Celebrating Hypebot’s 9th Anniversary!

(UPDATED) Way back in July of 2004, I wrote Hypebot's first post – Affordable Emailable Electronic Press Kits. In the early days, it didn't matter that almost no one was reading. The original blog was a semi-internal document for the team and artists of our parent company, booking agency Skyline Music, chronicling a music industry reeling from Napster and the digital revolution.

Over time, my vision for Hypebot and its readership grew. But from the beginning, our stance was been mostly hopeful; rooted in a firm belief that as the barriers to create, market and monetize music fell, new opportunities for more artists would open up.

Now, 9 years, 15,000 posts and 12 million pageviews later, the new music industry has still not realized it's full promise. But if you look at the schedules of mid-size venues around the globe, you'll see that it's starting to; with more artists building a fan base of 500,1000, 2500 in each of multiple markets completely without the help of a major label and traditional media.

Along the way, I have many people to thank, including so many writers like Clyde Smith, Natalie Cheng and Hisham Dahud. Bruce Warila deserves a big thank-you for trusting us with MusicThinkTank. Then there are long term sponsors like ReverbNation, SoundExchange, Bandzoogle and others who help keep the lights on.

I also owe a huge debt to Kyle Bylin, who despite being several jobs past his time as Hypebot's Editor, continues to parachute back in regularly with great ideas, even better writing and always thoughtful encouragement.

Of course, the biggest thanks go to our readers, who catch my spelling mistakes, debate passionately in the comments section, tip us off to things worth writing about and spread the Hypebot gospel.

Thank-you all. We're just getting started.