Well, Well, Well… It’s Come To This
It’s been forever and a day since I last posted and, well, you tens of readers are probably mad that I’ve left you hanging for so long — and rightly so. I am very sorry for my conspicuous absence. It seems I’ve been trying to write a meaningful wrap up to “the year that was ‘07″ since just after Christmas and still have not been able to finish. I’ve also been meaning to post a bunch of free music I’ve come across lately — none of which has been so phenomenally stellar that I just had to write about it, but it’s hasn’t been all that bad either, just not powerful enough to force a post out of me. Frankly, I’m just done. MOLLY O’POVERTY’s GUIDE just never really took off in terms of hit stats and affiliate referrals. I’ve made a grand total of seven dollars and some odd cents in purchases off the iTunes Music Store; that’s not even enough to cover one year’s domain registration renewal! (Let alone 4 years worth of bandwidth, domain registration and email service.) True, I didn’t do it for the money, but I wanted the Guide to be a successful endeavor, not something that languished and was a drain on my time and resources. Right out of the gate, though, I thought I was on to something. After being featured on Lifehacker.com my hits were huge but it never amounted to a sustained userbase. And please don’t think to yourself, ‘Yeah, but if she just posted more… and more frequently’ because I did. Er, I used to, back in the first year or so. Music is my life, my raison d’être. Trust me when I say, it takes A LOT of time to find and write about music in any way that’s significant. And right now, that time —my time— is better spent in more meaningful, more rewarding pursuits. I could just point people to any old free thing, but that’s hardly disserning. Here’s a snapshot of things I’ve yet to download, listen to, and/or post about dating back at least two years. Anyone would feel overwhelmed, right? That and there’s just not enough hours in the week.
I once had this grandiose vision in my head that the GUIDE would become a “brand” synonymous with free, good-sounding, reliable music choices. When I first started out in 2005, Entertainment Weekly had a section called “Download This” where they usually featured at least one free tune worth downloading — and I thought that was a perfect place for Molly to be! The go-to gal for free tunes. But now, the industry has changed even more drastically than in the post-Napster era (circa 2000). Entire albums are being given away for free as experiments in trust, also in an effort to counteract piracy, many by reputable/recognizable artists like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails to name just two. Free (and DRM-Free) music just isn’t the commodity it used to be now that everyone’s doing it.
So if the point of all this is lost on you, know that there really is plenty of FREE music to be had just about everywhere you look; iTunes, Beatport, AmazonMp3, Traxsource, Clickgroove, BeatsDigital, 7Digital, not to mention all the individual records labels I’ve spotlighted over the years… The list goes on and on. (Do yourself a favor: create a “music-only” email account and sign up for each site’s newsletter or mailing list anywhere you buy or find music.) The truth is you’ll be inundated, but if you just glance over every email that comes in, you’ll most likely find something every week to be added to your playists to the tune of $zero. That’s my suggestion to fill the void my little Guide leaves behind, if indeed there’s a void to be left.
And, as a final note, if anyone is interested in taking over the GUIDE, be my guest. Just drop me an email. For those of you that stuck around this long, I thank you from the bottom of my heart facsimile and I wish you all the best. It was fun while it lasted, kiddies. Any comments you’d like to leave will help ease the pain during this difficult time.
Molly O’ Over and out.
p.s. As a final gesture of goodwill (and a twinge of guilt about leaving you on your own), here’s the .opml file of all the blogs-n-sites I check out several times a week to find out what’s hot or not these days. Just download, unzip the .opml file and import it into your favorite RSS news reader. Voila! My arsenal of information overload is yours! And now that the full-version of best news reader for the Mac, NetNewsWire, is available for FREE, why not use it?
3 comments February 5th, 2008