For Those About to Dock!
… Well, maybe!
After a retweet by @charliehilton of @pigsandplans saying he was moving to WordPress because Google were shutting down blogs, I did a little researching of my own, and it seem they’re right: “Musicblogocide2K10” does indeed seem to be starting. I’m sure there will be no official line from Google on this for a while, but its something well worth keeping an eye on! But the bottom line is, Google/Blogger at the *cough* “request” of the DMCA are out there shutting down MP3 blogs – both of the illegal full album pirate type and the more genuine “citizen journalists too”
My first thought was “Congratulations all you people using blogger to share full LPs – you brought this on yourselves” (And I stick with that!) BUT - and this is a big BUT! (We like big buts and we cannot lie – sorry, I had to write that!) – what about the countless “citizen journalists” out there genuinely reviewing new music, much faster and more effectively than your average Q or Rolling Stone(d) Journo could? Where does this leave those people that emerging bands should be talking with and sharing new tracks, video and news with to build that valuable “direct WITH fan” marketing strategy?
And as the day rolled on, more blogs fell casualty to the takedown shakedown! yes indeed – Blogger is “under the thumb” of one of the big recording indutry companies, or a combination thereof!
So, with that in mind, here’s the absolute basics you need to get your blog the hell off of blogger/blogspot:
1: Move to WordPress hosted (WordPress.com)
Definetely the simplest option – you should be able to import your blogger posts right from within the new WordPress.com account you created.
- The upside – you can be back up and running in a few hours max!
- The downside – you have a storage space allocation on your content, you can’t modify CSS without an upgrade, limited page “widgets” and no plugins (See below!)
Option #2 – get your own WordPress Hosting! (read more at WordPress.org)
This, in our opinion is the way to go. You can get good hosting (basically we recommend anything except godaddy!) for under $5 a month, with your domain name registration thrown in. Now if you’re already pulling in good traffic because your’e a bloody insightfully good writer and reviewer of music that other fans can relate to, then chances are you’re probably pulling in a few $ in ad revenue. Do yourself a favor and invest $5 a month (Thats 1 frickin latte my friends!) in your future as part of what is only going to become an even more valuable service to music fans around the globe.
Most hosts do a 1 click install of wordpress, and from there you can go into the Themes section in the admin backend, and choose a theme you like, and with just a little tweaking you’ll be able to add your custom graphics and style your new MP3 blog to your hearts content. (Or hey, theres a bazillion wordpress experts out there that you can go to to get this service done, yeah, yeah, yeah ourselves included!)
The other great new thing you’ll get, in addition to more control over your own content, is PLUGINS! they’re great – there’s great MP3 player plugins, superb image gallery plugins, plugins to make tagging your blog even easier and finding Creative Commons images to use in your posts, theres plugins that will easily allow you to even sell product of you wish – and best of all, they’re for the most part all free!
And that’s about it in a nutshell! Obviously it’s a little deeper than that, but not a lot! You can certainly get started with WordPress self hosted, use a theme with custom header functionality and pull in an archive of all your old posts in under an hour. how far you want to go with it after that is all down to how serious you are about being part of the music blogging community. Are you just out to share some new tunes with a few people? or do you see yourself as a vital part of the “citizen journalist” movement, supplying personable, well written reviews of the music industry much more timely and organically than the old media guys are doing it? (And people wonder why the RIAA, DMCA people and their lackeys like to shut shit down and sue: it’s not purely about greed or extra revenue, its more about them realizing their marketing models are dying fast, combined with feeling just a teensie bit threatened by “Direct to Fan” marketing and Social Media with that old fashioned corporate failure to adapt fast enough)
And that’s about it for now. Feel free to tweet us @kilted_alex, @kilted_andrew or indeed at our “corporate” account @kiltedchaos, or email us with questions on how to get moving on either WordPress hosted or WordPress self hosted. Sure we’d love to actually build your blog, but already there’s enough people jumping into the Musicblogocide2K10 hashtag smelling a fast buck to be made – we ain’t going out like that. Every time anything trends on Twitter, you can bet there will soon follow the parasites, the ‘experts” the gurus” all smelling money, but we put it simply like this: we’ll give you the FREE information you need if that’s what you want, and sure we won’t shut the door on you if you ask us to work with you on creating a stellarly designed, well tagged blog that will stand out, but thats completely your choice.
The only advice we’ll give to anyone making the leap – You’re not much safer elsewhere if you’re blatantly breaking copyright laws my friends! Stay safe, use material you know is okay to use in your reviews. (Perhaps you could add a quick “fair use” disclaimer link to a subpage with permission from the artists or labels on each post in the “slug” – cover your ass, and look pretty professional while not ruining the flow of your blog to your readership – just an idea.)
What are the implications of Blogger taking down MP3 blogs, well that remains to unfold, and some of that will depend just how long their Blogocide continues. But to those of you, the nameless thousands of great genuine music fans, with a passion to discover, share and review new music to the masses – we salute you and say - KEEP ON KEEPIN’ ON!
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