there seems to be a situation where Gideon needs help, where he is a developer, and can not afford to hire people to go out and bring back the bacon, to launch this well and long established business startup.
Can you imagine what ArtistServer.com could be like with ten million in investment capital?
Itunes beware!
Seriously.
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Brillman
Joined: 10/08/02
Location: Norway
Posts: 136
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RE: ArtistServer Updates - Coming Attractions
Wednesday, March 30, 2011 at 10:27 AM
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Gideon wrote: "No problem - i'm just putting the word out that I need help. I can no longer afford to cover the costs of the site, so it's either generate more revenue, or prepare the site for sale later this year."
Totally understandable but such a shame!
I think there should be some sort of an alternative to this surely? For one an e-mail to all members announcing this future scenario making it clear where the site stands financially.
Second an appeal to any members who might be interested in contributing to the preservation of AS in any form. Either by way of ideas, support, financial help or otherwise  I for one could contemplate the notion of a joint ownership whereby a few of the hardcore members could put their financial heads together to be able to sustain the running of AS. But for one i´m not sure that there is enough activitity on the site anymore and second i´m not very business minded so probably not a good idea? 
What is the competition charging for similair services? What would it cost to set up a personal music site with streaming/download capability via a web hotell, etc? Is $40 a lot for a year? I doubt it, at least not for myself with over 200 tracks here, hehe, on the other hand i´m not exactly up to date on the alternatives anymore.
So to conclude; in hindsight you probably did everything you could and it is a formidable achievment being to able to run the site on your own for nearly 10 years with little or no funding! This to me sounds like a man with a vision who has been guided by a total commitment towards helping independent artists create music but it is bordering on idealism! 
I also agree with some of the suggestions that Gordon made. Again not much help i´m afraid!?  
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Sonic Wallpaper
Joined: 05/22/01
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 1266
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RE: ArtistServer Updates - Coming Attractions
Wednesday, March 30, 2011 at 12:57 PM
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I'll post a reply later - just wanted to drop the following into the discussion... Brillman stated, "But for one i´m not sure that there is enough activitity on the site anymore"
So I went to check the site stats... and there has been a 386% increase in traffic to AS this month, and I just found the cause - a music download app in the iTunes store - 68,000 new visitors in the last 2 weeks! Here is the app: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/free-music-downloader/id424563574 and the Lite version: http://itunes.apple.com/app/free-music-download-lite/id424563681 - I'm downloading the Lite version to try it out.
Here is a screenshot showing the growth:
UPDATE: Like the users in the comments for the app on iTunes, I found it to be quite confusing - it just isn't a good user experience. I've also checked our music stats, and they aren't showing the growth like our traffic does, which means most users of this app are confused by it too.
After trying it out, it looks like I can improve the user experience by identifying requests from the iphone, and redirecting them to our old mobile site: http://mobile.artistserver.com/ - from there, you get a stripped down interface - to download with this app - browse to the page with the songs you want, then click the browser menu icon that has a box w/ an arrow - this brings up the option to "show all links" - then you tap the song you want. This adds the song to the download list - the icon on the far right of the menu bar - the final step is to tap on that icon... and finally download. Certainly not a smooth experience - but it works.
This does show that I need to get working on a mobile app - there is indeed an interest out there - and my competitors don't have iphone apps yet, so the time is right.
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(((stereofect)))
Joined: 09/02/01
Location: Ontario, Canada
Posts: 1333
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RE: ArtistServer Updates - Coming Attractions
Friday, April 1, 2011 at 11:23 PM
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A multi-track audio/midi recording app for iPad/iPod touch with built in integration to artistserver would rock the casbah for sure.
Record a track... save it to mp3... upload it to your artistserver account automatically..
Oh, baby... that's what daddy wants....
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.” Albert Einstein
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Sonic Wallpaper
Joined: 05/22/01
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 1266
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RE: ArtistServer Updates - Coming Attractions
Saturday, April 9, 2011 at 12:27 PM
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(((stereofect))) wrote:A multi-track audio/midi recording app for iPad/iPod touch with built in integration to artistserver would rock the casbah for sure.
That would be awesome. Do you have an iPad/Pod/Phone? If so, there are some apps out there that may do this with SoundCloud.com - which has an API for building services on top of their service. Check out this page - http://soundcloud.com/apps?ref=top#mobile The one that I have 'some' experience with is "Beatmaker" - but the one listed there is "Beatmaker 2", which my phone won't run - it's a complete studio.
====================
Other news... the sudden growth in traffic is now generating enough interaction with the ads on the site to cover the current server costs!  There's been a 730% growth in traffic, and a steady climb of new members. We were getting 2-6 per day, and we're now averaging 75. 
Because of the traffic increase, the music streaming/download upgrades have moved up to the highest priority to help ensure we continue to grow as well as producing a much better experience on the site. Moving all the music to the 'cloud' instead of trying to host it all on our own is going to be the most important upgrade ArtistServer has had since the site originally launched nearly 10 years ago as ElectronicScene.com. It should initially save us money on hosting, but this will increase over time - but without it, the site would not be able to grow.
Artistserver's future is wide open, and I feel there's an opportunity here to do more than just survive each month - and I'm quite excited about that. There is no doubt that the recent growth in traffic is due to mobile phones and an iPhone app - I can see this in my site stats. Because of this, I'm planning on redirecting nearly all my development efforts to mobile projects, specifically, an iPhone app, then an Andriod app. - as well as the new mobile site. This will create some new fans and opportunities for you the artists - especially those who play live.
So... if the posts further up in this thread were stressing you out about ArtistServer's future - relax, have a beer - or some tea, and work on a track, we'll be here for you.
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(((stereofect)))
Joined: 09/02/01
Location: Ontario, Canada
Posts: 1333
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RE: ArtistServer Updates - Coming Attractions
Saturday, April 9, 2011 at 10:13 PM
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Sonic Wallpaper wrote:Do you have an iPad/Pod/Phone?
I use iMS-20, Xenon, Nanostudio, Reactable, Filtatron, BeatMaker2, iElectribe, Nlog Pro, nanoloop, SynthX, TechnoBox2, SoundPrism, EyDy Looper.......
So yes... I have fully integrated an iPad (and an iPod) into my setup. It's easy to do, is way more inspirational, and a hellova lot easier (has a much faster workflow) than using a craptop.
SoundCloud's okay... but it's not my thing. I support artistserver.
As far as I'm concerned, the iPad is a game changer when it comes to music creation. It's unbelievable what can be done. And with the right resources and access to your services (re: the API thing) you would open doors and create possibilities that have been previously unavailable before.
It's the 21st century, man. Join the parade....
Or not... 'sup to you....
Just my $0.02 worth.
Steve
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.” Albert Einstein
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Second Thought
Joined: 05/05/02
Location: Oh God knows.
Posts: 188
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RE: ArtistServer Updates
Sunday, May 8, 2011 at 1:41 PM
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Synerdata Net Radio wrote:Free music as a promotional currency seems to have had it's day, and artists seem to be far more interested in charging for their music...
http://www.archive.org/details/netlabels
Hundreds of tracks a week going online for free - and increasing in number. In my experience a lot of independent artists are heading in the direction of releasing all of their music for free. So that comment confused me a little.
Gideon - this is fantastic news, wonderful to think that even just the traffic to the site from an app can help cover the costs of running the site.
Drug use for children has for many an education and with obvious alarm to both parents on the increase almost yearly.
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