[brandondrury]

Issues With "Damn" Foreigners:
Worst case, I can substitute it with a gift card to our members in Australia, UK, Latvia,or wherever can actually use. Somebody sells stuff to somewhere. I'll figure something out.

Accepting Cash
I could do Paypal. Depending on what I do with my book I may be accepting credit cards right here on Recording Review. A person could even mail me money if the raffle went on long enough.

Legal Issues
Apparently raffles are illegal. So this is a donation prize. It is NOT a raffle. All other aspects of the non-raffle donation are the same.

Advertising / Sponsors
The ultimate goal for RecordingReview.com is to be in a position where we could have true site sponsors and not just Musiciansfriend and not just Google Ads. I'm talking about much more targetted solutions. I mean that the goal has always been for Presonus to slap their Firepod image throughout the Home Recording Soundcard Wizard pushing their individual products throughout each step of the Wizard and then maybe highlighting their audio interfaces with a special color or something.

I guess the biggest reason I haven't pursued this is time. Lately, as RecordingReview.com has grown, it's becoming increasingly clear that I should dedicate all my work time to my recording studio and RecordingReview.com. I shouldn't bother with freelance web design gigs and things of that sort. This frees up much more time for me to really run RecordingReview.com as I see fit and grow it accordingly.

Expanding RecordingReview.com is a big deal. I've got a zillion things I want to do. I want users to have profiles that are a combination of Myspace and Soundclick that can be instantly added to the Recording Reviews forum. I want to a rewards system where users get points for being active and I give kickbacks of some kind. I've put a lot of thought into mixing contests. I've put thought into a band marketing contest. I still haven't entered all products into my new Review system. You get the idea.

Of course, I've been hard at work on my home recording book. I'm not a huge fans of phones and selling. I don't like asking for things! I'm too damn independent.

Also, some of the site hasn't been up to my standards. Since moving to the new server, I've been hard at work really cleaning up the site and making it the kind of "professional" site that I've always wanted. These are relatively small things, but I always had to debate between helping a new guy on the forum with a problem and fixing a problem with a broken link. I almost always put the guy with the problem first. There are sometimes days where I don't post for days at a time simply because I'm busting my tail fixing some aspect of the site or working on my home recording book.

The Non-Raffle Donation - Short Term
This Non-raffle, 50/50 donation thingy was not really intended to be a long term solution. It was designed to take care of the hosting bills while I figured out ways to make RecordingReview.com sustain itself. If I could get multiple months paid for, that's multiple months I don't have to think about it paying the bills and I can instead focus on the book!


Don't feel like Stalin
Why not? Maybe I am!

I thought I'd already asked this, but I guess not... what is compelling you to use a $200 a month service? Companies like Bluehost offer UNLIMITED hosting space and UNLIMITED bandwidth for $7 a month.
The answer to this question has a few issues.

#1 Technically speaking no web host can REALLY offer unlimited hosting space because that company can only own so many hard drives. No company can REALLY give truly unlimited bandwidth because they have a limited amount of bandwidth themselves. Hosting companies that make these claims are typically new and haven't had this feature abused.

#2 The thing they do not mention much on the front page of hosting company websites is CPU power. This forum uses TONS of CPU power. Forums are known for being very hard on CPUs for whatever reason. At Lunarpages I was allowed 2% of their server's CPU (based on my crappy understanding of this). They booted me when I started using 100%.

RecordingReview's RAM usage was WAY up there too. We were allowed a wuess amount of RAM. I was using up WAY WAY WAY more than I was allotted.

#3 If a $7 service could really do everything, Google or Amazon would just use a $7 server. That's ridiculous, but it starts making you wonder why they need monstrous hosting solutions for their sites. A $7/month service is totally acceptable for most websites out there.

I'm from the UK... (as are most of the worlds best musicians!!!! lol... Only joking my US friends)

Actually, the UK is WAY more known for female endowment in the US than your stupid musicians (minus The Beatles, Led Zepellin, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, and about 10,000,000 others).

Brits and Americans... they think its all about them.

I've been starting a new marketing campaign. Anytime a Canadian does something I just say "you can't trust Canadians". We'll see if it takes hold. You may be seeing a bunch of American troops up north with oil trucks right behind them. Someone asked me what I have against Canadians. Nothing. I've just decided to spread my new "you can't trust Canadians" slogan.