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Nothing like being caught off guard for all of us...Its like building a house and then one day ripping out the foundation. There goes all our hard work and money. I stopped all payments to RVN. I will just use the free services and put my focus elsewhere.

You will enjoy this analysis ... it could give you an edge in these new RN charts.

Even though RN says it has over "2M Users", there are actually only 500K Artists on their Global Charts across All Genres. I wanted to understand how many Artists are charted per Genre to learn which Genres are the most crowded. Perhaps by changing my RN Genre, I could become a bigger fish in a smaller pond and improve my ranking.

By manipulating their Chart URL tags, I could easily navigate to the last page of each Genre and count the total number of Artists in that Genre. It changes daily, but here are the numbers right now.

TOP 15 RN GENRES by # of ARTISTS as of Friday, 1/18/2013

Total Global # of Artists for All Genres = 505,661
Last Page URL = https://www.reverbnation.com/main/cha...

Of which ...

23% Hip Hop = 115,103 Artists
15% Rock = 74,665 Artists
7.0% Alternative = 35,488 Artists
6.6% Metal = 33,206 Artists
6.1% Rap = 30,609 Artists

5.0% Pop = 25,193 Artists
3.8% Other = 19,458 Artists
3.3% Singer Songwriter = 16,759 Artists
3.1% R&B/Soul = 15,577 Artists
2.5% Folk = 12,593 Artists

2.3% Country = 11,878 Artists
2.1% Indie = 10,399 Artists
1.9% Jazz = 9,391 Artists
1.9% Blues = 9,372 Artists
1.7% Reggae = 8,713 Artists

For example, if you classify your Genre as 'Hip Hop', you will compete with over 115K other Artists on that Global Genre Chart. But if you change your Genre to 'Rap', you will only have 30K other Artists to compete with. If your Genre is 'Rock' today, you compete with 75K Artists. But if you change to 'Alternative', you will compete with less than half that or, better yet, change to 'Indie' to compete with only 10K Artists.

I recommend that you can take this one step further and dive into your National and Local Genre Charts. Try playing with the URLs yourself. In the sample URLs below, just change the tag 'Global' in the URL to 'National' or 'Local' and start with a smaller page number. Here are a few examples for the Global Genres - note the last page number will likely change each day.

Last Page URLs for the Top 5 RN Genres:

Hip Hop - https://www.reverbnation.com/main/cha...
Rock - https://www.reverbnation.com/main/cha...
Alternative - https://www.reverbnation.com/main/cha...
Metal - https://www.reverbnation.com/main/cha...
Rap - https://www.reverbnation.com/main/cha...

Keep exploring. Find your edge in this new RN game and stay the course. Greg Charles of A Nice Vibe

Holy Retardnation Batman !!!! They really fucked it up this time......

apparently chart/ranking depends on how much a member pays...cancled my premium fanreach and went from number 3 to number 9. so, like others on this site, i will stop giving my hard earned money to RN and leave the site all together after being a member for many, many years. probably won't miss me...but will miss my $$ i'm sure...as reflected in my new ranking

I cancelled my store here and will not pay another dime to this site-they have been stating that my myspace numbers have dropped exactly -25 a day since I voiced my displeasure with the new "improvements" however my myspace numbers actually have not dropped 25 a day for the past 5 days straight minus 25!!!!
This is because I complained-there is no other reason!
I am starting a class action law suit against this site-join me if you have been scammed too!!!! All the years of working on this site and promoting it and this is how they repay me!!!!!!!!!

This goofed up change is a total disregard for the musicians on this site. What a mess. Until things are corrected it is foolish to put anymore time and work into this site.

The New Chart Ranking System Demystified

As Zack continues to remain silent, and the answer he provided is far from making any sense, I decided it’s time to step in and demystify the recent changes made by our beloved Reverbnation.

