Sunday, December 23, 2007
My first Christmas that ever ment anything.
I noticed that the website for my little borthers band was available. So whoever was in charge of that let it expire. There was no way I was going to let some low life scammer take over my little brothers website! So I reserved it right away. I then put a notice on the site that I wanted to get in touch with any of my little brothers old friends, his mother, and any of his old band mates to make this a memorial site to him and his music. A friend of his named Matt called me and gave me my step moms phone number. I now owe Matt big time!
I had not talked to her in years, so I had no idea how she would react to me wanting to get in touch with her. It was one of the scariest calls I have ever made, but I made it this weekend. I got voice mail and left a message. This morning she called me and we now are in total contact. I can't thank you enough Matt. Because of you, James's mother and me are making plans to get the music of Blew Fluid out to the public bigger then ever. I will be calling on you to orginize the contributions of his friends. If all of us work together on this we can make a memorial website better then anyone has ever seen!
Christmas has never ment much to me...until now!
Sunday, December 16, 2007
This is why the music industry is dying!
So here is another reason why the music industry is dying. Just a few minutes ago I was talking to a music industry contact of mine. I told him that his company should have an RSS feed for their press releases. His response? He had no idea what an RSS feed was. Never even heard of such a thing. Now for the part that will sadly not shock anyone. He is not even close to the only one I have run into that have never heard of an RSS feed. Imagine you are a press agent. You want to get news about your artists faster than the competition. How about an automated system that blogs and websites across the internet can use to automatically post your news? I could be sleeping soundly, the press agent posts a press release to their site (as many do). This goes through the RSS feed and presto, we have that news on my site. I didn’t even have to wake up and my site was just updated with very current info straight from the source. This is one of the many tools that could save the music industry, but they are so damn slow adopting new technologies that it is literally killing them! I feel like I am banging my head against the wall with these people sometimes just trying to get them to use tools that would help them more then it would even help me! Again, if you are one of my contacts and think you inspired this rant, you are…along with every single one of my other contacts. Not one of you have an RSS feed and that is just retarded.
About six months ago one of my favorite labels to deal with had this major priority release. It was a band I totally loved and was excited about. Because it was a priority release, the label was worried about people leaking the promo to the internet. Now that is totally understandable. The way they went about keeping it off the internet was not. They used XCP! You do remember XCP don’t you? Ask the people at Sony about it. It ended up costing them a ton of money because they ended up with a massive lawsuit over it. It destroyed systems left and right. So fast forward a few years and this otherwise really cool independent label uses it for the priority release of a really great band. It was pure hell trying to explain to them why I would never put this cd into my system. Their response? “Can you give it to one of your other writers and have them cover it?” Yeah, my writers love it when I tell them to destroy their systems.
Now there are a few labels that are getting smart. One of them used the infamous Bit Torrent and
So some people in the music industry are getting smart. Others are dying quick! Which one are you?
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
SEO blogs, Marketing Blogs, and unfair witch hunts oh my!
Now let me make this clear, I have no problem with SEO journalists. I have learned much from those that have put tons of time into great articles full of information. Marketing bloggers are the same way. In fact my favorite Marketing blog is from the same person who is in charge of selling ads on my two biggest sites. Both www.HeavyAsHell.com & www.RockMyMonkey.com sell our most prime ad spots through a company called www.FixionMedia.com run by a guy named Rob Cotter. Rob has his marketing blog at www.CotterCity.com. So my ad rep is a marketing blogger. What puts him above the rest? He sell’s ads all day long. He has sold millions of dollars worth of ads in just a few years. Most of the marketing bloggers have never sold an ad a day in their pathetic life. If they know so much about marketing, why do they have google ads on their site? Google ads make webmasters less money then pretty much any ad network online! It is the bottom level place to go for ads. They accept pretty much anyone. I’ll stick with Cotter City thanks. I know he has real information and isn’t just talking out his ass!
