• 05/31/2009 - 18 More Social Sites Added to SocialNetwork.in
• 05/25/2009 - Run Your Own Remix or Music Project at ArtistServer.com
• 05/22/2009 - AudioBoo.fm and YouNoodle.com Added to SocialNetwork.in
• 05/06/2009 - mp3tunes.com - no option to close your account
• 03/17/2009 - How to run a Remix Project
• 09/28/2008 - My Lovely Wife Lou is Pregnant
• 12/14/2007 - ArtistServer News and a new site: FreeMusicLicensing.com
• 09/18/2007 - AritstServer and ToneThis Serve Up Indie Ringtones
• 09/11/2007 - Running LightTPD and PHP on Windows
• 09/06/2007 - Compete.com -vs- Alexa.com - Comparing Website Rank

The other day, ArtistServer seemed like it was under attack. I was working on some files, and when I tried to save out to the server... I received a timeout. So I login to the Web server to see what's going on and find that she was in fact running, but that there was a huge amount of requests coming in which were tying up all the sesssions on the app server. For around an hour, I sifted through the requests coming into the site and for our streaming to find out what's going on, and if there was something odd about all these requests. On the server, I was watching the number of requests climbing - which gave me the impression that I was dealing with some bots indexing the content on the site.

And yes, it turned out that we were being blasted by various bots all at the same time. In all, there were more than 6 different types of bots hitting the site and in one case, there were nine bots from the same service. Here's a sampling of the UserAgents and IPs I found hitting ArtistServer all at the same time:

user agent: Sphere Scout&v4.0 (beta) - scout at sphere dot com
IP: 64.40.115.57
user agent: Sphere Scout&v4.0 (beta) - scout at sphere dot com
IP: 64.40.115.48
user agent: Sphere Scout&v4.0 (beta) - scout at sphere dot com
64.40.115.55
user agent: Sphere Scout&v4.0 (beta) - scout at sphere dot com
IP: 64.40.115.35
user agent: msnbot/0.9
IP: 65.55.246.46
user agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Yahoo! Slurp)
IP: 68.142.250.169
user agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Yahoo! Slurp)
IP: 72.30.102.208
user agent: Snapbot/1.0
IP: 38.98.19.89
user agent: Snapbot/1.0
IP: 66.234.139.204
user agent: Snapbot/1.0
IP: 38.98.19.71
user agent: Snapbot/1.0
IP: 38.98.19.67
user agent: Snapbot/1.0
IP: 38.98.19.72
user agent: Snapbot/1.0
IP: 38.98.19.95
user agent: Snapbot/1.0
IP: 66.234.139.199
user agent: Snapbot/1.0
IP: 66.234.139.194
user agent: Snapbot/1.0
IP: 66.234.139.197
user agent: YahooFeedSeeker/2.0
IP: 66.163.187.77

And even Google was hitting us at the same time.

There are so many people starting services that index content on the Web that it's starting to get out of hand. I was reading a blog yesterday about a study on bot behavior - and in this study, Yahoo! slurp made over a million requests in a year to a mid-sized site. That's quite a bit considering that is only one of 100's or 1,000's of bots out there.

If you or someone you know is planning to build/launch yet another Search engine, or blog index or Meme tracker, please, make nice bots/spiders - or better yet, don't crawl a site with 10 different bots across two different IP blocks like Snap.com apparently does - as it certainly DOES end up looking and smelling like an attack.

I also found duing this fine combing through the requests that there were two servers setup in Bejing China that appeared as if they were re-serving our content to other IPs. I couldn't access the server's via a browser, but the HTTP header data was showing the files being served from an index page at the root of their domain. After I put up a block on their IP - the activity stopped... then started up w/ a new IP, etc. So I ended up having to block their whole IP range.

This is all the kind of stuff I really do not enjoy - dealing w/ the servers and network issues gets a bit stressful - especially when I don't have anyone staff to rely on for help. Fortunately, my ISP is very cool and has helped out when I've needed it. Thanks David!

