Eleven years!
Time continues to fly. It has now been eleven years since I first created my website Rarebird’s Rock and Roll Rarity Reviews. This is one time when I cannot say that little has changed with the site in the past year. When my old web page service was discontinued by the provider a few months ago, I moved the site to its new domain at rarebird9.net . It’s something I probably should have done a long time ago. Besides having an address that is easier to remember (and, in this day and age, easier to Tweet), I am now provided with more detailed information about the traffic that comes to my site. If I went by the external counter on my home page – which I have been going by for nearly six years – I would think that only 1 or 2 people visited the site each day. According to my web provider’s stats, the site is actually used by more than 30 unique visitors each day, and that includes the home page. Apparently, many types of hits do not register on the Amazing Counters counter.
Much has changed since 1999, including the music industry. Eleven years ago, music was primarily something that people purchased on a CD, or (to a lesser extent at that point) a cassette or LP. Notwithstanding the current vinyl resurgence, music is fast becoming something that we download instead. Some people, including Sir Richard Branson, are predicting an end to in-store music sales in the near future.
Thus, it is becoming less easy to define a “rare” or “out of print” album than it was when I first created the site. Many songs and albums which are no longer sold in physical form are still available as legal downloads from Amazon.com and iTunes. Such albums can still be classified as “out of print”, but can we really consider them to be “rare” if you don’t need to leave your computer in order to purchase them?
And, if the distribution of music in physical media really does become obsolete, does that mean that every album will technically be out of print? Personally, I’m dreading the thought of a future without album cover art and liner notes. I guess I’m a dinosaur who takes pride in owning albums instead of just having mp3 files stored in a computer. Seriously, where is the fun in that?
If we really are facing a future such as that, I can’t stop it. But I do intend to keep my website up and running for many years to come, even if we reach a point where the concept of the site stops making sense. Once again, I want to thank everyone who has visited and supported the site in any way over the past 11 years. It has been very encouraging to learn that there are more of you than I thought.
Much has changed since 1999, including the music industry. Eleven years ago, music was primarily something that people purchased on a CD, or (to a lesser extent at that point) a cassette or LP. Notwithstanding the current vinyl resurgence, music is fast becoming something that we download instead. Some people, including Sir Richard Branson, are predicting an end to in-store music sales in the near future.
Thus, it is becoming less easy to define a “rare” or “out of print” album than it was when I first created the site. Many songs and albums which are no longer sold in physical form are still available as legal downloads from Amazon.com and iTunes. Such albums can still be classified as “out of print”, but can we really consider them to be “rare” if you don’t need to leave your computer in order to purchase them?
And, if the distribution of music in physical media really does become obsolete, does that mean that every album will technically be out of print? Personally, I’m dreading the thought of a future without album cover art and liner notes. I guess I’m a dinosaur who takes pride in owning albums instead of just having mp3 files stored in a computer. Seriously, where is the fun in that?
If we really are facing a future such as that, I can’t stop it. But I do intend to keep my website up and running for many years to come, even if we reach a point where the concept of the site stops making sense. Once again, I want to thank everyone who has visited and supported the site in any way over the past 11 years. It has been very encouraging to learn that there are more of you than I thought.
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