So how do we separate the good guys from the worthless scum that make the rest of us look bad? With the marketing bloggers, see what kind of ads they use. If they just use Google ads they probably know nothing about marketing. Who do they work for and have you ever heard of the company? If they just use blogger (like I do), Word Press (like my wife), or some other service that hosts the entire site, be suspicious. Look to see what it says in the “About Me” page. Do a Google search on the companies they work for. See how those companies rank on Alexa.com. Now I am not saying that any one of these things means they are bottom feeders. Just a guide. Remember that a great majority of them are a waste of your time and can be trusted about as much as those who send spam and run phishing sites to make money.
With the SEO blogs it is just as easy. Do they do research? Are their posts longer then one paragraph? Do they compile a ton of info from a ton of different sources to make one article? Do you learn something new? Is the info they give timely? Is it ever news worthy? Did they just cut and paste from another site? Again, don’t dismiss a site if they fit just one of these things. This is just a guide. Most of them are worthless scum though. However, it was an SEO blogger that helped me find out that one of my sites was on the Digg autobury. So my goal is to call out the ones who make the good ones look bad.
Now for those who submit their own content to social news sites. I am proud to say that I am one of them! So again, do not go on some witch hunt. Look at what they submit. Do they only submit articles they are connected with? In fact is the majority of what they submit content they are connected with? Are they involved with the site in other ways? DO they vote for stories others submit or just their own? Do they comment on all different kinds of stories or do they just submit their spam and leave?
Now Digg went downhill quick because the Digg users started going on a witch hunt against anyone who even mentioned SEO or marketing. An army started rushing any story with “bury votes” that was submitted by it’s writer. With no thought put to how legitimate the article. I had some exclusive interviews with legendary musicians that were victums of the “Bury Brigade”. So let’s stop the witch hunts and work on ways to separate the good oens from the bad ones. If social news is going to work, we need to go beyond just witch hunts. Mixx seems to be getting over run by the SEO and Marketing blogs right now. Chances are that they have secret groups to ban together. So before Mixx gets the same witch hunt mentality going by it’s user base to save the site from going downhill, we need to look at Digg and ask if the cure is worse then the disease. Then we need to come up with some real solutions.
My idea is to use automation. Make it so you can’t submit links to one site more then two times in a row. Make it so that the system takes away points if you use the word SEO or Marketing on a majority of the articles you link to. Block someone from submissions if they don’t vote on more stories then they submit. Same with comments. Block submissions if they have not commented on more stories then they have submitted. If you have any ideas, I have comments open on this article. I will also watch what is posted when I submit my own article to Mixx. Yeah, I am using irony to drive home an idea that this is not meant to be just a slam against SEO bloggers. Just want judgment to be more fair then it was in the past. Thanks for reading the whole thing. I know it went long, but I have had this stuff building up for a very long time.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Is Google falling apart?
Now I try to post to this blog and it keeps putting black text on black background. I go to the link to change the text color to white and it does nothing. Still black. So no one can read anything I type now unless they highlight it. I go to edit the html and the code seems to be above my head. Not a single hex code to change. So where can I even change the color by hand? Looks like I can't. Good job Google. Looks like Google is pissing me off more and more everyday. I used to be a loyal Google fanboy. Not so much anymore. Get your shit together Google or you will be Alta Vista before too long.
EDIT: I notice my rant about Google sucking shows up just fine. What a great business model they are following.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Lamb Of God wants fans to remix entire "Sacrament" release
read more | digg story
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Fuck Google Ad words
None of this ever happens with anything other then Google. I am starting to wonder why this is? Could this be Google starting to be evil? What would happen if they could make several million websites not able to log into their accounts? What would happen? How much money could Google keep for themselves? It has been made clear that Google is an advertising company. This evil tactic would be a great way to increase profits.
