So, as you might already have noticed, the Kickstarter that was initiated a couple of weeks back to help finance Ad Hoc, that website/blog collective/quarterly zine that will launch soon and that we here at NFOP are more than happy to be a part of, is gonna be over in a few days, and at this point we obviously haven't collected enough money to make this thing successful. Now if you are one of the more than 600 backers that have given some money to support us, thank you so much; we really appreciate your help. If not, you might have already thought about it but eventually decided not to donate, which of course is totally legitimate. Still, allow us this one last time to try to get you on our side. Below, you can watch the editors Emilie Friedlander and Ric Leichtung explain once again their purposes and aims with Ad Hoc:
In glancing at the Youtube comment board below the video, there was one comment that particularly struck me:
"I'm still no closer to understanding why AdHoc is $33,000 more deserving than any other music blog ( - nominal print fees). I respect the passion behind the project but feel that asking for such an astronomical amount is arrogant and disrespectful to other music blogs. There are some brilliant blogs on the internet, specializing in all matter of subjects, that didn't require a $30k start-up fee, and just as importantly, didn't ask for it before launch (ie. before proof of quality of content)."
First of all, good point. Of course, there already are brilliant blogs on the web. And they all come for free. So do you "need" some new site like Ad Hoc coming to you and asking for money all of a sudden, moreover, asking for quite a considerable amount of money? No. Still, is it "arrogant and disrespectful" of Ad Hoc to do so? I respectfully disagree.
All the blogs I know (that includes NFOP) put an incredible amount of time and passion into their sites without ever getting anything financially out of it, which is fine because writing about music is what we love to do, and sharing our passion is why we've started in the first place. Still, I think it's not entirely fair if this is taken for granted, just as it's not fair to consider it somehow implicit that artists share their music for free, which is what they do via blogs and the internet in general. Bigger sites, on the other hand, more often than not have some kind of financially strong entity behind them, and still even those are not always able or willing to pay their writers and contributors. Altered Zones did, because the site's financier Pitchfork believes that even in the internet age, this is the way things should be when people work for you, and I agree. Ad Hoc wants to do things differently insofar as even without some solvent backup, the people who put their love and time into the site, in other words who work to provide you, the readers, with the stuff you want to read about and listen to and look at, should be paid. And in order to be able to do so, you're gonna need a considerable amount of money (apart from all the other costs of starting such a website, as explained in detail in the FAQ section of the Kickstarter site). As someone who gets one hundred percent of the information on the music I love from the internet, I do actually think this is worth supporting in itself, and that belief goes well beyond NFOP's involvement in this particular project.
So is Ad Hoc $33,000 more deserving than any other music blog? Certainly not. But maybe you can see it as another approach in seeking a possibility to build something sustainable on the internet. Of course you could ask yourself, "why should I put money in something that I haven't even seen?" It's true, we haven't proven any quality of content yet, but we've told you what we've done before with other things (our blogs, Altered Zones, etc.), and we've told you what our plans are with Ad Hoc. And yes, we've even promised that it's gonna be awesome. Plus, it's not that we don't offer something in return beyond the project itself - just look at the amazing rewards like the compilation or the shirt (by the way that's the artwork for both above, made by the great Jeremy Earl of Woods and Woodsist), or all the other things that are up for grabs.
Speaking of the compilation, Ric and Emilie have posted this wonderful mix on their Soundcloud, which not only includes the three tracks off the fundraiser compilation so far revealed, by How To Dress Well, Beach Fossils, and Grimes with Majical Cloudz, but also a bunch of other tracks that we here at NFOP totally dig, too, as you'll know if you're a reader of this publication:
So in the end, I hope I've been able to convince some of you to help Ad Hoc become the amazing website and music resource we believe it's going to be. Thanks for your time.
- Tonje, Jesse and Henning
So, as you might already have noticed, the Kickstarter that was initiated a couple of weeks back to help finance Ad Hoc, that website/blog collective/quarterly zine that will launch soon and that we here at NFOP are more than happy to be a part of, is gonna be over in a few days, and at this point we obviously haven't collected enough money to make this thing successful. Now if you are one of the more than 600 backers that have given some money to support us, thank you so much; we really appreciate your help. If not, you might have already thought about it but eventually decided not to donate, which of course is totally legitimate. Still, allow us this one last time to try to get you on our side. Below, you can watch the editors Emilie Friedlander and Ric Leichtung explain once again their purposes and aims with Ad Hoc:
In glancing at the Youtube comment board below the video, there was one comment that particularly struck me:
"I'm still no closer to understanding why AdHoc is $33,000 more deserving than any other music blog ( - nominal print fees). I respect the passion behind the project but feel that asking for such an astronomical amount is arrogant and disrespectful to other music blogs. There are some brilliant blogs on the internet, specializing in all matter of subjects, that didn't require a $30k start-up fee, and just as importantly, didn't ask for it before launch (ie. before proof of quality of content)."
First of all, good point. Of course, there already are brilliant blogs on the web. And they all come for free. So do you "need" some new site like Ad Hoc coming to you and asking for money all of a sudden, moreover, asking for quite a considerable amount of money? No. Still, is it "arrogant and disrespectful" of Ad Hoc to do so? I respectfully disagree.
All the blogs I know (that includes NFOP) put an incredible amount of time and passion into their sites without ever getting anything financially out of it, which is fine because writing about music is what we love to do, and sharing our passion is why we've started in the first place. Still, I think it's not entirely fair if this is taken for granted, just as it's not fair to consider it somehow implicit that artists share their music for free, which is what they do via blogs and the internet in general. Bigger sites, on the other hand, more often than not have some kind of financially strong entity behind them, and still even those are not always able or willing to pay their writers and contributors. Altered Zones did, because the site's financier Pitchfork believes that even in the internet age, this is the way things should be when people work for you, and I agree. Ad Hoc wants to do things differently insofar as even without some solvent backup, the people who put their love and time into the site, in other words who work to provide you, the readers, with the stuff you want to read about and listen to and look at, should be paid. And in order to be able to do so, you're gonna need a considerable amount of money (apart from all the other costs of starting such a website, as explained in detail in the FAQ section of the Kickstarter site). As someone who gets one hundred percent of the information on the music I love from the internet, I do actually think this is worth supporting in itself, and that belief goes well beyond NFOP's involvement in this particular project.
So is Ad Hoc $33,000 more deserving than any other music blog? Certainly not. But maybe you can see it as another approach in seeking a possibility to build something sustainable on the internet. Of course you could ask yourself, "why should I put money in something that I haven't even seen?" It's true, we haven't proven any quality of content yet, but we've told you what we've done before with other things (our blogs, Altered Zones, etc.), and we've told you what our plans are with Ad Hoc. And yes, we've even promised that it's gonna be awesome. Plus, it's not that we don't offer something in return beyond the project itself - just look at the amazing rewards like the compilation or the shirt (by the way that's the artwork for both above, made by the great Jeremy Earl of Woods and Woodsist), or all the other things that are up for grabs.
Speaking of the compilation, Ric and Emilie have posted this wonderful mix on their Soundcloud, which not only includes the three tracks off the fundraiser compilation so far revealed, by How To Dress Well, Beach Fossils, and Grimes with Majical Cloudz, but also a bunch of other tracks that we here at NFOP totally dig, too, as you'll know if you're a reader of this publication:
So in the end, I hope I've been able to convince some of you to help Ad Hoc become the amazing website and music resource we believe it's going to be. Thanks for your time.
- Tonje, Jesse and Henning