My name is Jody Whitesides. I'm a non-signed musician with a bunch of really good music. I was born a few years back in a city called New York. My parents moved our family to a small town in Utah where I spent a good deal of time. I used to ski avidly, race BMX, race RC Cars, and attended a bunch of school. Eventually I graduated from University and moved away from home to pursue a dream. I now reside in Los Angeles where I make a living as a full-time musician. Wanna see/hear/know more about me, then visit www.jodywhitesides.com.
First and foremost the idea is to help advertise the music you created (if you're a musician). Otherwise its a way for music consumers to find music they most likely have never heard of. I won't discriminate as to what music is advertised here, but I will limit it strictly to musicians and their music. While the idea may be odd, I assure you it's not a farce. In fact, I bet it will help you hear more new music in less time, with a very random sampling of styles & genres, much like your iPod or other MP3 type player or even Jack FM.
For those buying the space, I'm simply selling digital ad space for a one-time fee and you and I should have no issue with it. I believe it will help all those involved.
3. What will you do with the money?
To begin, the initial money will go to pay for the webhosting, the time it took to create the site and to help promote it properly - so you get maximum benefit from it. Then I will begin paying off some debt I ran up recording and reproducing my CD known as "Practical Insanity", video's I shot for promotion, paying off my tour bus and tour costs, until my CD is breaking even on its own sales. Then I may want to help myself pay down some of my mortgage and return some huge favors to my parents who are very cool people. After that I will probably treat myself to a new computer. Once I get past that I will probably start a trust fund for a music festival that I helped create called MusicSlam. This is if I surpass my goal of all those costs and start reaching $1 million dollars (I say that with my pinky finger up at the corner of my mouth and in my best impersonation of Dr. Evil from Austin Powers).
I'm not gonna lie, I borrowed the idea from a guy out of the UK (I love England). However, it's not just from him, in fact there was a young woman a few years back that started a website simply asking for donations to help her pay her debt. The scary thing is - people gave her money just to help her get out of debt and I don't think she gave anything in return. With the guy from the UK, Alex Tew, he decided to take the concept of 'adspace' on websites to the extreme. He's essentially selling individual pixels in blocks of 10x10 or larger - to anyone willing. My twist on this idea is that since most CD covers are perfectly proportioned for squares, and I want to help promote music in general, I decided it would be cool to sell pixel space strictly for CD's and music from artists looking to be found. Hence the name Hunting For Music. Which is what you can do very easily here.
Unlike Alex who's goal is 1 million pixels and money for his University education. I will keep going with this for as long as people continue purchasing space. The current area is mapped out at 1000x1000 pixels, but if I fill that up I will extend it height-wise to whatever is needed. Alex came up with a great idea and is aware that people would borrow it. I'm going for the same concept with a musical vision. Plus I'd like to help out musicians with the money in the long run. Besides, I spend way to much time being original in my music and its tough to always reinvent the wheel everytime I do something. This is one of those few times that I'll be borrowing heavily on an idea, and it's a great idea at that.
5. Why should I get ad space here?
The main reason is that you will have your image and a link to the website or webpage of your choice. Even cooler is this: want to get space for just one of your songs and link it to iTunes or your favorite digital download site (i.e. Rhapsody, Napster, Yahoomusic, etc) that does weblinking? You can. It can be here on this homepage that will eventually be seen by many millions of web surfers. Plus, when you purchase your musical ad space, it's yours for as long as the site stays alive - for the one time fee up front, that's it, nothing more to spend. Think of it as a permanent image ad for your music.
I will keep this site up for at least 10 years, as long as possible or, or until the web collapses and changes to the web part two or something. If that happens, I'll do what I can to switch it over to the new system at no extra charge to you. Most likely it will be around for as long as you're music is for sale or longer. The real goal is to leave it up forever.
7. Why is there a minimum requirement?
I'm essentially borrowing Alex Tew's idea here. While its neat idea to just buy one pixel, it would be largely impossible for someone browsing here on the page to get their mouse on a single pixel efficiently. Not to mention, I highly doubt that you could represent your music with a single pixel. Thus it would be pointless to you and only benefit me, not what I want to have happen here. In addition, and I have to agree with Alex on this, the page would look absolutely ridiculous.
The page will likely be more beneficial to you and to those coming to hunt for music if they can see images that make some sort of sense. Thus I'll stick with a 10x10 block as the smallest block of pixels that you can get which equals $100. An easy amount for non-signed musicians to come up with to help sell their music. Besides if you want to get a bigger block and can get several musician's to pool their money together to get a larger block, you can. But the minimum space of 10x10 isn't going to change.
8. If you want money, why not get a job?
Its less about the money (or work) and really more about being a creative nutcase. While I'm handy with tools, working around the house, working on cars, even programming stuff on computers, I prefer to create and make money off of those creations, especially music. Though I do make money off of my music, I still haven't quite reached the world wide audience I need to retire to the bahamas where I can do nothing for the rest of my life. I think the idea of Hunt For Music is cool and eventually I can expand this website to do more than just being a single page of ads, meaning this could benefit you in other ways further down the road for no additional cost. I can't do that extra stuff for free and I have a real desire to pay someone else make the bigger idea happen. I wouldn't dream of asking someone to work on this site to create those benefits for free and I don't think you should either. Besides I work my ass off on my music, like you probably do with yours. Seriously, I do. 'Cause that's what it's all about, getting your music out to people.