1. The Old RN Chart Ranking
Under the “old” chart ranking system, the number of fans an artist had and, most importantly, their quality was the single most important factor in determining BES. Though RN had never disclosed how they determine the quality of the fans, they had stated on several occasions that they value RN fans more than the others. Having been on RN for quite a while, I can tell you that for BES calculating purposes, a RN fan is roughly 20 times more valuable than an FB fan. Twitter and YT subscribers are viewed as lower quality, while MySpace fans almost don’t count at all. In order to increase his BES by 100 points, for example, an artist should gain roughly 50 RN fans, or 1,000 FB fans, or any combination of both in the aforementioned proportion. The odd thing was that the so-called “recency” factor (i.e. the 14-day window), an integral part of BES, was applicable to plays and listeners but, for some reason, not to fans’ acquisition. Therefore, if an artist gained 1,000 FB fans during the 14-day window, but no fans thereafter, his BES would have risen by 100 points in the first two weeks and would have remained unaffected thereafter by the lack of newly added fans. The opposite was true for the number of plays and listeners, where any BES gained during the 14-day window as a result of attracting plays/listeneres would have been completely wiped out if no such were attracted thereafter.
The RN BES system enabled bands with millions of FB fans (bought or not) to occupy the top spots of the charts and to remain there forever, even though their RN activity in terms of plays, listeners was minimal, if non-existent. The only way for an artist to compete with the thousands of dollars spent by those bands on FB fans’ acquisitions, and join them in the Top 10 category of the respective genre chart, was to get as much RN fans as possible, availing himself of the 20:1 ratio incorporated in the BES system. This is exactly what all of us writing here did, spending a couple of hours each and every day on RN promotion.

2. The New RN Chart Ranking
RN felt that the old chart ranking system did not fit their new business model, which is to maximize revenue from promotion. Why would anyone buy their promotion service, knowing that getting into Top 10 requires >1 million FB fans, thousands of bucks, and long, long time? Make the aim more visible and within reach and the avalanche of customers will follow. As correctly pointed out by Shiong, it is no longer the total BES that determines the chart ranking position of an artist, but the 30-day BES change only. This makes it more likely for an average Joe, who decided to buy a couple of thousands of FB likes over the month, or gain 100 RN fans by being active on the site, to move significantly up in the charts. But to stay there, he will have to buy again next month, or continue to remain active on the site, which is exactly what RN want. It appears that RN are doing a good thing - ensuring a “level-playing field” by eliminating the heavy influence of the bands with millions of accumulated FB fans, applying the “recency” factor to fans’ acquisition in determining BES, killing the bordom of seeing the same faces in the top of the charts, enforcing competition among artists, and maximizing revenue and profits. Everyone happy? Not exactly, some 250 dissenters who believe their efforts over the past couple of years should count towards their BES. Having gained close to 60,000 RN fans over the years and entered Top10 on the Global Rock Chart, my band has every reason to be unhappy with the plunge. But we are not, because we realized that RN charts are meaningless.
The only shortcoming on the RN side is that they should have come straight with a reasonable explanation of the changes and not hide behind ambiguous and trivial answers.

DIRTY POLITICS !!! #3 TO #23, yesterday it was #21. make things right, put shit back, when I joined this site 2 and change, years ago, IT WAS FREE ! so I guess paying customers have advantages. When you were new and asking people to join there were know problems, now with over 2 million subscribers, you guys forgot about the little guys that told a bunch of your subscribers to follow us on here. we help promote this site as well. just like big business ! cut backs, expendable assets.

SNAFU
What I see in the charts makes no sense. I see people with way less fans in every category above me. What are the charts supposed to be based on? And why wouldn't people from nearby cities be on my charts. I'm competing with them in the real world- why not in this pretend music world.
Why the change? and why is it so fu**ed up?
Disgruntled!

Dear RN Support,

We believe that you really need to leave the ZIP code situation as it was and therefore roll back any changes.

As an example, our label is located in a suburb of a major metro area (Denver) and the former system appeared to be a more accurate indicator of how well we were doing throughout the *entire metro area* than how we ranked in our relatively small suburb. We have no interest in knowing if we're #1 in the burbs, and if the system does not change, we will change our ZIP code to get the charts we want, ultimately skewing any reports or records RN is keeping on its members.

Prior to making huge changes like this in the future, it may be prudent to consult your user community first, as we actively *use* these charts to market and gauge our progress with those marketing efforts, both within RN and in other social media sites. When you change the structure, you skew our results, setting us back to square one each time.

Best,
Kathryn Ballard Shut /shoot/
President
TIMKAT Entertainment LLC
Westminster/Denver, CO
http://www.reverbnation.com/label/mod...

