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Hi all, it's been awhile since I've posted any news about ArtistServer, so here we go...

1. As you can see, the forums have slowed down again over the holiday season.  This seems to happen every year, and usually picks back up near the end of January.

2. We now host 7,600 mp3s! While we did not get to the 10,000 I was hoping for, we've definately grown this year and have attracted many new artists with great material.

3. WTF is with the Video section at ArtistServer? Well - unfortunately, the situation isn't looking good. I had signed up with VideoEgg to be a site that uses their video hosting services. They have this amazing upload tool that will convert video from files, your cam, even your digital video camera. I have it 'working' in the Admin area, I even added genres/categories, a comment and rating system, send to friend option, and a means to add the videos to your favorites... It's all done.

So what's the problem? The problem, is that I've emailed VideoEgg 3 times now to two different email addresses to request an approval for the integration, and they haven't replied. The video section is 'done' - it's ready to go live - it would take me 2 minutes to turn it on for the public... but, if VideoEgg never replies, the video section can't open.  I'm not sure what their deal is - maybe they changed their policies, maybe they are having troubles staying in business - who knows.  I'm looking for alternate solutions, but so far, nothing out there works like Video Egg (free integration and video hosting). The only services I've found would have a fee, and since ArtistServer doesn't generate enough revenue to cover the audio streaming, I can't afford to add to that and cover the video hosting fees too.  I'm going to try and contact them for another week or two, if nothing comes of it, I'll remove the "Video" button from the site's main menu. I'm sorry this hasn't worked out.

4. What about some good news? Yes! I always have some good news for you :)  As you know, one of my main goals with ArtistServer is to help all of you gain more exposure. I want your music to be heard - I want people to email their friends and point them to your music - I want your music on peoples MP3 players - and... I want your music to be used in places where commercial music has traditionally been used. What I'm getting at hear, is that there's a LOT of music that is licensed for all kinds of productions, including: company demos, commercials, personal videos, wedding videos, presentations, films/videos, flash websites, and more.

Ever since the Creative Commons Licensing options were released on the world, we've had a set of license options which actually 'define' how a piece of work can be used. If you had not noticed, we use Creative Commons Licensing on the music and the photos here at ArtistServer (but you can pick the vague 'copyright' option still). Each of these different license options defines a different type of 'use scenario' - for example - one of them allows for use if you give credit, but you can't use the work in a commercial manner. Another license requires credit, but does allow commercial uses, etc.

So, now we have this big catalog of music - and there's this big population of people who want to use music in their productions - the goal, is to bring both parties together so they can mutally benefit.

We could expect that population to find us by searching at ArtstiServer, and they can, but I'm about to make things MUCH easier for these people... I'm launching a site designed specifically for people who are looking for Creative Commons/Free music to use in their productions. The site is about 2/3 done and is in 'beta' - you can browse to it here: http://www.freemusiclicensing.com/

This is my first site coded/designed in Flex, so it's been a bit of a learning experience :)

The site is not complete - the popup artist info dialog isn't working yet, and the side panel information needs to be added. BUT - the search, streaming and downloading work. Once the site is done, I'll work a bit on the promotion of the site and see if we can get some press.  I'm not sure when the site will be 100% done, as I'm having to learn a new language to code the site, but I hope to have it completed next month.

This opportunity is open to everyone - but I hope that if you appreciate this, that you'll consider upgrading your account - we NEED PAYING MEMBERS! ;)

Certainly, the music here is worth money - and it is your choice to make your music available for free use or not. If you are concerned about your music - sign into the site and check your songs and see what license you've selected. When you edit a song, the license 'wizard' is at the bottom of the screen.

Don't be afraid of giving your music away - each song you release becomes an agent working for you - promoting you and your music. If you don't believe this, we can look at it from another angle - several artists from our own community are/were featured on the "Making of the Matrix" DVD - which sold quite a few copies... and each artist was paid something insanely low, like $100 - in the end, what has more value, the exposure, or the $100? Just think if you were one of those artists - and you had decided you wouldn't take less than $250 - you would have missed out on all that exposure. By all means - each deal stands on it's own, and if you 'can' get paid, perfect! If you can't make much but can get exposure... see the value in the exposure.

In closing, I just wanted to say Happy Holidays to all of you, to say thank you to all those who have been with us all these years, and to say welcome to those who have recently started using the site.  