I have been doing a lot of various updates to ArtistServer.com - but have neglected to announce several of them. I keep hammering away at the site and tend to forget about spreading the buzz and educating the people who use the site of what's new.

So, here's a quick summary of the new additions and changes to the site, feel free to ask questions or make suggestions.

1. Support for Skype Buttons - Those who use Skype, can now display a Skype button on the contact pages for artsits and members. To set it up, login to the My Account area and edit your Profile.

2. Online Status: Yahoo Messenger, AIM, Skype, and ICQ We now have online status indicators at the top of artist/member pages and displayed on the artist and member listing pages on the site. To manage your online status, login to the My Account area, and edit your Profile.

3. Artists and Members Listing: Most changes are visible on the artist listing page, where you can now see the number of songs an artist has on the site, an M3U playlist button, an XSPF playlist button - if there artist has songs on the site. Also displayed is the artist and member online status and the last login date/time.

4. Song Pages: A song page, is what you see when you click on a song title or icon on ArtistServer. On these pages, you now see who has added a song to their favorites list. To be able to use the favorites list, you must join the site - which is free.

5. Site Sign In: The sign in button at the top of the site now allows you to login on any page on the site. After you are authenticated, you are sent back to the page you were on.

6. Skins Selector: When you change skins (by clicking on 'Site Skins' button) from the main menu, you can now see all the colors that make up each skin. The selection page also has a better layout.

7. Site Homepage: After you login, the site homepage changes and displays your favorites embeded in the page. If you have songs added to your favorites, a Flash mp3 player displays with those songs loaded and ready to go. The same is true of the pop-up favorites window.

8. Root Genre Pages: The 'root' genre pages on the site, like 'Electronic' were updated, they now display new artists and members who have avatar/images assigned to their account. Here is the Electronic page on the site: http://www.artistserver.com/area.cfm/area/1

9. Map Page: The main MAP page now has a chat window on the page:
http://www.artistserver.com/map.cfm

You are now updated on ArtistServer's progress and evolution.

The only other news lately, is we had a 3hr downtime two days ago. From what I can tell, Windows update ran on the server, then restarted it after installation. Upon reboot, the server was not able to complete the loading of several important services, which caused, remote access and the database to not function. To make matters worse, the company I colocate with was not able to get to the facility for 2hrs. Once at the facility, the server simply needed me to login to it, and reboot once again. This is the second time Windows Update has caused a problem on a live server.

I can't WAIT until I can have a network admin to take over the responsibility of the servers. As you can imagine, my degrees in Psychology and Child Development never prepared me for this kind of work...

"... so tell me server, how long have you been down...
I see, and right now you feel like you've crashed, is that true?
I understand, it certainly can be rough when everyone wants you to serve them."

Yeah - that just doesn't cut it. Fortunately, the servers run very well. This was our first downtime this year, and in past years, we've only had an average of 2 downtimes per year. By next year this time, we should have the site setup with complete redundancy. It's just going to take some time to save up for the equipment... unless we stumble upon some capital in the next 6-8months. :)

Not bad... not great either, but when you try running other sites through that list of criteria, you'll find ArtistServer has evolved well in the last year.Web2.0 'concepts' are not going to make your site number one, but if you integrate some of these ideas and technologies properly, you may very well find a new edge to pivot from. The keyword in that last sentance is, "properly," otherwise, Web2.0 ends up being more a marketing term than a user centric movement that enables technology use and integration to flourish.

My experience so far, is that you can make these changes and additions to your site, but it takes awhile for some of these concepts to take hold and make sense to the users of the site. For example, a lot of the general public do not know what "Tags" are, and I'm sure when they see a "Tag Cloud," they wonder why the site is broken, or why would anyone format text like that.

