Macmusic, The End Of The Adventure Options

[Francois Déchery]

We may be spoiling your day with the news that has been spoiling ours for quite some time : MacMusic will most probably not be able to continue anymore. Attempts to finance it through advertisements have failed and plans are to close the site in February.

MacMusic in the past...
MacMusic has been thriving for five years thanks to the ongoing dedication of Soif, its founder who was gradually joined by a group of enthusiastic volunteers, known as "the Team".
MacMusic's success -10,000 visits per day - may be forcing the site to close down. The technical and practical means necessary to have a continually accessible and updated tool represent an investment that can no longer be supported, particularly financially speaking. Server, host, contents management, etc. all involve ever growing expenditures of money and time, that are no longer within the team's realm of possibility.

Hopes for the future...
Over the past few weeks, the team has been working on finding a solution that corresponds to the spirit of community underpinning YOUR site. We hope to work out within the next 10 days a proposition that we believe will retain the attention of all those who hope that MacMusic will not just become a good memory...

In this regard we need to know: what do you think about it ?
Your feedback is needed!


The MacMusic Team

[lepetitmartien]

We know that 60€/$ can be too much for some people (including me in my present situation, believe me), but if enough people are paying each this toll, we can keep the access to the site free. It is meant as a volontary contribution. We are securing the ways paiement could be made, we'll tell you when we'll know how exactly.

The "how much money do we need?" question, I would have liked that someone have asked. I will answer anyway:

We are now just over 8 000 members
We have about 10 000 sessions each day (someone comes and browses, if he comes back later, it's a different session)
Our bandwith needs are multiplied by 5 each year
We are already using the services of a professional server in the USA.

To continue over 2003 we need: (it's in French Francs, it'll be in €/$ at the end, sorry)

- Server 24 000
- Domain names 1 000
- expenses 15 000
- webmaster (Soif) 192 000 (more on this bellow)

subtotal: 232 000 /year which is 35595 €/$

To cover server failures, the next attack from Venus, and the 10% we'll be taxed to have the money

==> about 40 000 €/$ for 2003 (262 382 F)

Why do we need to pay Soif?

Well, he's making right now all the coding that make MM rolling, he monitors the server (even reactivating it every 5 mn like last week end) etc. He payed all the costs until now (25 000 F the last 2 years) and because he's working on MM 26 hours on 24, he doesn't even have time to do his real job (sound designer/engineer). If we want the site to go on next year, Soif must be payed (it'll give him a 1500 €/$ monthly salary which is reasonable) or he'll simply have to work and no MM running then.

Now you have a picture of the budget we face.
If you have any questions?