Rate Your Music Site Upgrade / Crowdfunding

[phil]

I thought that many on this forum may be interested in the crowdfunding initiative for Rate Your Music.

I know that many on the forums already know about and use the site. For those that don't, it is a fantastic source of information about music releases, and also a great way to find out about new music both through its personalised recommendations (based on your ratings) and the customisable charts based on the user ratings. I find it is often useful and finding releases a little more under the radar too. I find it a great complement to this site in exploring new music, providing more of a guide of what a set of music fans (as opposed to critics) think about different music.

They are getting prepared to do a major update of their site (which will be renamed Sonemic). This will include an improved design, faster servers, more chart options/features, song based features (e.g. Song charts, song-based genre tagging), upgraded recommendations and an API. All in all it should be a better place to continue to find new music. (They are also adding equivalents for movies and games).

To support the upgrade, they have a crowdfunding initiative going at the moment. It is actually most of the way through (in the final week) and they have just reached their initial goal. But it would be even better if they reach some of the stretch goals. The one I'm most interested in is the next one where they would build out dedicated mobile apps and a better API (which would make it easier for programmers to link into the site, opening up lots of different opportunities).

Additionally, there are perks for anyone who supports the crowdfunding. Of most interest (at least to me), you can get a subscription to the new site. Subscribers get a whole lot of extra features on the site.

If you are interested in finding out more and/or donating, there are more details provided on the campaign page here: http://igg.me/at/sonemic/x/12858439