Well, I say fuck Google and fuck Ad words! I am switching to Amazon for my back up advertiser when my ad rep doesn't sell ad space. How much will I loose by just forgetting this account ever existed? Not sure, but at the rate Google pays it might even be a full dollar! Did I mention Google can go fuck themselves? Oh, and yes I know the irony of posting this on a system that Google controls. I hope they see this and maybe they will make it more easy for publishers to log in. It's too late to get me back, but maybe it will help others.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
TERROR Frontman Scott Vogel Discusses Music Downloading
read more | digg story
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
New Video game features voices of Motorhead, Judas Priest, & Black Sabbath!
read more | digg story
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
TOMMY LEE: I Would Never Do A Stupid Show Like 'Rock Of Love'
read more | digg story
W.A.S.P. singer orders security to take cell phones with ability to record!
read more | digg story
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Cannibal Corpse Singer Message to “World of Warcraft” Alliance: “Die.”
read more | digg story
Saturday, October 20, 2007
MINISTRY/KILLING JOKE Bassist PAUL RAVEN Dead At 46
read more | digg story
Guitar god Clapton writes book on survival with "Clapton The Autobiography"
read more | digg story
Friday, October 19, 2007
Digital World The Evolution of Digital Music, Part II
read more | digg story
Appeals court rejects Nugent's suit over canceled concert
read more | digg story
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Spike TV's Scream 2007 To Feature Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne, Rob Zombie
read more | digg story
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Monster In The Machine’s "Savior" Video mocks George Bush's fake cowboy act
read more | digg story
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
A video trying to explain Social book marking to heavy music fans
read more | digg story
Monday, October 15, 2007
Metalocalypse band DETHKLOK Tour Dates Announced
read more | digg story
Monday, October 8, 2007
A new social networking site for fans of Rock, Metal, Punk, & Industrial
read more | digg story
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Is Rock My Monkey on Digg.com's Autobury Secret Blacklist?
Digg.com's Autobury Secret Blacklist...Are you still being banned by automatic burying? ~ PAULA NEAL MOONEY
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
POISON's BRET MICHAELS: 'I'm Above Average - I Measured It'
read more | digg story
Photos of Tommy Lee's new house he just bought for $6,750,000
read more | digg story
Monday, August 27, 2007
Motley Crue guitarist Mick Mars pays $1.46M for a 3,603-square-foot home
read more | digg story
Monday, August 6, 2007
Will SLAYER's Next Album Be Its Last?
read more | digg story
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Suit and tie wearing CEO by day and rabid metal frontman by night
read more | digg story
Friday, August 3, 2007
Tribute to Ted Nugent’s Mom Is Unveiled
read more | digg story
Thursday, August 2, 2007
WARPED TOUR Organizer Apologizes To SHARON OSBOURNE For OZZFEST Remarks
read more | digg story
Thursday, July 26, 2007
WARPED Tour Organizer slams free Ozzfest concept
read more | digg story
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Iron Maiden go DRM free with the help of Burger King!
read more | digg story
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
UN Dispatch responds to Megadeth's new cd United Abominations
read more | digg story
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Small town cafe abuzz with mention in Get Fuzzy comic for vegetarian menu
read more | digg story
Monday, June 18, 2007
Interview with Wes Borland of Black Light Burns (ex-Limp Bizkit)
read more | digg story
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Help Ozzy bite the bat's head!
read more | digg story
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
CHRIS CORNELL Confirmed For Germany's 'Live Earth' Concert
read more | digg story
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
NINE INCH NAILS Frontman Says His Record Company Is Run By 'Thieves'
read more | digg story
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Can you Name That Hair-Metal Band with the faces blurred out?
read more | digg story
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
RIAA Boycott: Congress Introduces "Fair Use" Bill; They're Totally With Us
read more | digg story
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Ten Digg myths that make us more paranoid then the RIAA
So I have been noticing that Digg is starting to get these crazy lynch mobs going more often latley. Crazy witch hunts that make the RIAA look rational. Some blue collar worker that does cabinet finishing for a living was attacked by several people because he uses the “Blog This feature” as well as submits an insane amount of content. Unlike me, Sicc never submits stuff for his own site. So if he got attacked, I have to wonder if I am going to be attacked someday as well. So this is a list of some of the myths that drive the Digg spam paranoia.
- If you submit your own stuff it must be spam.
