• 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 long awaited photos area/section of ArtistServer is now open for beta testing. This new area of the site adds features and functionality you find on top photo management and sharing sites like Flickr. Both artists and members on ArtistServer can now upload hi-res digital photos, have the site create multiple sizes, organize their photos by category, tags and photo sets, and more. Anyone signed in at ArtistServer can post comments, and we provide a means for site viewers to grab links to photos for sharing. There's category browsing, tag clouds, Creative Commons license support, and there's even a cool little page layout option which allows you to set what size of photos you want to view when browsing.

http://www.artistserver.com/photos

If you find any bugs, please send me a support email on the site (contact link is at the bottom of every page on artistserver) with info about the error. Like what browser you were using, kind of image file, file size, etc.

I don't have any directions written up yet, so here's an intro to get you started:

To upload a photo - sign in, enter the MyAccount area, then from the menu, click on My Music/Media, then select Photos. You should see 2 columns - the one on the right is the upload form. You'll find some basic directions on the form.

The photos section and tools ONLY supports JPG files. So if you have BMP, GIF, TIFF, PNG, etc., you will need to convert your image before uploading.

Photos can be organized into 'photo sets,' where each photo set has it's own settings.

People can post comments on photos if they are signed in.

The site takes your uploaded photo and generates popular sizes for you to use:

• Icon ( 60 x 60 )
• Thumbnail ( 100 x 75 )
• Small ( 240 x 180 )
• Medium ( 500 x 375 )
• Large ( 640 x 480 )
• Desktop ( 1024 x 768 )
• (orig size) Orig
  

Artists and Members can turn the Photos link on or off in the MyAccount area, under My Site > Settings, which is where you control all settings for your account.

I decided to launch the photos area before I completed all the items on my 'wish list.' The following is what to expect in coming updates to the new Photos area and tools:

• add photos and photo sets to favorites
• ratings filter - to hide content based on a rating
• RSS feeds for photos
• photo carosel - shows icons of photos, allowing you to preview what is 'next'
• additional photo access level: hidden, except for friends
• directions and tips
• Flash slideshows
  

I hope you all have fun with this new addition, and as usual, this update is brought to you at no additional cost.

Help support ArtistServer, and please consider upgrading your account. For artists, it's only $40/yr, and for music fans, it's only $12/yr. If you haven't joined ArtistServer.com, give it a try, there's a lot of great music here, a friendly and supportive community, and a great set of tools/toys to play with.

1. Site Skins Updated - the header bars for song titles, etc now support a background graphic, which is currently a slight bevel. This only applies to the common areas of the site, not artist/member pages. If you are not familiar with what Site Skins are, visit the site and click on the skins button on the top right corner of the site, and select a different skin for the site.
2. Favorites - I updated the favorites widget - it now has a better layout on the listing of items in addition to using people's icons, etc. If you haven't used the favorites tool, you are missing out - by using it, you customize ArtistServer's homepage to meet your needs.
   After you signin to the site, you'll see the favorites widget display on the homepage, if you don't see it there, add something to your favorites, like an artist, playlist, genre or song, then return to the homepage. You can also click on the favorites button at the top of the site and a popup window with your favorites will display - with this, you can take music from ArtistServer with you as you browse the Web.
3. Song page - I fixed the layout on the song page (each song has a song page). In Internet Explorer, the page layout was off a bit and is now cleaned up.
4. My Account Menu - The menu in the My Account area has been condensed so there are no longer any multi-level sub menus. Single pages on artist/member sites were moved under the menu item "Web Pages" - this includes: homepage top and side, Store side, links page, and your contact page.
5. My Account Buttons - all the buttons for view, edit, delete, etc have been updated and should be displaying a 'mouseover' action (image highlights green) for better feedback.
6. Homepage - the site's homepage was rearranged a bit, not too much of a change, but a better use of space. 