...And let me reply my answer again on this page:

We went to school Zack, we can do the math, so please mention all those "hundreds of things on our site. Many more stats other than the ones you see are factored in".

So it took you guys at RN team 5 days to build this answer? Let me mention basic points here where you just screwed this:

RN: "is nearly impossible to continue to grow your promotion every single day"... OK, You got it! a lot of us will not promote here anymore.

RN: "always something causing your chart position to rise"... You don ́t say! How about hard daily work?

RN: "try to find out what you were doing when your band's points were increasing at such a high level so that you can duplicate it again"...Once again: how about hard daily work?

RN: "try a few different things to see what is the most efficient and effective for you"
...Well, since hard work is not a deal for RN, How about stop using this site, or stop buying useles "promote it" or any product from here? At the end is just USELESS if your arguments are right.

And the best one: RN: "Artist accounts must stay active on ReverbNation. Keep your page up to date and current and you should see returns"... Hahahaha are you kidding us! ARE YOU KIDDING US!!! You just have told us that to keep active is not useful anymore!

Just can ́t believe this, at least this time you just made me laugh!

Sorry Zack, but YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID!

This is just insultant to any intelligent being. So keep trying!

As I analyze the new ratings, I see some active artists move down somewhat and some not very active move up, with some (random?) disappearing. Either the new formula is fundamentally wrong, or it is made intentionally to extort those active to buy more services.
In any case, my real ratings do not rely on this page alone, so, though not much, I have deleted links to reverberation from all my other pages.

Cancelled my paid services at RN. With hours, chart position dropped again :) That is kind of what I expected to happen.

Don ́t know you guys but I am totally sick and tired of all this people who want to control this industry; that little circle of scumbag powerfull rich idiots who can get anybody out of the game if they don ́t fit with their business model. To me, Music IS NOT a freaking stupid concept made only for the ones ho can pay for it. And now, once again it ́s time to go elsewhere.

It ́s crazy, but since the internet became a great Music tool for people, somebody just want to screw this sharing concept, to push it and force it into a paying concept (certainly since copyright exists). Now, we all know that reverbnation used us to get strong, to then betray us. It looks like they just sold this site to any big record company who doesn ́t want any competition to their shitty (once again) fake plastic commercial "artists" if they don ́t get at least any money from us. Reminds me a lot to the megaupload case. I am not surprised, but really sick and tired of it.

I ́m not working here anymore if RN keeps this attitude, but I ́ll NEVER give up, and this artist fellow here have all my respect and admiration cause you guys follow your dreams with hard work, everyone of you, wherever you are, cause there are not flags here but Music. Just keep creating great stuff and never NEVER give up. I hope I ́ll see or hear about you elsewhere. Music joins us, and I ́m happy is not only Music.

As I said a few comments before, the show must go on with, without, or despite of reverbnation. Never forget that.

Hasta pronto!

To Whom it May Concern,

Why is it, that in the 'new control room' my Global Rank (All Genres) is 32,295 and yet on my 'old control room' is says that my Global Rank (All Genres) is 10,007??
That is a massive difference in numbers, and I'm just wondering what is so different from one control room from the other?

At this point, after almost 6 years of using your site, dealing with un-needed changes, adapting to new and ridiculous demands, and now this.

It seriously beginning to look and feel that your chart/rating system is nothing more than pure random.

I don't want an excuse, I don't want some interposed alga-rhythm that makes no sense to me or anyone else on your system database, I want answers.

I see mad complaints from many different users, and honestly, this just pushes me that much farther to deactivating my account and taking my chances elsewhere.
Chart systems are something that needs to come with solid and consistent information, whether it be old or new layouts of your website, and the info you guys are providing for the Chart system makes no sense as to how and why it is the way it is and why is it that on the new layout I'm decreasing but on the old layout I'm increasing.

-Stephen Morse,
Drums/Percussion

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
Different chart numbers for different layouts?.

Its confirmed ,, RN will soon be going the way of MySpace and the others in the social media graveyard. Yes we will still keep a minimal presence here, and yes we still love our friends here, BUT to us this kick in the teeth after enduring thr MANY follies ( and sticking with them) is just a bridge to far, Rn has BURNED this bridge.....