Granted this is the case most often. However, I think you have to look at a few things beyond that or we end up looking as stupid as the MPAA and their lawsuit happy Gestapo. Well, do they submit stories that have already been submitted by others? Are they copying content from other sites to their blogs so they can get the traffic? When I submit interviews I have an MP3 of the interview. You can hear my voice along with the artist themselves. These are exclusive interviews. When I post stories from my news section, they are from emails sent to me from the band’s press agents most of the time. Sometimes I call one of the band members myself.
- If the content was good enough, someone else would submit it to Digg
Not true. Maybe if it was tech related. Digg has several categories for a reason. I submit music related stories that I wasn’t seeing posted by anyone else. Most of my readers are casual internet users. They don’t spend a tenth of the amount of time on the internet that most Digg users do. They would have never known about Digg if I didn’t send them to the site. Now I have noticed a few of them really getting into it. I think this is more about geeks being threatened by non geeks enjoying Digg.
- Digg is for tech and Geek culture only
This is about as far from the truth as it gets. Sure that is how it started, but Digg is growing. The tech news and geek stories will I am sure always be popular, but Digg is getting more variety no matter if you like it or not. The music and movie industry lost control because they held their grip too tight. I hope we don’t make the same mistake.
- People only submit news to get to the front page.
I have never had a front page, but yet I continue. Why? Because being in the ‘upcoming’ section seems to be slowly gaining me some quality traffic. Instead of the rush of traffic I would get from being promoted, I am getting readers that actually care about the band’s I talk about on my site. If I got to the front page it would probably crash my server and only make money for DuggMirror anyways. Being on the front page might be a little fun, but I am getting better results from being at the top of the Digg music upcoming most popular section.
- To be cool on Digg I should flood the place with submissions like crazy!
Oh dear god this needs to stop. I wish Digg had a limit on how many stories a member could submit for a section of time. Maybe one every five minutes or something. Look what it did for Sicc. This was part of why everyone jumped his ass. Granted, it also helped him get ranked higher, but it also almost got him banned. I say quality over quanity would be better.
- If I Digg you, then you will always Digg me back.
Now this one is mostly true. However, I don’t think anyone is going to Digg stories of someone that goes totally against what they believe in. I removed a Digg friend and won’t Digg any of his stories anymore because I started noticing a theme. A great majority of his stories were racist against the Hispanic population. I also had one guy that was posting bands that I despised. So he was off my list as well. Lastly, if someone started posting stores about how great Dell is they would be Dugg down like crazy by me even if they Dugg my stories. I hate Dell with a major passion and I would never want to do anything that would encourage anyone to buy anything from that horrid company. My point is that most people will end up with Digg friends that submit stories they give a rats ass about. This includes me. Digg me, and I will Digg you back unless I think your stories are unworthy. Isn’t that pretty much what Digg is about anyways?
- If it’s on a blog it must not be the original news source.
One of my favorite news sites is a music site called Blabbermouth. They are indeed a blog. The news done by one guy and he has many years of print journalism before doing his blog. In a very short time he has turned his blog into the number one place to go to for heavy music news. Most blogs are pretty worthless, but to discount them all is even more retarded.
- If your stories don’t hit the front page, you should post better stories.
Better to who? What stories I care about may (or may not) be important to someone else. We all have seen some pretty lame stuff hit the front page. Heck, to be honest I don’t even look at the front of Digg anymore because it is so run by sensationalism. I stick pretty much to upcoming and what my Digg friends submit and Digg.
- SEO blogs are huge companies and drive fancy sports cars
If that was the case, Digg would have ten times the SEO bloggers. The fact is that SEO blogs don’t make as much as they would like you to believe. They get hit and run traffic. For real money you need traffic that sticks around, comes back, saves you as a favorite. SEO sites get none of this. So unless someone is bold and obvious about it, stop with the RIAA styled lynch mobs.
