I heard their main circulation base was retail and with so many closures their 2003-4 figure of 9,600 had dropped by over 1000.
My family is almost 8000!

8825 according to abc.org.uk
was 14k a few years back

As I was reading this week's awful Music Week (I can do it in 5 minutes without missing anything of value... or getting anything of value, come to that) and seeing their latest columnist Richard Bloody Boring Fame Academy I Can Be Cowell If I Try Park...

and I thought...

RELEASE dates mean nothing anymore.
CHARTS mean nothing any more.

I need a filter to point me at great music (I had to check hundreds of tips last year before I came across Orson)...

WE NEED A NEW MUSIC MAGAZINE!!!

There used to be a good one, it was called Tipsheet!

It was run by someone who was a bit of a meglomainiac but it always had a great cd full of good music!

Can we have it back please?

You could print it online and have tracks to download instead of producing an expensive magazine/cd?

Meglomaniac? Excuse me, Vince, you were FAR more respectful in the old days!

But yes, I am considering an updated version... just working out what is needed as opposed to what everyone has done in the past (including me).

It needs to be radically modern in this high tech universe.

I don't think anyone has done collaborative filtering right yet. (That's like Amazon's "people who bought this also bought..." and those more recent web radio sites use a version of it.)

At the end of the day... I think there must be a Google-type collab. filter solution that's simple. Nobody's thought of it yet though...

Yes; it needs a very, very simple and easy way to share the very few sounds worth considering.
That's why the Tipsheet worked so well.
Subscribers knew that there was a very good chance they would hear potential future global smashes on the free CD.
Times have changed.
I listened to literally hundreds of bands and acts before I stumbled upon Orson. My ears and patience were getting tired... fortunately for Orson, not that tired (though if their new single had been the track I'd heard I'd have dumped them with the other 187 rejections... a lesson to be learned by other aspiring acts... put your best music in the first 60 seconds of the first track I hear or you'll be passed over).
Also, I believe a new Tipsheet would need to cover a much bigger area than music. Changing times means it is no longer the centre of people's interest.

Thinking about this one... There are some interesting ways of rating, like this (not music):

www.halfbakery.com/

...and many others of course.

The weakness of the big automatic engines like Audioscrobbler is they can be rigged, and the 'members' or 'sources' are too loosely organised.

Although it's tempting to look for a technology solution maybe we'll come back to the old traditional filters... which are basically reputations and brands... where trusted individuals do the legwork.

Sites that ask members for opinions don't really work.
Whilst it's nice to have subscribers or members of the public contribute their tips (as we did in the Tip Sheet), the VITAL part is the selection/filter process.
The reason why the two Tip Sheet spinoffs (ROTD and HITsheet) haven't really worked is that they concentrate on other areas and their tips, which sometimes are right, only come up good as often as anyone else's tips would - and thus have no influence.
The strength of our tips, filtered through my personal taste meter, is that a big percentage of the tiny selection DO go on to be huge - from Tubthumping to Who Let... to Orson.
Very few tips; very high ratio of success.
That's what a new Tipsheet will need to accomodate.

as Editor of the music industry "bible".
Oh Lord, Save Us From This Crap Magazine.

sorry to burst your bubble but both ROTD and the Hit Sheet are very successful and going from strength to strength...Not running up the

I'm very pleased that you, Scaife, Little Joe and the others are continuing along your own paths and I'm sure the business is better with you than without you.
But neither of you are changing the world that much, I'm sure you'd admit.
We need something that takes the global industry by the scruff of the neck and gives it a good shake.

Please start a better music mag JK it is so needed... I work at a major label and I remember the buzz that used to go round when a Tip Sheet arrived

It's funny how the strength's the of Tipsheet hasn't been replicated by one person...

ROTD has predicted and championed loads of hits and has an excellent messageboard, full of people who know what they are talking about plus me!

Whilst Hitsheet has, erm, a cd but that's it! Nobody posts on their messageboard and their dubious claims to hits only prove if you throw enough darts you will eventually hit the bullseye! Plus an owner with a misplaced ego which makes JK's look miniscule!

I'm looking forward to the future now!