Hopefully, this is where a Wiki can help. http://wiki.artistserver.com
I just opened our Wiki up today - but for this initial launch, the Wiki isn't open for editing or adding new content to. Once it is opend for public use (less than 2 months), you will still need to login to ArtistServer to edit or add anything to the Wiki. So, how Web2.0 are you? :)

• at oreillynet.com
• at msippey.tadalist.com
• at oreillynet.com
• at oreillynet.com

Where can you browse the world of music by genre and by artist through a map?

At ArtistServer.com :)

http://www.artistserver.com/map.cfm

This page will load a map of the world - and a listing of genres down the side. For best results, login before visiting, otherwise you won't be able to download.

Click on a genre, and it will load icons on the map of artists who have songs in that genre.

Click on one of the headphone icons, and a small container will load with a listing of all the songs by that artist which are 'in' the selected genre.

You can click on the map to 'set the focus' - then use the controls on the right side to zoom in. You can also click-n-drag the map to move it around. If you zoom in too far, or move too far off the sides, you'll see gray or white and no longer see a map. Zoom out if this happens.

You can also click on the 'hybrid' overlay on the map - this will show you boundry lines, state and city names, roads, etc. You may also click over to standard 'map' if you wish.

The end result, is that you can browse ArtistServer's music through a map while filtering by 'region' and by 'genre.'

This page is in beta - and Yahoo! Maps is in Beta - so you may see some issues, if you do, post to the forums and list your browser and platform.

One issue the page currently has, is that it doesn't tell you the genre you are currently looking at - so I'll need to set that up.

Some questions aritsts on the site may have:

Where am I? I can't find myself on the map.

This is possible. I believe the map can only load 100 items, I'll have to look into this more. If you are 'brand new' to the site, it is possible that I haven't 'geocoded' your location yet.

Are you telling people where I live?

No. These locations are only displaying the very same information on your artist pages, which is: Country, State, and City. Your actual address is NOT used. If the map actually shows your true location, it is purely random. But if it bothers you, I can alter your geocode to move you.

My location is wrong. How can I correct it?

I'll have to work out how to do this, my concern is that if I give people the option to click on a map to place themselves, they'll put themselves in the ocean or Antartica, etc. So I may create a setting where you can tell the system to re-run your Country/State/City settings through a Geocoder which would update your data if the location was found.

Hey Yahoo!

Thank you Yahoo! and the Yahoo! Developer's Program - Your new Maps API was VERY easy to work with, and I look forward to experimenting with it some more.

But wait, there's more...

You can also see maps integrated on every 'genre' page on ArtistServer.com. Here is an example: http://www.artistserver.com/DownTempo

I'll have to click around and check my competitor's sites, but I'm fairly sure that this kind of map integration isn't being done on music service sites. If you'd like to check yourself, try this listing of Music Hosting Services. So far, the only one I've seen is TagWorld, and all they provide is a map on the artist/member pages showing where that person is. If you find anything like this, let me know!

Last month, I announced the launching of http://www.IndieMobile.com on my blog, which is the ringtone section and mobile transfer tools from ArtistServer rebranded as it's own site.

The site is now complete with ringtone previews in Flash - which allow you to listen to each ringtone right on the page before downloading or sending to your mobile phone - for free.

Roll back to last year, and you'll find that in May of 2005, I announced that http://www.ArtistServer.com was providing a complete ringtone service for indie/unsigned artists - and quite possibly the first to do so.

Now, just a few weeks ago, MySpace and Cingular Wireless with all their millions and all their people, announced that they will have a ringtone service/program for artsits.