Thank you for being a part of this, and Happy New Years to everyone. :)

- Gideon / ArtistServer Admin


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For those wanting more info on Creative Commons licensing: http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses

ToneThis is a desktop application for delivering personalized and third-party content to your phone. Unlike traditional content stores (ringtones, wallpapers, videos, games), ToneThis sits on your desktop enabling you the freedom to select and personalize your own content for delivery to your cellphone.

ToneThis desktop software allows you to create MP3 ringtones, truetones, realtones, cellphone wallpaper and mobile video ringtones using your CD, MP3, WAV, iTunes, image (JPEG, GIF, BMP), and video (AVI, MPEG) collection. Create an unlimited number of cellphone ringtones, wallpapers, and videos. Access to mobile music, image, and video content. Access to mobile games. Almost all US/Canada/EU/AU carriers supported.

• 400,000+ users
• Both a free and upgrade version
• Windows only
• Most popular 'mobile' download at Download.com
  
• Download ToneThis

For an overview of ToneThis, watch this interview and demo with Raj Singh, founder of ToneThis:

http://www.podtech.net/home/3993/lunchmeet-tonethis-gets-your-media-on-your-cell-phone

When you first see the demo of the software, take note of the right side panel.

ArtistServer has partnered with ToneThis to provide music with Creative Commons licensing and currently loads as the default content provider when you launch ToneThis. The mp3 used in the demo is by an artist on ArtistServer - very cool! Check out the screenshot below:

This is a great opportunity for artists to gain more exposure and take advantage of a great marketing tool - ringtones. We are serving over 110,000 page views to more than 60,000 unique visitors per month within the ToneThis application alone!

Not all songs are available through ToneThis, only those with one of the following Creative Commons licenses:

• Attribution
• Attribution Share Alike
• Attribution Non-Commercial
• Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike
• Public Domain

If you are an artist on ArtistServer, and want your music available on ToneThis, make sure you have selected one of the previous licenses, and make your song available for download. http://www.artistserver.com

The ToneThis panel also provides an 'artist' view, which lists artists who have music with the proper Creative Commons license. Only artists with upgraded accounts are listed.

ArtistServer also supports ToneThis as a ringtone transfer method for the ringtones artists upload with their songs. When using the ToneThis transfer method, the mp3 will first be downloaded to your local copy of ToneThis, then you send it to your phone. While the final download step is similar to what ArtistServer already offers, ToneThis has gone several steps further by providing detailed support for mobile networks around the world, and for 100's of phones.

While I honestly feel ColdFusion is a great platform for Web Applications, it turns out there's some things it's not so great at, one of which is serving of a lot of files, and in my case, it's the streaming and downloading of mp3s. ColdFusion has a max thread count setting, and if you are serving an mp3 file via CFContent (to hide the file's location, and handle tracking it's use), this max number becomes a serious limitation.

This has now become a problem because ArtistServer is seeing more traffic and more listeners, which means more streaming and downloads. We've started hitting that max thread count, and need to move the mp3 streaming and downloading to another solution. My goals for the new solution include:

• High availability – Able to support a large number of simultaneous users
  
• Free – I can't afford to purchase solutions, and I'd like to move more into open source solutions
• Stable – While I am looking for mature solutions, I will try newer options if they look promising, but they need to be stable
• Focus on serving files – If possible, the soltuions will need to be ideal for serving files and supporting byte ranges (ffwd an mp3)
• Can Run on Windows – I'd like to move to linux, but I'm hesitant to change everything at once.

After some research, I decided to try a relatively new Web server called LightTPD and PHP, a Web standard. For the OS, I'll use Windows 2000 Advanced Server. The process takes a few steps, so I thought I'd outline them and post the process so that other's can save time and use this as reference.

From the lighttpd Web site: http://www.lighttpd.net/

lighttpd is used by many well-known sites. The typical scenario is using lighttpd as off-load server to push out static content and leave to complex work to another server. One example is YouTube. They have a farm of servers which push out the thumbnails you see before you see the movies.