I have a few other ArtistServer developments underway including:

• Music Widget - for songs or ringtones
• Tell A Friend - a means for people to tell freinds about the site, a song, an artist, etc
• Photos - yes, I'm still working on the photo sharing system - I found a few bugs today while trying to break it, so I'm still holding off as I beta test it some more. I also decided to leave out a few features for this first release - most importantly, the ability to watch the photos as a slideshow using an RSS feed. I felt it was better to just get it out there instead of making it do EVERYTHING before I release it.

I received a support email yesterday morning for ArtistServer.com. The person was having issues downloading the mp3 files and wanted to save them so he could burn a CD.

I spent a fair amount of time typing up a reply to him and emailed him back within the hour.

This morning, I received a reply, and thank you from him:

Hey Gideon , I did what you told me to do and it's working perfectlly , Thanks a lot for your help and keep up the good work, I just gotta say that artist server is an awsome site which is too good to be true.
Thanx again
Joe

What you just read is what I consider my income or salary from ArtistServer. Since the site doesn't generate enough for me to get paid for the work (which is full time), I've learned to appreciated positive feedback and value it to a high degree, especially when the feedback is from someone I've never met nor exchanged emails with.

Unfortunately, I can't just print that feedback out and send it in with my bills. :)

BTW - I'm looking to pick up some contract work so the bills can be paid, please contact me at http://www.MarkenMedia.com/ if you would like to discuss a project.

ArtistServer.com has always provided a realtime view into the data we track for song streams and downloads. Artists and Bands can select a time range of month or year, select the actual month and year, and click to view. The site would then generate a table of data showing you what kind of activity happend, sorted by date. While this is very useful information, it's not easily digested. Not many people want to look at lists of dates and numbers - they simply want the bottom line, they want to see the spectrum, and they want to see what's hot.

To help make our stats tool more useful to artists and bands, we've JUST launched an upgrade on the site.

Artists, signin to ArtistServer - click on the MyAccount button, then under the "My Account" item in the menu, select "Stats: My Music"

OR if you are already signed in - just click this link:
www.artistserver.com/index.cfm/adminarea/13

Once there, you will see we've added 3 interactive Flash Charts to your stats.

A Pie - A scatter chart - and a line chart.

The pie and scatter chart show you all your songs by 'hit' - which is the total activity for that song. By total activity, the site means: streams, download, lofi streams and ringtone downloads.

The line chart shows you your total activity over time. This chart is totaling up all the activity across all your songs per each day.

Each of these are 'interactive' on ArtistServer - when you move your mouse over them, you see the song names and associated data.

Here are some screenshots of the charts - I have a lot of songs on the site, so your pie may not be as sliced up as this one is.

If you are an artist or in a band, and you want charts and data like this, click on over to ArtistServer and give the site a try, you'll discover what you've been missing.

When you run a business on your own, it's often stated that the business owner must wear a lot of hats. Like most people, I tend to favor the hats that I can wear well, and shy away from the hats I don't wear so well and demand so much attention. You can do this for awhile, but sooner or later, you either need another head for those tricky hats, or you need to grab on and dive in.

Finding the right heads isn't easy, so I recently started wearing the PR/Marketing hat, and have been spending more time considering how to promote what I already have online. People will only listen to you if you are talking, and while I definately have a lot to say, my wife is usually the only one who hears it (thanks for listening my honey!).

Fortunately, some of my initial efforts have created greater opportunities, and the buzz is forming. I have an interview lined up for this Friday, August 4th at 5pm (pacific time) with John Iasiuolo on his site: http://www.computeroutlook.com

There's a link on the top left side of the site for listening to the show live. Once it's done, they'll have the show online for download. Once it's on their site, I'll post again about it.

This show has a chat room, so people can ask questions, etc - unfortunately, it's a bit difficult to use - you can't just jump into their chat, you have to first join their forum - then you can login. They've posted a series of screenshots which show you what you need to do. http://computeroutlook.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=343

Here is the registration page: http://computeroutlook.ipbhost.com/index.php?act=Reg&CODE=00

============

This interview will be a bit different than the one I gave at MusiciansCast.com - this time there will be a co-host who is in a band who will be presenting questions about the site and how it can be used to promote their band and their music.

Tune in if you are around, it should be fun and informative. 5pm Pacific Time - tomorrow night!