I just wanna know how I go from #9 to #2 to #64 in 1 week???? whatever going on reverb needs 2 fix it.. Its not fair 2 those people who's been on reverb since it first started now thats its changing all theses NEW changes are happing. Its people on the top #10 that havent even grinded nore than a year thats placed on the top 10... Im not complaining I just saying it should be fair 2 those who REALLY grind 2 put out good music... So on that note can reverb fix the problem soon cause my opinion the CHARTS are watered down!!

Checking out the Old Control Room it appears to be right, or at least as close to being right as it was 5 days ago. I personally liked the old system better anyway being it gave you more information and easier to search and interpret.
Yet RN is forciing everyone to go the New unreliable and not credible new Control Room.
Try this for an idea, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."......D

I've been on RN since before the big borad change so I've watched this site go from something a simpleton could work and understand to something a computer science grad would have difficulty navigating. I've concluded after this week that rather than a well oiled machine that anyone can work; RN is wanting a jumble of nuts and bolts in a bucket that just makes a noise. I can only conclude that RN's plan is to continue to shake things up about every 4 to 5 months and piss everyone who frequents this board off. I've heard some really good music here. I've heard more I can't turn off fast enough. Some I wish I'd wrote. Much more I wonder if the "artist" has ears to hear. Some may feel that way about mine. But you know about opinions? There like assholes everybody's got one and the world is full of 'em! Point being I don't know where my music falls in the big scheme of things but a change in standings of 800+ points over night tells me you guys don't have a clue either. It's ALL stats. IT'S NOT! You started out with a plan to help and then to keep it gong realized, we've got to have financial returns to keep it going. I'm NOT going to buy votes! To my knowledge I've never got a gig from a venue that just heard our stuff on RN. The only gigs RN has helped out with, for us, is to say to the promoter, "Listen to our stuff on RN and if you like it give us a call." I don't understand y'alls logic in this last shake up but I'm about tired of playing the chart game. It takes at least an hour or two out of my life per day to keep up. Now in one fell swoop I lose 800 points. Kind of makes the last year worthless. The point I saw, at my entry with RN, was that the "cream would rise to the top." Maybe this is still the case. I haven't scoped out the "new" top 100." I will. Then I'll have a firm opinion. Because I DO KNOW what equates to good music. This will decide wheather I keep posting here or not.

"Saturday, January 12, 2013

Changes to ReverbNation Charts

Happy New Year! ReverbNation is no longer a 'band' or 'music' site so much as it is a merchant of promotional wares to a paying clientele. Freeloaders are welcome to hang out but don't expect any success on the basis of musical merit alone.

You knew it had to happen sooner or later. Top bands plunged in the charts overnight and were surpassed by lesser bands with little fan interest. What happened? RN wants to sell promotional goods and paying customers want to see results. Can't blame them. Don't have fans? Your music doesn't stand out? Pay RN to provide a push and, as of 2013, that push involves pushing underachievers up the charts ahead of overachieving (but freeloading) bands.

At first it all seemed like a terrible mistake. None of it made sense. Bands that were previously in the top ten also found themselves racing up the global charts but simultaneously plunging in all other charts; musicians assumed there was some kind of technical error. Well, bands were rising in the global charts while falling off the genre cliff because there was (still is?) a mass exodus of chart-watching free-loading (and angry) bands deleting their accounts.

RN is still a top site for hosting music but if you're interested in ruling the charts RN is now, apparently, a pay to play site. This is all to familiar a story. Anyone remember MP3.com? Merit takes a back seat to money."

Business 101 = Never Blindside your Customers. Say again ...
Business 101 = Never Blindside your Customers.

No matter the industry, no matter the decade, one truth has always been taught in business school and that is to always put your customers first ... your customers are always right ... never deliver your customers an unpleasant surprise.

RN joins an ugly line of new age companies that put ego and/or technology ahead of its customers and will likely pay an unfortunate price - not only the loss of customers in the short-term, but much more significant, the loss of loyalty and trust. One you lose trust, you never get it back quite the way it was. That's unfortunate, but that's reality.

Ultimately, RN will do the right thing ... take the site down and re-engineer the charts back to something more palatable to its customers but, unfortunately for RN, the damage will be done.

