February 19, 2004

• Here's the situation: I know barely enough about webhosting that I can (sorta) maintain a blog, but lately I've been really excited by mp3blogging. I also think that I have access to a (mostly uncopyrighted) collection of music in mp3 format that isn't being posted on the web: namely old blues, jazz, gospel, bluegrass and vintage rnb (with occasional nods towards my own mixed and perverse tastes as well). Here's my circumstances: I'm aware that people who post and advertise mp3's (which i'll want to be doing) have HEAVY traffic by and large and a nod from one of the larger music blog venues (say fluxblog for instance) could send a thousand people by in one day. So what I'm looking for is a way to somehow upload mp3's expecting fairly heavy daily traffic; i REALLY don't want to get nailed with crazy surcharges or shut down right out of the gate. I'll probably be rotating between seven and twelve mp3's a week, so it needs to be able to hold that and the text and photos I like to have on my front page. I'm willing to spend maybe twenty bucks a month or so for the privileges listed above. Bearing in mind that I'm a perman00b and any l33tsp3ak is gonna fly over my head, what would you monkeys recommend that I do, who should i contact and am i in over my head considering this? Thanks in advance.
• Oh and to give you an idea how clueless I am, I HAVE a 1+1 account, but i can't figure out quite how to upload music to it. I'm a putz. Help?
• Executive summary: d00d, you are fux0red. 1000 visitors/day x 5 Meg mp3 ph1l3z = 5Gbytes/day, assuming that they snarf one each, which they won't. No way in Gehenna you're getting that for $20/mo. I would suggest hosting the mp3s themselves on a separate, throttled connection: basically, a separate host connected to your main site by a very skinny pipe. It will be extremely frustrating to your leeching site visitors, much like drinking a chunky milkshake through a skinny straw, but the alternative is hemorrhaging cash on your part. Set up an alternate feed on bittorrent to let motivated users help out, and you should then be good.
• I don't really understand why bandwidth pricing has not changed much since 1998 or 1999. I guess I was too optimistic thinking that infrastructure and technology would outpace the demand for bandwidth.
• Not much help here, sorry. Just a link: Listen to Old Time Music from 78s. I'm sure you're aware of this site, forks, but its pretty amazing anyway, and it sounds like you'd be interested in it. (You could contact whoever runs that site - or one similar - and ask him how he's hosting it as well.) Also, if you do get it up and running, you dman well better post it on the front page - self linking CAN be good. Very good, by the sounds of your (potential) site. Good luck.
• I think the bittorrent idea is great--every week you put a few songs in a torrent file, and seed it...if you've gotten press, there'll be plenty of other people to seed it too, and it takes on a life of its own...post the songlist on your page along with any info about the music or artists, and an upcoming torrent calendar. Then if it works out, when you've gotten thru all of the music, you can start over or take email requests for a specific torrent.
• New idea: I've just had it recommended that I try over at .mac, where I'm told (I think) that bandwidth is a nonissue... that iDisk works as a host for 100mb regardless of traffic. Am i dreaming or is this accurate? The price is 100 for the year or if i could find some friendly macuser to donate their iDisk space to me for hosting... either way it'd be worth it if this is on the up and up. Whattaya think?
• I'll second suggestions on bittorrents, or making them available on the gnutella network if your aim is to get the music out there.
• Well, I guess my aim is both to get the music out there and to discuss it. There is something sorta powertrippy about an mp3 blog isn't there?
• Silence!! *puts headphones back on* (actually with the caveat that you'll hit your limit at some point, http://www.racknine.com/ has 25Gb for $15, 50Gb for $30. - maybe worht for a month or until you start hitting the limit? - you can specify a shutoff for the bandwidth, so you have time to remove the .mp3's availability but still maintain the site)
• I heard about .mac too. I was vaguely thinking about starting an mp3 blog, but then I realised that it needed effort. And one thing that I lack when it comes to websites is effort.
• Petebest: i got a 25 gig racknine account. Will keep you updated on how it works out. Cheers.
• Okay, it's not only up but running. I'd fpp, but i'm already at my limit and then some. Maybe later. Stop on by for a taste and let me know how you like my rather esoteric musical tastes.
• Have you put the link in your profile, forksclove?
• trace yep: i'm running this out of my homepage/blog.
• Excellent site, forks. Good music, good writing, good informtaion. Thanks. Although the David Hasselhoff link is unforgivable, really. Questions: How often are you going to be updating the site, and how long are the mp3's staying up? And also, do you mind if I post this to the front page later tonight (if modesty forbids you from doing so)? It really does deserve a wide audience, and I don't know how many people are still reading down here...
• dng: feel free to post if you'd like. I'd love to get some feedback. I'm planning on updating about three to six times a week, probably mp3's maybe four times a week with two new ones each post; the five I put up were just cuz I needed to jumpstart this puppy. The mp3's will rotate out as soon as they're off the front page (or as bandwidth necessitates), so they'll likely be available for about a week or so. We'll see.