Security, speed, compliance, and flexibility--all of these describe LightTPD which is rapidly redefining efficiency of a webserver; as it is designed and optimized for high performance environments. With a small memory footprint compared to other web-servers, effective management of the cpu-load, and advanced feature set (FastCGI, CGI, Auth, Output-Compression, URL-Rewriting and many more) LightTPD is the perfect solution for every server that is suffering load problems. And best of all it's Open Source licensed under the revised BSD license.

light footprint + httpd = LightTPD (pronounced lighty)

For my specific case, I now have a test server setup with lighttPD and PHP, and have started working on a translation of my file serving/streaming/tracking code. Once I have the code up and running, I can start testing on linux server and consider removing Windows from the equation. Making a platform change would provide even better performance and a higher number of concurrent users. Why not do it now? Because I'm new to PHP and don't want to change all the elements at once. After I gain a comfort level with PHP, I can start working with it on linux.

Windows + LightTPD + PHP

1. Install Windows Server: I'm using Win2000 Adv Server. Remove all the items from the installer that you won't need on a server, like games, etc. Uncheck everything that deals with IIS, the mail server, and ftp. I suggest using other options for FTP. I don't know of a mail server to use, so if you must, install Microsoft's mail server.
   
   Once Windows is installed, run Windows update and reboot accordingly. Do this until you finally do not see any more updates. With Win2000 Server, I had to upadate 'Windows Update' then do a few updates, then about 54 updates, then another 9, then a few more... so it takes awhile.
2. Download: Now download all the software you'll need to run the server. In my case, this will include:
   • LigHTTPd for Windows: http://wlmp.dtech.hu/down_lighty.php?lang=en
   • PHP: http://www.php.net/
   • FileZilla Server: http://filezilla-project.org/
   • VNC: http://www.realvnc.com/download.html
   • Notepad ++: http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm
3. Install: VNC Server – for remote access, Notepad++ for editing config files, and FileZilla as your FTP server
4. Install LightTPD: I suggest installing to the root: C:\lighttpd
5. Install PHP: I suggest installing to the root: C:\PHP - during installation, you will be asked to select your server, select 'other CGI' as 'lighttpd' is not a listed option.
   
6. LigHTTPd Configuration – I'm using version: 1.4.18
   • Open the configuration file: C:\LightTPD\conf\lighttpd-inc.conf
   • Uncomment mod-cgi – just delete the '#' in front of it.
   • Uncomment mod-rewrite - same method, unless you don't need it
   • edit "index-file.names" leaving only: "index.php", "index.htm"
   • consider trimming the mimetypes down to what you would be serving
   • edit "static-file.exclude-extensions" - set to ".php" only
   • be sure to create a file for catching errors – uncomment this line after you create the file and save it at the root.: server.error-handler-404 = "/error-handler.php"
   • Uncomment cgi.assign, delete all but php, and add a slash: (".php" => "PHP/php-cgi.exe") to this: (".php" => "/PHP/php-cgi.exe")
   • Set LighTTPD up as a service – first, click on this exe file: C:\LightTPD\bin\Service-Install.exe When I tried this, the registry entries fail, so the next step is to edit the registry and add the keys by hand (or a .reg file). Be sure to replace the lighttpd installation directory with your own. Save the following as a .reg file and double click on it to merge these keys with your registry (if the service installer did not show an error, skip this step):
     Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
     
     [HKEY_Local_Machine\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LightTPD]
     "DisplayName"="LightTPD"
     "Description"="A fast, secure and flexible webserver - WLMP Project"
     "ObjectName"="LocalSystem"
     
     [HKEY_Local_Machine\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LightTPD\Parameters]
     "AppDirectory"="C:\\LightTPD"
     "Application"="lighttpd.exe"
     "AppParameters"="-f conf\\lighttpd-srv.conf -m lib -D"
     
