Happy One Year!
The Crucial Tracks app is one year old today. Here's a look back at the last year, what I've learned, and what we've accomplished.
Look at that! The Crucial Tracks app is one year old today. šš
Itās been quite a ride. I honestly still canāt believe itā¦ Iām so glad I took the leap and made this idea a reality. Itās been so eye opening for me ā to see how music plays a part in so many peopleās lives and how many people love music just as much as I do. I still read every community post and do a fair share of discovering new music from the feed. Itās definitely a benefit of going the āslow socialā routeā¦ the feed is still pretty slow and manageable, even with a few hundred members.
Speaking of growth, weāre still growing pretty slowlyā¦ the site has consistently averaged about 1 new member per day over the last year. Posting has picked up a bit though, as we just passed our 7,000 song on Crucial Tracks. Amazingly, 91% of those songs are unique to the site!
That fact shows us that while we all connect through music as an art form, the SONG is where the individual experience happensā¦ our unique individual experience with a piece of music builds those memories and feelings and empathy for each of us, but itās the overall experience with music that we can all relate to through these posts. The song may be different but the experience is similar enough, allowing me as the reader to easily relate to anotherās humanity. Itās exactly the kind of experience we need today, with society so easily divided by corporate social media, the billionaires, and our governments.
The coolest part is this universal experience applies to everywhere our members call homeā¦ not just inside the US, but Mexico, Canada, England, Germany, Ireland, France, Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Kyrgyzstan, and many many other places around the globe. I LOVE to log on to NeatStats as see all of the flags representing our members. That is certainly something I didnāt expect with this site!
Beyond learning that weāre on the right track, Iāve learned quite a bit about building, managing, and growing a site. Like how painful DNS changes can be when people actually care about something at the other end, or the downstream effects of simple changes ā especially when other services are integrated (hello EchoFeed users and email reminder recipients!), or the lessons learned from deploying on a Friday night! š¬š
I canāt promise I wonāt make more mistakes, but I do promise that I will continue to put my heart and soul into this project and try to build the best music community I canā¦ and to me that means fessing up to mistakes and problems when they happen and being a genuine and helpful human when folks need help or have ideas.
So, whether you are new to the site or one of our first 100 users, I thank you for checking out the site and taking a chance on this little project. I couldnāt do any of this without you.
Hereās to many more birthdays and more folks discovering our mission to keep humanity alive through music.
ā¤ļøš¤ Jason
PS - if you havenāt been on the site in a while, be sure to check the new homepage and the changelog. The site has evolved quite a bit over the last year, both in design and functionality. If you checked it out in the past and it didnāt quite click, give us another chance!
So, how can I support Crucial Tracks?
I get asked this regularly, so I created a new page on the site to share the various ways: Support Crucial Tracks
The TLDR: tell your friends and get them to sign up, buy merch, or buy me a coffee. Anything helps!
The sites (app and blog) cost me around $400 per year to run at our current size, so any support will help me pay those bills, grow the site, and do fun things for the community.
Help me make Year 2 even better than the firstā¦ š¤
As always, thanks for reading, the support and words of encouragementā¦