Kickstarter

UPDATE 8/7/09: Thanks so much to our initial donors! $1,000 in ONE week! That's awesome!

We still have over three weeks to go before the Kickstarter effort concludes so we're not stopping there! We're now setting our sights on a new goal of $2,500. This would allow us to scale the site in the best way possible without money issues getting in the way. For example, if we choose to release the site to the general public, we should be able to sustain any amount of traffic if it even got to that point (we surely wouldn't complain!)

Thanks again to all those who helped reach our initial goal. Now, we're ready to step it up some more...but only with your support!
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www.GoRankem.com
Question/Problem #1:Have you ever thought the "most popular" songs (i.e radio plays, most sales) were not necessarily the best songs? Question/Problem #2:Who knows each artist's material better than each artist's own fans? Solution: For those reasons and many more, we've spent the last 23 months building a platform that will hopefully become your ideal resource if you've ever wondered "where should I begin?" when trying to explore a new artist.
Here's how it works: YOU (the fans) rank YOUR favorite songs from YOUR favorite artists. Subsequently, we put the fan favorites together for each individual artist with the hopes of sorting through every artist catalogue of all-time based off of those that know their material the best -- their own fans.

Soooooo the platform is built. We launched our Private Alpha for Rank 'em in Late-February. We've been organically growing the site out of our wonderful music town of Athens, GA ever since. We've received an overwhelming amount of positive feedback from our initial users & the local press.
Problem: Not one of us has taken any pay to date. We've done it because we BELIEVE in what it can become. It's our ultimate goal to make it easier for YOU to discover the music you've always wanted to.

We've got a HUGE list of things to do, but not enough time to complete half of our list any time soon. We can only commit so much of our time when we're all trying to get by through working side-jobs as well.
Solution: YOU guys (our fans). We need your help to raise $$ to cover our website hosting fees through the rest of 2009. We would love to open the project to a much larger audience, but we need to make sure we can afford/sustain the traffic!
How long: 30 Days...no messing around!
How much: $1,000...that's it!
Thanks so much to anybody that supports our mission, and in the immortal words of @iamdiddy "LET'S GO!!!"
Feel free to contact us with any and all questions at info@gorankem.com Links: Website: www.GORANKEM.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rank-em/120390906270
Twitter: @rankem

Check out our great write-ups in the following publications:

UGA Student Newspaper, The Red & Black:http://media.www.redandblack.com/media/storage/paper871/news/2009/04/10/Variety/Web-Site.Users.Rank.Artists-3705803.shtml

Athens' Cultural Publication, The Flagpole: http://flagpole.com/Weekly/Features/Rankem.28Apr09

Athens #1 Newsource, Athens Banner-Herald: http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/052109/mar_442098493.shtml