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PiercingMetal Celebrates Twelve Years Online (2005-2017)

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Good afternoon my fine Metal friends, I’m here to tell you that today is the 12th Anniversary of the PiercingMetal.com outlet. In some sense it feels like yesterday that I decided to branch out on my own from the couple of brands that I contributed to and at others it does not and instead feels like a lifetime. My how the times have changed for this stuff over the years. Back then the magazines were still one of the best ways to enjoy the myriad of Metal bands that were out there but unless you were reading the European offerings you rarely would have heard of so many of the bands that are now almost common discussion among fans. Facebook and Twitter were still pretty new and now they are a focused part of our day and yeah I’m using them for the website on a regular basis so I hope that you are with us for that social networking ride.

Since I always do a look back on how this site started against what it is now I have to say that it’s a world of difference from the original premise that was launched twelve years ago. Back then, I only wanted it to be reviews and concert photos and yeah I did those in massive amounts but I was never going to blog about stuff. Then a blog was created which let me discuss so many other side topics that related to the stuff on the once separate review side. I was also never going to use these newfangled Social Networks for site promotion but I am using all of them nowadays. I wanted to make the whole site into WordPress and a conversion began in 2014 and I’m happy to report that PiercingMetal.com is now 85% in WordPress and constantly working towards full transition. There are still a few hundred or so legacy articles that bear some re-editing and format for inclusion in the way it looks now. The constant happenings in the music world today find the older items taking a backseat while the more “spur of the moment” items are addressed. Though I don’t treat the outlet as a newsfeed site like the great Bravewords.com and MelodicRock.com handle, I do offer up the touring plans, the band lineup changes and the occasional record label signing to keep some level of newsy article being featured when it’s best to do so. Creatively speaking our archive of content has just surpassed the “4600” mark in terms of postings and these posts span a wide gamut of topical review, photo galleries and features that inform on numerous different interests. When I merged the once side blog into the main presentation I decided to also up my game in the Pop Culture stuff so as you peruse the Comics and On Screen or Toy posts you will see there is a lot more there. It makes sense since bands write and star in comic books and there are numerous toys for them as well.
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PiercingMetal Celebrates Ten Years Online (2005-2015)

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Hey there Metal Legions, I can hardly believe that I am writing this down because it surely doesn’t feel like it to me but PiercingMetal.com is now ten years old and was officially launched to the public on this very day back in 2005. My, how time has flown. On this anniversary I’ll reflect upon the beginnings with some “10” related visuals with some thoughts on the process from then until now and I hope you enjoy it. Here we go.

piercingmetal 10 years

The Beginning: In the time before I jumped into the media fray with my own site identity I had gotten my introduction to the craft thanks to the overall awesomeness of The Metal Circus, Maximum Metal and Sea Of Tranquility websites. As I did my writings for these mediums I kept notes on how I liked doing this and after a couple of years at the task felt that I had a solid enough idea on how it could be done with my own brand. My good friend Joe was one of the main folks pushing me to do start my own thing and the topic of conversation was easily agreed upon after several rounds at the original Smith’s Bar before a show that we were hitting at B.B. King Blues Club in NYC. I brought this theory up with a couple of trusted publicity contacts and the seal of approval was given and PiercingMetal was born. I quickly secured the domain name days later and started looking for someone to build the website for me. In 2005, or the bygone days of Technology, a website required a lot more manual devotion than it does nowadays. I’d find this help with Hoffman Digital Designs founder Joy Hoffman who crafted a sleek and functional design for me. From there it was a lot of testing and loading of my past writings into the database so the visitor had something to see from the moment that we announced it was here to examine. I had high hopes that any Metal audience would find this to their interest. Back then the site was pretty much only reviews and I mean CD’s, DVD’s and Concerts. There was no Book or Event reviews and stuff like the assorted demos that I had stockpiled were relegated to the “Other” section in the menu. It was succinct and to the point and worked out rather well right from the start for me. I also had a Calendar that served as my own event planning angle but that became something much larger for the Metal Legions almost immediately. The ride had started to move.
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Merging “PiercingMetal Musings” Into “The All-New PiercingMetal.com”

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Logo - PiercingMetal Musings - Original

Ladies and gentlemen today I am saying goodbye to “PiercingMetal Musings”, a presence that has served our readers well as “The Official Blog” for PiercingMetal.com for just over seven years at the time of this writing. I see that you look a little sad at that announcement but let me tell you why you should only be smiling at that little bit of news.

I’m about a month into the redevelopment of my PiercingMetal.com site and since I am now using WordPress to deliver all of the content that you have come to this dotcom to enjoy, there was no longer a need for a side presence to the brand name that used this same software. When I first installed WordPress and created the “PiercingMetal Musings” Blog it was to expand my creative voice outside of the context of objective reviews. It worked very well but as we steadily approach the websites tenth year online it was time to make a change. Over the last few weeks I have been importing all of the posts that you’ve enjoyed for the past seven years and have appended their categories to fit nicely into the new framework.
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PiercingMetal.com Is Five Years Old Today!!!

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“I remember now, I remember how it started”

Seriously, I really do remember how all of this began and I hope that no one minds my borrowing the famous opening line from Queensryche’s magnum opus “Operation: Mindcrime” because it was either use something profound as my lead off statement or be corny with something like “five score and seven beers ago”. Truly one can never go wrong with following in the footsteps of Metal greatness so thanks to Mr. Tate and the boys for giving me something to work with in this commentary as I reflect upon running this website for five years now. Continue reading PiercingMetal.com Is Five Years Old Today!!! →

Features, PiercingMetal Says

PiercingMetal & Social Networking: How We Use Them

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Logo - Social Networking

“Social Networking”

The term itself boils down to the ability to network oneself in a social manner, but the interesting thing about it in today’s society is that a lot of people are networking themselves via websites from behind the “safety” of their computer screens as opposed to interacting in person.  Over the last few years there have been quite a few social networking websites popping up and while some of them offer a person a lot of cool things there are those that are a complete waste of time.  As a website/online magazine, PiercingMetal.com has made sure that its presence is on several of the more notable ones in order to have those other account holders be better aware of what we are doing over on the main web page.  I will discuss all of the ones we are on individually as this now serialized blog posting comes to fruition.  This was originally one lengthy post with a number of mediums discussed, but the dramatic changes in many of the brands in the narrative forced my hand to edit it and present it to you in a different fashion.

In addition to the social networking sites where you can find an account that speaks about PiercingMetal.com in some sense, there are also ones where the Editor himself (aka Me) has a few profiles on.  By making myself known in this part of cyberspace I am able to upgrade my own personal networking goals.  As lined out in the previous paragraph, I will also discuss some of these sites and present my own views about which are good or bad or I have indifference to.  However, before you begin reading too deeply into this little musing, let me inform you about this item being no means of a gauge of one brand versus the other but instead a place where I can map out the existing other places online where we keep some manner of PiercingMetal.com presence.   I will of course give you my own personal opinion and let you know if I think that it worked for me or didn’t when looked at as a means to help expand what I am doing as a writer.  I am sure that many of you will agree with me about some of them, and disagree with me about the others.  Comments will always be welcome as each narrative topic goes live, but we do ask that you stick to the brand name being discussed and don’t go off on some wild tangent.

That being said, its time for me to close out on this introduction piece and say “tune in next time, same Ken P. channel, somewhat same time for the next thrilling viewpoint”.   I hope it’s something the informs you about your choices in this stuff.