Vocalist.org archive


From:  "John Cheshire" <vocalist@c...>
Date:  Sun Nov 24, 2002  1:09 am
Subject:  Re: [vocalist] vocalist.org !!!

> While it is informative, it could easily
> turn commercial or biased - perhaps only because you will need money to pay
> for its hosting!
> The way Marko used to manage vocalist.org was more neutral, IMHO. What if I
> or other Vocalisters give you archives or other stuff that will bring
> traffic to your site, and then we discover that it is more and more about
> "Self Hypnosis" or "Speech Level Singing" or whatever?

Most of the links on vocalist.org have no affiliate arrangement and the
likelihood of the
site earning any significant commission is very slim. If anyone would like to
order 13500
USD worth of sheet music from the site, then that would put me close to
break-even
point, after which all I would need to find is money for the monthly hosting
costs.

To not accept affiliate agreements with products which naturally complement
the site, would, in my opinion be madness. If to "turn commercial" means to
feature
banners unrelated to singing such as ads for swimwear which I have seen
elsewhere -
then vocalist.org will not be "commercial" while it is under my ownership.

I expect vocalist.org to be a hobby which loses money, but not too much. I am an
ex-company director and IT specialist who is now training as a classical
vocalist -
running the vocalist.org website seems to me to be a natural project for me to
take on.

Marko did a fantastic job and may have had a more "neutral" approach, but he was
donating his time and the university donated the server. Donations are nice, but
free and "neutral" donations do not tend to go on forever. Of course, the web
site
vocalist.org did not go on forever as it was. Maybe marko became busy
with a "proper job";
http://www.ltt.de/java-days.2002/helsinki.shtml ????? THE Marko ????

I hope vocalist.org can grow in to a useful free information service for
vocalists
worldwide. It is now only a couple of weeks old. I have managed to
write a couple of articles for the site, but I have not had much time, so there
is
still not much content.

Yes, I will gladly accept contributions for the site. I too want the site to be
more
about "whatever", but I can not just pluck pages full of original content out of
thin air.

John







emusic.com