Thank You!
Thank you for reading the blog, posting comments and sharing the links we’ve been posting here for 3 years (as of yesterday). We are constantly thinking of ways of improving the site, so consider this an open thread for telling us about what you like, what you don’t and what you want to see more of in the months ahead! Readership engagement is what makes this interesting for me ( and means way more than any other value metrics).
Here’s to many more!
Hey dudes and dudesses. After nearly three(!) years of weekly TCTD updates I am taking a break. I will still keep an eye on the site and will tweet cool things i find, but if you want to see your items as an article, consider submitting a news story. If you are looking for a daily feed in the meantime, I recommend the following:
I really fucked up. Early yesterday morning I received an email from a person saying they were the Business Manager from Pitchfork Media by the name of Andrew Kaufman informing me that Pitchfork where huge fans of TCTD and all the work we have done for the community. I was floored by how much he seemed to know about the work we have done, and the chip scene entirely. I quickly agreed to both his generous offer and to come to Chicago for a morning meeting with the Pitchfork staff, and I am there now at Midway airport waiting to come home.
It turns out that there was no Andrew Kaufman, and the Pitchfork I was sent to interview at wasn’t even a music blog. When I asked the owner of that establishment if he needed any help with his website’s content, he laughed me out of the bar. And the Grill. I am on my way back to NYC now, to beg for my job back and to see if any of the TCTD staff are still my friends, but I hope that my loyal readers can understand the thirst for fame and recognition of one’s work and will stick with us in these trying times.
UPDATE: Oh great. I just received a nasty email from Thomas Green, Legal Consul for Pitchfork Media. Apparently in the state of Illinois unauthorized theft of IP via RSS carries a fine of up to $3500 per article per page view. If anyone who works on the site reading this can please disable the Pitchfork Posts for me, and I try to put the site back together when I can.
Again, truly sorry, hope you can all forgive my hubris and heavy handed response to what seems to me to be a cruel and unwarranted prank. I hope you feel really good about yourself, Mr. Kaufman.
PS: Anyone have ideas for a cool kickstarter?
PPS: Will someone please ask Akira to unblock my facebook account?
Peter Swimm
Editor in Chief
TCTD
Hello chiptune fans! I am really excited to announced that as of this post, we have become part of the Pitchfork Media family! We are very excited about getting the chance to bring news of our community to a wider audience. I am about to jump on a flight to work more on intergrating our news archive into their database, but we will begin syndicating their content immediately and update throughout the coming weeks. Please let us know what longer featured articles we should work on in the comments, and wish us luck in this exciting new endeavor!
Peter Swimm
Associate Chiptune Editor
Pitchfork Media
Hello all! By now you have probably noticed the lack of posts, which is due to my annual holiday vacation. This year is a little extra special, as I am getting married on New Year’s Eve in California. I am very excited (and busy), so apologies in advance for any boredom caused by a lack of updates.
What does this mean for TCTD? Well firstly, there will be minimal posting on news from me, you can help by submitting a news story via the top menu, I will keep an eye out for new post requests. I will try to keep doing at least the Twitter links, so send a message @tctd if there is something you’d like linked.
Also as the Blip Festival is moving to spring, so are the 2010 TCTD awards! This means we will be moving the nomination period to late February, feel free to suggest new categories in the comments. We will be having the award show as part of the Blip weekend, so try to plan a extra day if you’d like to attend.
Heading into our third calendar year of TCTD, I have been thinking hard on what the future of the site will be. It has been a mostly fun and rewarding hobby for me, and allows me to stay in touch with the community during the times when I am unable to participate as an artist. In 2011, one of my personal goals is to focus more of my time on my own music, and hopefully TCTD does not suffer too greatly as a result of this shift of priorities. If it does, I hope the community can help us with more user submitted content.
Dealing with a diverse online community of artists so loosely connected stylistically, and often only by platform can be difficult and frustrating if one feels if things are not going the way you’d hope it would. Most of us are familiar with the cliches and cringe-inducing elements that threaten the longterm viability of our community, but to me the only thing more annoying than ubiquity of some of the more persistent of these issues is the feedback by those who feel a need to constantly point out that lame things are in fact lame.
I will admit, I do not always personally like some of the items covered on TCTD, but I share them because it is considered important by others, or represents a item that would be of significant interest to fans and casual observers alike. The best way to supplant the lame is by excessive production of things that are only awesome. Instead of posting a negative comment on some random board about how sick you may be of a particular chip or genre or group of people, consider what you yourself have done to help improve the community lately. Lead by example, not by browbeating others into your point of view.
I will cop to not always being perfect, and some times have spoken out in haste to what I have perceived as unjustified rudeness, and if I’d I have offended anyone reading this, I am sorry. I want to use this space to thank all the readers and people who make this site worth a damn with their music, software, hardware and scene organizing. You are essential to keep up the excitement and enthusiasm that makes the site possible. I especially want to thank the people who help TCTD behind the scenes, especially Akira, Lazerbeat, B.Leo, and Keff, and look forward to another excellent year of chip in 2011.
Feel free to post any comments or suggestions for us in the comments, and see you guys again soon!