As this is my personal blog, I wanted to write a little bit about what is coming up in Bret’s World Wide Web.

If you know me, you know I dabble in various different projects, and currently am working with 3 websites of my own, Web Devils, Hijacking Music, and this website.

My goal over the next six months is pretty much the same for each of them, but the content will differ.  Let’s go over the three different entities.

Web Devils

Web Devils is the web development company my friend Michael Ollinger and I started earlier this year. After years of working together building all kinds of websites for both personal reasons and for profit, we decided to come together and build something for real.

That said, we were off to a real good start with the website and building the community. Once business picked up we kind of ran out of time for working on our own website and have been working with clients almost full time.

We recently took a step back to asses where we are and where we want to take this Web Devils thing.

As a company it is a great title to work under, but what we have come to find is that the website is working out better as an online resource. A place for people getting into online marketing for their business.

We’ve decided to embrace this idea and really ramp it up.

What’s Coming Up?

Throughout the rest of the year, we will be working on increasing our blog content. That means having regular weekly posts on the topic of building a successful web presence.

There will be more ‘How To’ videos and Free learning courses, as well guest blogs from some very talented people in our industry.

There has also been some talk of setting up some Forums on the Web Devils site that would allow users to interact with us directly in a easy to read threaded format. Our goal is to launch this around the beginning of 2011.

On top of that we  have quite a few more ideas to roll out for Web Devils in the coming months.

If you have any interest in learning how to build up your business, make your website the right way, market your stuff the right way, then stay posted.

http://twitter.com/webdevilsbiz
http://facebook.com/webdevilsbiz

Hijacking Music

If I had to guess, I would say that this website is probably going to be the most fun to work on of the three.

HijackingMusic.com is going to become a resource for the DIY musician. A single place to go and learn all of the things you’ll end up needing to know being a DIY band.

As a collective we have a wealth of information among us. We have all worked very hard to learn things the hard tried and true way.

Now we are VERY excited to share this with others passionate musicians all over the world.  We want to do something bigger than ourselves, and we think this is a really good start.

What’s Coming Up?

With a list of over one hundred topics already, we will be having regularly posted content relevant to to the DIY style of doing music. Topic likes Promotion, Touring, as well as guest posts, gear reviews, weekly show list for ATL, and more.

We have already begun recording videos for these and it has been a blast.

This is all going to be offered for FREE, all you will have to do is keep updated.

Follow Us

http://twitter.com/hijackingmusic
http://facebook.com/hijackingmusic

Bret Phillips

This is my personal site and I have been struggling with the type of content that I want to post here.

Do I want to only write about my personal life, should I use it to just promote my other ventures. Do I want to post up ‘how to’ videos sharing my knowledge on certain subjects?

Should I be posting here more regularly on any specific niche topics?

While I am sure there are people that would be fine reading anything that I post up as I have been for many years, more and more of my research is telling me that if I want to have a successful ‘blog’ site, I need to have some kind of focused content on said website.

Having a niche with both Web Devils and Hijacking Music made it pretty easy for me to figure out what kind of content belongs there.  Being ever interested in everything…seriously sometimes it feels like EVERYTHING, it has been hard for me to really nail down what, out of everything, I should focus my personal website content around.

Over this past year I have been working on my personal growth just as much as my businesses growth.

This has helped me learn what kind of things I am good at, as well as what things mean the most to me.

The things that I am most passionate about and those things that I can live without.

I want people to land on my page from anywhere and immediately know what those passions are. If they share them, hopefully connect with me. If not, maybe I will inspire someone to try something new, or to inspire me to try something new.

After much debate, I’ve come to the conclusion that I am most passionate about these things, and not necessarily in this order all the time.

• Music
• Business Development
• Technology

In another post I will dive deeper in to each of those.

For now just be ready to consume some new ideas and content, and get involved.

How To Get Involved

In the coming months you can expect to see some changes around these parts and I want you to get involved.

Into Music or Web Development? Have some knowledge to share? Contact me some how and lets talk about guest posting and cross promotion.

Add me to your RSS feed

Follow Me Here

For this website, I am not going to use a mailing list right now.

Feel free to contact me via the contact form. You can also contact me on Twitter or Facebook.

http://twitter.com/bretphillips
http://facebook.com/bretphillips

Tell people that you know who might be interested in my projects to contact me.

I thank any of you that have been reading this website already, and I look forward to continuing to get to know you.

If you havn’t heard me talking about my upcoming music festival, then I suppose I have not be talking loud enough!

Coming up this Saturday, July 17th, at Lenny’s in Atlanta, I am throwing my very first Music and Art FESTIVAL. That’s right…a FESTIVAL!

For a long time now, I have wanted to set up a music and art event that would bring together people from different scenes, outlooks, view points, etc. My personal music collection is broad, there is no one style of music that I listen to, I listen to all styles. I listen to GOOD music.

Good music is surely a personal taste thing, but being a musician, and understanding not only the fundamentals, but also theory, song writing, structure, and more, I know when music is unappealing on a musical level.

The thing is, I do not think I am alone in this.  I am pretty confident that many people who really enjoy music for what it is, really enjoy good music.  The problem is filtering through all the mediocre and terrible crap in order to find the really good stuff…and there is sooooo much music so I can see why people just give up and listen to whatever is on the radio, it’s easy.

