Side-Line is back!

As you all have been able to witness, the old Side-Line servers have finally given up on us after 12 years of loyal service. A move had been planned already and we were already preparing the relaunch of the site, but the server issues pushed us to speed things up quite a bit (read: we haven’t slept a lot in the past week). I canceled my holiday, and returned to Belgium to work out an emergency plan which consisted in speeding up the work on the new layout, and create a technical roadmap for the data restoration which was not easy with a server which literally went up into flames. Without the aid of Warren Harrison, who has also been sacrificing all of his free time to complete the move, this would have been impossible. Warren has been on our side since 2003 and has helped us swim through rough waters before, but this was literally a digital sh*tstorm.

As you can see the new site design (a hint to our original design colours from 1999) is much clearer and easier to read. The design is also responsive and is easily browsable via smartphones and tablets, which should make you forget the iOS/Android app debacle we had in the past. A hard lesson learned.

While the site is now up and running, we are still tweaking things here and there, more precisely we are working on getting the old database back imported (over 50.000 articles), getting the backlinks in Google back up for a re-indexation and further adapting the software to fit our demands. But first things first and that is NEWS!

On a side-note, it’s been a pretty bad 2 weeks for everyone into (80s) electropop news. Not only did our servers go down for way too long, Slicing Up Eyeballs founder Matt Sebastian announced that he stops with his website. Pretty sad because the site was the best in its genre celebrating the 80s. It goes without saying that music blogging is not an easy way to earn money plus it often is very little respected. Our music news often gets ripped by the mainstream press, advertising income is pretty low to unexistent and some (a minority fortunately) of the readers and artists can be extremely demanding / unappreciative despite all of us doing this for free and out of passion for the music we write about. There, we have said it.

We want to thank those artists that have agreed to spread our relaunch and those readers who have contacted us to express their support, it’s for you guys that the Side-Line staff has decided to continue. Coming up next is the launch of the “Face The Beat 2” compilation, which has been delayed due to the problems we had with our servers.

Since you’re here …

… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading Side-Line Magazine than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. And unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can. So you can see why we need to ask for your help.

Side-Line’s independent journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we want to push the artists we like and who are equally fighting to survive.

If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps fund it, our future would be much more secure. For as little as 5 US$, you can support Side-Line Magazine – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.

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