     [HKEY_Local_Machine\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SharedAccess\Parameters\FirewallPolicy\StandardProfile\AuthorizedApplications\List]
     "C:\\LighTTPD\\lighttpd.exe"="C:\\LightTPD\\lighttpd.exe:*:Enabled:LightTPD (WLMP Project)"
   • At this point, you may need to stop/start the lighttpd server service – I use the Computer Management Console – and navigate to the Services icon, then the actual service.
   • In your browser's address bar, type: localhost – you should now see the default index page for lightTPD. If not, possibly the registry keys were not added correctly, or you made a mistake when editing the lightTPD configuration file.
7. PHP Configuration – I'm using version: 5.2.4
   • open the php.ini file: C:\php\php.ini
   • move the upload temp and session directories, and changed their references in the php.ini file:
     upload_tmp_dir="C:\php\upload"
     session.save_path="C:\php\session"
   • locate and set: doc_root ="C:\lighttpd\htdocs"
8. Test the server
   • create a new text file in the web root called index.php
   • type this into it:
     then save
   • in your browser's address bar, type: localhost
   • you should see the php info specs in your browser
9. Alternate Setup: Unfortunately, fastCGI on Windows either doesn't work, or doesn't work very well (at this point in time), which means it won't work with lightTPD. There are many other options for you to tweak and try in the configuration file, my only suggestion is to save a copy of this first version of your configuration file as a backup.
10. Finish:
    • Be sure to setup VNC and install a VNC client on your local PC/MAC if you don't have it already.
    • Setup FileZilla and make sure it's secure. I like to limit FTP access to my office's IP address only.
    • You may want to add a firewall, I like using BlackIce http://blackice.iss.net – but it's a bit expensive. Windows 2000 doesn't come with a Firewall, and you don't want to install one that is designed for a workstation.
    • More Info:
      http://trac.lighttpd.net/trac/
      http://trac.lighttpd.net/trac/wiki/Docs
      http://forum.lighttpd.net/forum/1

This information is offered for free and does not imply any responsibility nor consultation. If you have any questions, I'll do my best to answer, but I think the best thing to do is to post to the lighttpd forums.

Good luck in your developments, I'll post again once I have made some progress.

In the past, I've expressed my views about Alexa.com's data and the Web site stats they make available. While I'm sure they've worked to improve their data processing, and have hopefully dealt with the 'gaming' issues (where people would drive their rank up), I'm still unsure that the data is anything more than a generalized indicator for the Web.  Sites like AdBrite use your Alexa rank as a means to show advertisers your site's worth, and many top bloggers quote these same numbers when talking about sites.  Why? Because it's been around for five years, and it was the only option for such data.

Fortunately, good ideas spread, start-ups come to life, and usually improve the overall market by raising the bar. In the Web stats and comparison market, Alexa was joined by Compete.com (last year?), and we can at least compare data between the two services.

I'll leave it to you to visit compete.com to learn how they get their data. Alexa gets their from their browser toolbars.  Attention Firefox users... Alexa now has a toolbar for you too.

I think the best way to compare data between the two services is to look at a specific collection of sites which are in competition with each other - a single vertical market. Since I run a social music site (ArtistServer.com), I selected to compare my vertical as an example. Below, you'll see a table which lists most of my competitors, there are many more than this, although these are what I consider "music hosting services" that cater to artists/musicians, which is ArtistServer's focus.

Site Ranking Comparison
Site	Compete.com	Alexa.com
MySpace.com	6	6
Last.fm	1,450	284
Soundclick.com	2,319	1,495
PureVolume.com	2,523	2,095
ReverbNation.com	15,864	55,831
GarageBand.com	19,591	27,229
AudioStreet.net	42,638	58,403
AmieStreet.com	54,539	41,000
broadjam.com	62,974	27,471
iacmusic.com	75,778	135,873
Jamendo.com	79,377	19,037
dMusic.com	124,412	115,540
Funender.com	127,294	56,716
ZeBox.com	132,670	198,267
ProjectOpus.com	143,261	210,103
ArtistServer.com	148,780	165,307
MusicV2.com	170,543	92,029
SellaBand.com	194,966	47,262
ArtistLaunch.com	421,813	684,648
Soundlift.com	439,361	379,774
SonicGarden.com	558,929	449,186
Data from: 9/6/07

What do you think? At first it would seems that as you move down in rank, that the numbers would have a greater variance, but that's not the case. The numbers simply jump around - for example, look at ReverbNation or Funender, how is it that their rankings are so different between Alexa and Compete?

I think if we can gain access to a third or fourth dataset from another service, the best thing to do would be to average their rankings together to give us a single ranking.  While the results would continue to just be an 'indicator' and not a real ranking, it might be a step in the right direction.

So - who is going to build the first Web Rank Aggregator? Or does it already exist?

Are you considering HostMySite.com as a Web host for your ColdFusion site?

If you are, please read the following, because you won't find this information out on the the HostMySite.com Website - in particular, this post refers to their "Builder" package.