My only comment to my fellow artists will be not to target your anger at the messengers - the core RN Support Team that we communicate with on a daily basis (been in their shoes in another life). My hope would be that the VPs of Marketing and Engineering who sold this mess to the CEO in the windowless and thoughtless conference rooms take the full burden of blame.

In the meantime, stay on course, common sense will prevail.

The trouble is that no one at RN has any knowledge of the music industry, Why in heaven's name would I want to compare with the guy or gal down the street? If my artists come from Nashville, no one cares if it is 37221 or 37013. It should be entire Nashville. I have dealt with them and most of them are well meaning but unknowledgeable. They have no clue about Band Equity and their promo campaigns benefit one thing only and that is the number of fans on Facebook. They do not realize that they have what could be a valuable tool because promoters use it. I have been in this business for over 40 years but dealing with the likes of Patrick, I feel like I am back teaching the business at Belmont except RN doesn't get it!!! I have already threatened them with legal action!!

Share this problem with your RN friends and bring more to this conversation or this will be the new RN minus the CREDIBILITY we as a group were striving for. Go to and start shouting. If you were relatively unaffected from this change , you may not even be aware but you will soon realize that the site you are on will carry far less respect in the INDIE Music community . All will know that those with the MONEY to buy plays or buy FB , twitter likes by the THOUSANDS or just plain old pay people to make up fans for thr sites , than so be it. This will not be the fertile hotbed of young and innovative and or talented artist's it started out as. we have already lost many when you to some sold out to FB. We understand all biz is based on how much money you can scroll away , at least try and disguise this behavior just a little . Many of these young bands can BARELY afford your prices for being here . We all welcome constructive change, but to wake up to a completely new place is unacceptable. So contact ALL your RN friends and lets ALL talk . Or welcome to the NEW RN. We will be gone...

At the top of this conversation there are the FB share button and tweet button, I actually used them cause is not possible that only 71 of us notice this RN behavior.

Can we at least get an update on what is going on with the rankings?

If there is not a problem, and the RN team is sure the new/current rankings are correct, can you please make that announcement.

If there is a problem, can you let us know that the problem is chased down.

I am looking for a singer-songwriter who, until 3 days ago, was #1 in San Antonio, TX and the national charts (Darrell Christopher Owens). After switching to the old control room to do a search (can't do it on the new one), I get a message saying that he is not on reverbnation.

Is this a glitch with the switchover? Did he delete his account? Can anybody shed some light on this?

Steve

I'm posting this up on twitter using "#reverbnation makes changes to terms of service without notice and refuses to provide users details of changes"

seeing as they are no longer answering any of our questions and ignoring us. There are share on twitter and facebook buttons here. Let's use them and draw as much attention to this as possible as it is kind of a big deal.

RAY... To me, this plattform is not exactly to sale records. I ́m sure that Reverbnation gets much more from artists than the money they earn from our sells. Some of us we are Artists, we make Art. not salesmen, salesmen make money, and this is why "real" Artists are not in the first places in popular/comercial charts but fake plastic models, We are trying to live by doing what we love and In the way to get a career that let us support a lifestyle we desire, by selling records or playing gigs, we want to avoid to deal with salesmen who doesn ́t care about other ́s effort, which could be exactly what we ́re dealing with right now. Anyway, as I said, the show will go on with or without RN, and I really hope they will fix this cause it would be an epic fail to the memory of this platform that used to work fine.

yep... this is bollocks... ready to switch to BandPage for my facebook player anyways, better features. might be time to bid this circle jerk adieu... I put a lot of work into my profile, and all for naught it appears now.

I AGREE THIS IS BULLSHIT!! We worked our ass off to be #1 in our area..Its about time to get off reverbnation.. you guys are getting as bad as Facebook! LEAVE SHIT ALONE!!!!!!

I have to weigh in on this: 'narrow zip code for accuracy' doesn't make any sense at all! And the results don't correlate what you said, either.
The current charts appear random and chaotic, no good principle based. No Good! Need to use your man power working on something more efficient, not this!

Everything I worked for is gone.. I feel like my dream was taking right out of my hands... Reverb how could you? .... I have no hope right now. You took all that from me when you took my hard work and dedication.