The Hijacking Music Collective is some what of a filter for quality music here in Atlanta. The Hijacking Music Festival is taking that another step farther and bringing in other types of artists such as painters, photographers, dancers, and some other entertainers as well.

We want people that spend any amount of time at this event to be constantly bombarded with high quality visual and audible artwork that is stimulating, thoughtful, and creative. We want people to come out of their comfort zones and embrace something new that might change the way they view things in the future for the better.

Really, when it all boils down, we want to open some minds.

This is easily the largest event I have ever coordinated and put on and I am really looking forward to it and would LOVE to have your support.

Please come out and support an amazing local music and art scene here in Atlanta and party with us!

For more information about the Hijacking Music Festival, or to download a FREE Digital CD Sampler including all bands performing at the festival, visit: http://hijackingmusic.com/hijacking-music-festival-2010

So here we are, the year is 2010, what have you been doing? Have you been slacking off, slowly churning along in the daily grind, or pushing things forward?

Christmas and the new year came and went by fast. I had already been working on getting some things together in order to help jump start my progress in 2010, but it still feels like the time flew by and I have more to do still.

Now into the second work week of the year, I am feeling a bit overwhelmed, but by no means unmotivated. There are a few new years resolutions and some long term goals to get cracking on this year, so lets cover a few of them shall we?

Number one on my list of things to do in 2010 is work on my businesses. There are a few ventures that have started to get off the ground, but have not made the kind of progress I would like to see. Part of this, I am sure, is due to me working on all of these at once instead of focusing on them one at a time which is something I plan to remedy during the course of this year.

What ventures am I talking about?

-WEB DESIGN-

For starters, web design. For much of 2009 I have put together websites, focusing mostly on small businesses. Word really started to spread close to the end of the year, but budgets were also locked down around that time, but those relationships are moving forward at this time.

Now that the new year is upon us, new budgets are upon us, and I have been hard at work seeking out those looking for my services. Daily I am sending out quotes for projects of all scopes, managing a few working projects, and trying to connect with people and business owners.

-AFFILIATE MARKETING-

Affiliate marketing continues to tease me and I continue to stay just interested enough.  There are a few sites up and running that are actually bringing in some sales, but nothing super substantial at this time.

I plan to continue vamping these sites up as well as building new ones throughout the year.  Everyday I am learning more about marketing, SEO, sales copy, and everything that goes into driving traffic to websites and selling products once they are there.

Hopefully my continued efforts will continue to pay off more and more.

-AUDIO ENGINEERING-

Next in line of importance is finding a recording studio and people with the knowledge and willingness to teach me the ways of this audio world. Separating from my last company has given me time to think. During that time I tried to think of things that I love to do, regardless of monetary compensation, but potentially make a profession. At this point in my life there are not many things that make this list, but high up on it was recording music.

Being a part of that world is something I thrive in and after having spent the last few years honing my skills both in the recording, mixing, and mastering, and also as a musician, I feel like I am ready to make some big moves in this area. In order to do that, I myself need more schooling on the subject.

While attending school for this would be great, and something that is definitely in my foreseeable future, I am not sure it is in my cards at this time. Instead, I need to spend some time with the masters of that domain.

As of this posting, I have had the opportunity to meet and be invited to work with a high level player in the audio world. A close family friend and he go way back which is how I was introduced to begin with. Pending this becoming a regular thing, I will surely be posting up any new developments and hopefully new knowledge.

-OZONE LAIR STUDIO-

While we are on the subject of audio recording, another one of my projects is the infamous Ozone Lair, my recording studio. So far this year the Lair has been regularly active. We’ve been recording new music of many styles, mixing and mastering some fresh material from the end of 2009, writing music, rehearsing music, and having some intense, creative, jams.

I have high hopes for the Ozone Lair this year and look forward to working with many great musicians.

-INDEPENDENT CD-

Something just getting off the ground is a small project I started to match some of my resources with a specific market demand. Short run, low cost cds with custom print jobs. My target market is the independent musicians, though we can meet the needs of any data CD/DVD project as well.

Other than making sales there is not much that needs to be done with this. The production is fully functional, as well as the website is able to take orders. There are a few SEO items that I plan to take care of in the near future which will hopefully drive some traffic to the site, as it is all word of mouth at this time.

Those are my top projects for this year with my goal continually being supporting myself comfortably via my own business ventures.

Now on to the mother of all non profit ventures…

-HIJACKING MUSIC-

That’s right ladies and germs, if you haven’t heard it is time to pay attention. Hijacking Music is coming through and making a ton of noise in 2010.

For the past two years Hijacking Music has been developing as a music collective currently based out of Atlanta. We have a very strong core group of artists and groups, all of which are releasing their strongest efforts yet this year.

Also during those two years I’ve been pushed to the forefront to try and guide us through this tricky, sticky, and downright icky maze of all things required to survive the music industry. At first I fought it, but now am embracing it to help build something awesome. So if you know somebody that knows somebody that could potentially be a good contact to have…hit me up

Look out this year for the first Hijacking Music Festival, HJM CD Sampler Vol 2, HJM Christmas Album, and a hand full of HJM presents Art/Music shows scattered over the course of the year.

Another magic music night in GA.

This past saturday was a much anticipated show featuring Jungol, Stokeswood, both from Atlanta, and The Zou from Ohio.

All I can say it is was very sweaty in there.

Here are some videos I managed to catch.

Stokeswood

Jungol

The Zou / Stokeswood Backstage after the show