Just a random post..

OK. Not a review this time, but it has something to do with the blog. Why don't I tell you guys a story of how I came to start this blog? I don't wanna start from the very beginning, so let's cut the story short.

There were a few blogs that started along with me, and I remember them very clearly. Singin' Stars, The Music Inferno and Uh Like That all started around the same time I started Pop Addicted!, and we've more or less achieved the same amount of success.

I started gaining a small but loyal audience maybe after a month. A few people leaving comments and requests here and there, and maybe around 1,000 hits, I was getting somewhere. I kept on posting, kept on granting requests until one day, I met a friend of a co-contributor at Poptastic!(I eventually became a contributor for the blog that started everything, but I had to leave later once Pop Addicted! took off..), Angel_BR, who eventually became one of my most important contributors.

I persuaded Angel to become a contributor, and thankfully, she agreed. I had help, I could concentrate more on running the promotions and getting people to visit, and I did. Slowly, I gained more contributors. Yuki, my real-life best friend and Sam, who ran one of my favorite blogs(Planet Music) and who now runs Pop Addicted!, Kougra, and Gui_BR, who was a co-contributor on Poptastic!, who now runs another music blog.

So that was basically my first team, the original. Over the next few months, it kept on growing. By the start of 2008, there were maybe 7 or 8 contributors helping out. By the time I left, there were around 17 or 18 people on the team, minus those who had left and had been removed due to inactivity, which include utility members, who were there to answer any technical questions, and reviewers, who posted only reviews.

For the next few months, everything was smooth sailing. I was getting 20,000 hits a day, download statistics went into the thousands, and I had a strong team who just kept supporting the blog while I promoted, and fixed the blog and moderated everything. A few bumps along the way, like a site who was stealing our links and not crediting, a few haters and tons of spammers, but they were all part of the experience.

My decision to leave Pop Addicted! was made up when my grades started getting way too low. I tried going private, to minus the stress of everything, but it didn't work. So I left. On the month I started it. I was originally going to close down the blog as a whole, but my ever-loyal team persuaded me to keep it open and pass it on to someone.

I learned a lot from Pop Addicted!, not just about blogging, but about life in general. I learned how to deal with stubborn people, with haters and with ungrateful people. I learned that I can't do everything, that even I need a break once in a while, that if I try to do everything, I'll just end of screwing the whole thing up and it'll all be a disaster.

I learned how much effort it takes to keep a relatively popular music blog up and running first hand and I commend every single music blogger out there, because even if it was just for that precious year, I realised that nothing in life is free, even if blogger doesn't charge anything to put up a blog.

Pop Addicted! has helped me a lot for this blog. The insight I gathered during my time as admin, and all the promotions people I met via e-mail, help me every single day when I post here. All the artists I've discovered from promotions and even my own team, and everything I've learned from recurring e-mails to and from my team.

It's also taught me basically how to run a blog, what to do and what not to do(like use link lists for your affiliates, when you change your layout to a pre-made, your dead!), and a lot of technical stuff, like HTML, and all of those stuff. I learned everything first-hand, and I just dived into it, unafraid of the mistakes I would make(and believe me, I made tons of them..).

Yes, I left the blog, but it feels good to know that it's in good hands now. I thank my lucky stars that someone like Sam now runs the blog I had worked so hard for.(NOTE: This is kind of 'dedicated' to the readers of Pop Addicted!, past and present. I can't thank you enough for all I learned in the year that I ran the blog.)