August 3, 2004 Update:
Been in the scene for a while? Check this out!
Spread the word, the re-launch is coming.
Work has begun on the new system. So far, the database has been
re-created and development of the site has started.
February 22, 2002 Update:
The Ravedata project began on January 30, 1996. It was the brainchild of
Matt
Zinicola. The idea was to put into place a unique, real-time,
searchable database that contained all of the pertinent people and events of the global rave scene and allow it to be freely
available. At the time, it
wasn't exactly known whether there was actually a need for such a resource. Hyperreal's GRID clearly wasn't filling the bill.
To determine exactly how much of a need there was,
Matt published
a subset of the information from the ravedata database in the form
of a nationwide info-line directory, entitled 'The Fonebook'. The first issue of the Fonebook contained over 700
promoter phone numbers sorted by state and city. Merely advertising the free Fonebook on several rave related mailing lists generated an
overwhelming
response. So much, in fact, that
Matt ended up
spending over $1,000 on duplication and postage for those
that requested them. Shortly thereafter, a second edition of the Fonebook was published containing over 1,100 numbers and
demand for the book continued to grow.
After graduating from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in May of
1997, Matt
moved to the Philadelphia area and began using his 'spare'
time to design a system to make ravedata available on the world wide web. Combining
Linux, a commercial database server called
SOLID, several thousand lines of
Perl code, and a 180 MHz Pentium Pro PC, ravedata.com began to take shape.
The site received over 1,100 page views its first day and traffic climbed steadily every day thereafter. The next three years
brought about a seemingly endless stream of improvements and added features including weekly live audio streams from (the now
defunct) Club Kaos in Springfield, Massachusetts, a new mixtape/CD in realaudio
posted every day, message boards and
discussion forums, an
OpenNap server for instant peer-to-peer filesharing of dj mixes, an IRC chat server complete with web-based IRC applet
(for those behind firewalls), unprecidented detailed coverage of
rave related news (including new releases, legal issues, gear news and editorials), a ever-growing gallery of on-line flyer art,
an electronic music/rave specific search engine, an ad server tailored to electronic music and club culture, freely
available news syndication and much more.
In September 1999, the site was receiving so much traffic that a new database server (Sybase
ASE) had to be implemented and a new
Dell Poweredge server ($8,600) was
purchased. Shortly thereafter, ravedata also became the home for three regional rave related mailing lists -- Boston Raves,
Florida Raves and Southeast Raves with a combined total of over 4,000 subscribers (after all three were hosted by
ravedata, our mail server was moving over 500,000 messages each day).
Then the unexpected happened. Mass media turned their attention toward raves at the beginning of 2000. The world put the entire
scene
under the microscope and politicians blamed the rave scene for America's newly rediscovered adolescent drug abuse problems.
Instantly, Ravedata was featured in Yahoo! Internet Life Magazine, a
screenshot of the site's main page appeared on WNEW TV news, a blurb
appeared in the
Improper Bostonian and ravedata was event mentioned in
TIME Magazine. On June 12, 2000
Matt appeared
as a guest on
NPR's globally syndicated radio show,
Talk of the Nation (click
here to listen to the segment in realaudio), where he was
heard by tens of thousands of listeners discussing various aspects of the Rave scene. Seemingly overnight, ravedata had transformed
from an enjoyable technological experiment into an 'unstoppable freight train' of a project (as well a drain on personal finances).
Gobbling up costly amounts of bandwidth, tens of thousands of visitors flocked to the site from every corner of the world each day.
Behind the scenes, the entire project was financed out-of-pocket
by Partner Communications Group, Inc. founders
Matt Zinicola
and Peter Murray. At this point, the project
had reached critical mass and could no longer be maintained solely by the band of generous friends that had been maintaining it.
In addition, site visitors became frustrated when updates were not being made instantly. Those people who devoted endless hours of
'free' time were growing weary and poor. In June, 2001, the decision was made that everyone involved with ravedata could be
spending their time doing other enjoyable things, so the site was shut down.
The complete code and content that made up ravedata.com has been preserved. Any ambitious parties interested in
acquiring that as well as the ravedata.com domain
should send email to sales@ravedata.com. Curious about the current visibility
of the domain? Click here to see ravedata.com's current search engine
rankings.
Credits:
Site databases and architecture designed by Matt Zinicola.
Searches and persistence applications were programmed and
implemented by James Scheinblum.
Network design and system administration was performed by Peter
Murray.
Realaudio encoding was done by Brad Schutter.
News stories were researched and published by Sherry Peaslee.
Mixtape trades and promotion was managed by Taryn Kogan.
Additional work was contributed by Jonathan
Murray and Kim Dietemann.
Thanks and shout outs:
Jeff and Greg of Transcasts
Ultraworld, 2Tuff,
Sonic Soul and
Mission Control
Nuno Silva for developing graphics for our XLR8R ad
Every DJ that has ever taken us on a musical journey
FASTNET Corporation for tons of
bandwidth and yards of rack space
All of the site visitors that made ravedata the community
that it was
Flyer collectors, Mixtape traders and responsible party kids everywhere
Hyperreal for providing us with invaluable
information from its mailing lists since 1994
John Art and the others behind UDG, Inc. (Pittsburgh '94) for throwing the first few parties we attended
The scenes in Pittsburgh, Boston, Philadelphia, Allentown, New York City, Hartford and Washington D.C.
Weed (owner of the world's largest flyer collection) for showing us
how to push the envelope with our love for the scene