10. There are some topics that will guarantee you a front page story.
So not true. I had a story about the annoying music they use in Battlestar Galactica that never came even close to the front page. I have seen a ton of stories that mention Digg in the title that get about 5 Diggs. I have seen top ten lists that fall faster then jaws at a porn convention. Did I do this to combine a bunch of tricks to get on the front page? No, because I know that people that submit their own stuff are discredited. I did this for the same reason I post anything on any website. I felt a few might enjoy it. If it hits the front page I will be very shocked. This was done for the joy of doing it. People do write because they enjoy it still, right? Can we forget the tricks and start going for quality now? Well, after this hits the front page of course.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
When did Battlestar Galactica go emo?
When the fuck did Battlestar Galactica go emo? Ok, I know some of you are really excited about the premier of the new season, but what the hell is up with the music on the promos they are running into the ground? When the guy whines “It dies again, it dies again” I find myself hoping that the first death on the premier is the pathetic bitch of a ‘singer’ we are being tortured with.
Am I the only one that feels this way? Has BSG gone emo on us? Will this crap stop when the premier is aired? Will we get to see more of the much cooler robotic Cylons this season and less of the boring human Cylons? Oh wait, that is a whole different rant. Sorry. Anyways, who is that band? Can someone tell them to make sure and run the knife ‘down the street’ and not ‘across the road’? The whole thing is making me hate the show before it even airs. Isn’t the goal of a trailer to make you think positive thoughts of a show? Is this how they expect us to get excited about BSG?
Ok, I will probably watch the premier just like everyone else, but is there some way we can let the clueless suits know that we don’t appreciate whiny little bitches crying over our Battlestar Galactica promos? I know! If we get this to the front of Digg and a few other social networking sites the message will be made clear. I will submit this to Digg, but if this pisses you off like it does me please spread the word! Make a stand against whiny little bitches!
Now I know some of you are going to think this a ploy to get a ton of traffic. Before you accuse me of such things, please notice I have no ads. I created this blogger account for the purpose of being able to rant about non music related things without worrying about the hosting, ads, keeping regular updates, or anything else. Just me posting a rant when inspired.
Monday, January 15, 2007
How the TV industry is killing it's self
So I was just noticing that they are going to pit the show 24 against the show Heroes next week. Why would you pit two geek type shows against each other? Are they trying to encourage us to just download all our shows and watch them without commercials? Don’t they need those commercials to pay for the shows production costs? Now in the old world I would have tagged the dead horse known as 24 as beaten and just watched the much more exciting and new Heroes. In the world of things like bit torrent, Juice, & TVrss.net, I just say screw the retarded tv executives. I will just download both of them. I am even getting to the point where I might disconnect my Direct TV. Partly in hopes that I don’t have to see those horridly annoying Hugesnet commercials with that bimbo that tries to win you over by talking down to you. Mostly because I am just tired of the whole TV industry and how out of touch they seem to be.
I know that there is a reason given as to why they pit shows with the same fan base against each other, but their reason just shows how out of touch they are. I was told that it was in some vain hope that they would kill the other show and win all the viewers. Ask the RIAA or the MPAA how that kind of arrogance works out. They may have some information for you TV executives. In the end you either loose half the time, half the audience, or everyone just gets further into downloading everything as I am starting to do more and more often.
Now here is the worst part of this trend the industry is pushing us all into. Many of the shows get the green light because the suits consider the ‘backend’ profits along with the money made from advertising. This means DVD sales. Now if we already have the shows burned to DVD the day they are broadcast, why would we buy the full package? Now for me, I much prefer the full packages to the burned copies of anything. It just looks better on the shelf when company comes over. Plus it seems to stay around longer. The problem is that you have this younger generation that does not think that way. They are being trained by retarded TV executives, ignorant movie studios, and clueless record companies to download everything. They encourage this behavior by making the legal version as inconvenient as possible. As with the other two arms of the entertainment octopus, it is the industry that is teaching these kids to just download it. The legal version is always plagued with DRM and the illegal version is able to be used on all our devices. The illegal version doesn’t have commercials. The illegal version doesn’t make us choose between one show or the other. With the illegal version we can watch both and not take sides in their stupid pissing contest at all. Will they wake up before they destroy themselves? Sadly I doubt it.