Two months ago, a new client of mine wanted their site hosted with a 'more established' ISP as opposed to hosting with my current ISP - who is great, very responsive, honest, etc. - but they are small, have less resources, etc. While they aren't 'big,' my host is at a great facility and we have a lot of bandwidth available. I definitely recommend them. HostMySite.com on the other hand... is a company you may want to avoid.

The issues I'm going to cover here came up because I ran into a problem when trying to upload a 1.2mb zip file using a very simple file upload script. The upload failed, so I checked my code - no problems there - then I run though some tests and find that smaller files 'do' upload. I found the largest file that would upload was 550k - anything larger, and the server would not respond. No error message... just no response at all.

After wasting 30 minutes trying to find the problem, I contacted their support team over chat.

My description of the problem was not enough - the staff at HostMySite would not do anything unless I would give him the URL so he could see the issue happen for himself. My question to him was, "How many sites are you placing on each server?" Over the period of 30min that we were on chat, I asked the same question 5 times - finally, asking, "Why will you not tell me how many sites are on that server?" then backing up my request with the following, "This is key information for me as a customer - I need to know how overloaded this server is that you have us on." He replied that it's not their policy - in other words, they do not feel it is important to let their customers know what they are paying for. Here is a direct quote from Julius F., the second support person who responded by email:

We are not allowed to disclose how many sites are assigned to each server however I can say we do allocate a set number of sites based on the specifications of the server and each configuration has been time/stress tested before it is deployed as a production server.

Interesting wording... they are not "allowed." What are they afraid of?

Another thing to point out here... this stress test they do... doesn't mean much when you place the same number of applications and users on a box who are amateur developers. Although, they do have a 'safety measure' in place, which brings us to the second issue with HostMySite.com that you should know about.

"All ColdFusion processes must complete in under 50 seconds. If a process takes 50 seconds or longer, the process gets cancelled."

• This is not written on their site.
• This is not listed as a feature of their hosting packages.
• This is not listed in the Admin area where you manage your site.
• Apparently, not even the general support staff know about this limitation.
• If they kill off your processes, they don't inform you - you would have to discover that it is happening either on your own or if you are lucky, a user would inform you
  

The support person I was chatting with had no idea this was put in place. He hit our site, tried the form, and uploaded a 10mb file (he's on the same network) with no problem. I then had to waste another 30 minutes doing more tests, uploading files from remote servers, etc. In the end - the support person said they would respond to me in email once they figured it out. Here's the email:

HostMySite.com Support:
The timeout error that you are receiving is from a program that we run on our ColdFusion servers called SeeFusion. It is set to kill any cf process that runs longer then 50 seconds. SeeFusion was implemented to increase the stability of our ColdFusion servers, which it has done. The only way to avoid this timeout on a shared server would be to use a different method of uploading, like ASPupload. Alternately, you could go to a VPS.

If you have any other questions feel free to contact us.

I wrote back, and explained that what they were doing was enforcing a limitation on my hosting package that I was never told existed. If I would have known this before I signed my client up, I would most likely have selected a different host. While you may not agree with me, I tend to feel that HostMySite.com is misleading customers. I also told them that this is a "feature" of the hosting package, and that they need to list it on the package page: http://www.hostmysite.com/hosting/builder/ - as you can imagine... they probably don't put it there because it will not help with sales.

What do you think? Is not telling a customer about a limitation of a service the same thing as lying about what you've sold a customer? Would you be happy if you bought a car, and then find that it could only go 60mph for 50 seconds before the engine would turn off?

HostMySite.com - I thought you were going to be a great host, instead, I'm quite disappointed at your lack of openness with customers about the number of sites per server, and the lack of informing customers what you've really sold them. I will not set another client up on your service and will continue to tell others to look elsewhere until your policy changes.

What am I going to do? Well, we are past the 30 day money back guarantee and the client already paid for the first year - so it looks like I have to create a hybrid solution for them that uses ASPupload for all the file uploads. Hopefully I can integrate it without having to spend much time in ASP rewriting portions of my application. Thanks HostMySite - I was almost done with this project - now you've added more work AND wasted an afternoon spent discovering your 'features.'

How about you? Do you host a site there? Did you know of these issues? Are you experiencing any other problems with HostMySite.com?