@ Fantase B. I hear you Buddie. And I am starting to agree. I think of all artists as my brothers and sisters, I love them all for their efforts, I adore them for the music, even the stuff I don't like too much. I am reading many of these letters and I can see that hundreds of artists have been really hurt by these changes. That upsets me. I am on your side friend.

You all guys who are here for hobbie and to show your dad the song you wrote, it ́s OK! Nobody will judge you at all for that. But when you are working for more than that, of course numbers are important! We placed our confidence and time here. Many times our job and prestige are based and depends on our numbers to get hired, and not only here, is everywhere! In any office, your boss evaluates your numbers, not the happy or unhappy you are doing it, is the same here! So don ́t judge this like an ego issue, it ́s about work, goals, and achievments. Real musicians who wants to eat by doing this know that nobody is gonna give you a shit for your work if you don ́t move it yourself, if you don ́t show it to the world. Is not that simple as "I made a pretty song, now everybody love me", we have to go out and show our work, and then measure it to do it better next time and that ́s why we are here.

@ Blizzard . Its not about life or death Its about them CHEATING Us and LYING .
They sent out letters 2 all of us yesterday saying" REVERB WILL CHANGE 4 good JAN 22nd" WHY NOT Also Mention The Chart Positions ?? This makes no sense what so ever , I am 100% CONFIDENT in my music , there's no1 that can tell me because i dropped 32 spots in 1 night (because of some stupid area code rule that makes no sense) that my music is not good or is not going to blow up.
Its The LIES that are pissing me off . Really and truthfully my music is MUCH bigger and better then this site , so fuck their stupid lil games , there are many other sites that don't play these games . One thing i have noticed with many commercial sites like CD baby MYSPACE etc soon as they grow they start doing shady moves & 2 me its unacceptable ! But obviously some people don't take their music seriously , I do !
2 me this is a life style , is not a joke , when i had no1 else there my music has always been there .But i will NEVER let reverb try & destroy me as an artist cus they never made me in the first place ..... ALL my gigs i have got through personal contacts . Not through reverb. WE MADE Reverb Not the other way around .This is just going to fuel me even more 2 focus on other possibilities I been #4 on the Uk , Hip Hop charts for a long time & I been #1 on the swedish hip hop chart 4 almost 3 years straight!!! So really I ALready WON. Reverb just lost & im sure im not the only good artist that they lost .... not 2 mention & the huge amount of bad karma they will get for doing us this way

All you artists whinging - instead of worrying about your RN chart positions, go and write some better songs and make some real fans (rather than being 'liked' by other artists here that are your competition).
To say that you spend hours each day here and on various social sites promoting is crazy. Spend more time on making good music!!! Let people find you and like you for your music not for your silly chart position.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am active EVERYDAY , I play other bands EVERYDAY, I fav and like others EVERYDAY ,shall I go on ! and others play me everday , W T F is going on . Are you saying I have to start buying FB likes and pay for play to keep up. Put me back in a reasonable spot or we are out. We have been here for some years now only to be treated like this . We have shown great loyalty to RN , No more BS please.

I think we all need to chill and see what the outcome is! Give it a few days at the longest a week!

I want this to be as fair as possible for all of us. To me this charting it is not a competition but about how hard you or your band work on stage and off stage! So yes these charts need to be as accurate as possible to help us all succeed. I hope reverb gets it right or in the end they will lose a lot of users.

I am one of the lucky ones that moved UP in the charts instead of down...except I don't want to move up because you turned off the charts for a bunch of people who weren't active. I have busted my butt for the last few months moving up the charts. When I started I was ranked around 37,000 on the Global Jazz charts, and as of yesterday I was up to 83. Today I am 17 because you changed a bunch of people around? According to the Old Control Room I should be at 79 today, and I am fine with that. I feel a sense of accomplishment logging in each day and seeing what my efforts have produced. Today you took all of that away and basically told all of us "Just make sure you are active frequently". This, on top of so many other issues that are already prevalent on this site, is going to start forcing people away in droves. I have a feeling it is already happening...

Looks like reverbnation has taken ALL the fun out of the charts, which now look like every other no budget website, due to the fact that most popular bands are not 'active'. Goodbye reverbnation, it was fun while it lasted. I will remember you fondly, but alas, become inactive, and disappear from your generic charts...