Cingular's Mobile Music Studio on MySpace is a free, truly original platform that lets emerging artists create and market their personalized wireless content. Australian Indie Garage Rock Darlings, Shifter, to be First Band to Benefit from Partnership

If music truly is the universal language, then millions of music hopefuls are sure to be talking about the new Cingular Mobile Music Studio available exclusively on MySpace. Announced today at CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment 2006, Cingular's Mobile Music Studio is a first-of-its-kind platform that offers hundreds of thousands of unsigned artists and bands on MySpace the tools needed to turn their self-produced music into ringtones. forbes.com

More from MoCoNews.net:

Cingular hopes the service will boost revenue, customer loyalty and help its image among young people. Customers will be able to preview ringtones and buy them on the MySpace Web site, which will then send them to their cellphone. Cingular plans to charge about $2.50 for each 30 second ringtone and will give the bands 25 percent of the proceeds.
But hey, life is a bitch..if you are locked into a contract with some operator, you will not switch just to get ringtones from MySpace bands.

Meanwhile... ArtistServer, with no budget and a staff of one... has been enabling artists to provide uncensored ringtones to their fans for free for nearly a year now.

Cingular/MySpace plan on censoring content:

Once all licensing has been completed, the artists will then be able to upload a short track of their original song, via an audio file, at which time the music content is screened to ensure content is indeed original and appropriate.

And more on censoring from TelephonyOnline.com:

Cingular was hazy about what other criteria that panel might be using to decide whether a song makes the grade and implied there would be other subjective factors informing the decisions. "We don’t have a specific criteria yet," Garver said. "We'll take each song on a case-by-case basis and use our judgment on what’s appropriate content."

What does 'appropriate' mean?

As they pros play catch up, I'll soon be launching our next tool for promoting artists... and that will deal with Website 'widgets' - which are objects of some type that you would include on your blog or site. A demo of one is running on my blog right now - on the left site. It's a fully customizable widget that offers ringtones and is 100% controlled by the URL itself. This makes the widgets not only easy to customize, but it allows people to dynamically create them to fit their own sites.

So, as Cingular/MySpace make it difficult for people to obtain ringtones by indie/unsigned artists, I'm taking a different path, I'm making it easy for artists to take advantage of ringtones, mobile phones and connecting to more fans. Yes, our ringtones are free, and the artsits do not ear their $0.50 or less per ringtone, but really, how many artists are going to sell enough to even cash out? I haven't seen the details of the agreement with the artists, but usually with a payout system, there needs to be a minimum of $20 before they'll send you a check. That's 40 ringtones each artist would have to sell for $2.50 each - and that's to Cingular customers only if I understand their arrangement correctly.

From out in the crowd someone yells, "But Gideon, if Cingular gets behind this and promotes it, that will be HUGE!"

Yeah... well, let's look at how they plan to promote it:

Cingular executive director of high-growth segments Dave Garver said that the program could have enormous potential for Cingular even though the MySpace music site would not occupy a slot in the Cingular content deck or the ringtones promoted in its MEdia Mall download center. The power of self-promotion and viral marketing would do all of the work, he said. “Shifter is way too small for Cingular to bring on as a partner -- it’s even way too small for a record label,” Garver said. “But when you aggregate all of those bands, each with their own ringtones, you get a significant number of downloads.”

Looks to me like they are expecting all the artists to have their "friends" buy the ringtones. If that is the case... ARTISTS... don't waste your friends time or money - join ArtistServer for FREE and set your friends up with up to 3 ringtones for FREE. If they want to hand you $0.50 in exchange, tell them to bring someone to your next show instead - or ask them to pass on your band's URL, etc.

If I worked for MySpace, I'd be ranting down the halls saying, "This has NOTHING to do with artisits or bands! Forget the deal! Let's do it ourselves! Connect with the community! Empower the people!"

I may not have any budget, nor any staff, and I certainly can't afford to be at all any of the conferences, nor can I even afford to pay myself for this work I do... but you know what? I'm still a year ahead of the largest social music site on the planet when it comes to providing mobile solutions to artsits.

While that doesn't help me pay the bills, it is a good sign for things to come. Plus, when you work for free, your salary is joy you harvest from your work, and I've been very fortunate over the years, as my work with ElectronicScene and ArtistServer has always paid me well.

:)