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| MRO Fundraiser Drive 2006! |
| (MR) Hello MRO viewers. Welcome to another exciting year of Matt Rock Online's existence. But this is probably the most important year in MRO's history... we're turning ten years old this year in May! That's right, MRO has been kicking around in the underbelly of the internet for a full ten years now! When I first started this site in May of 1996, a high school teacher of mine told me that most personal websites last two years before collapsing under their own weight. The site's host gets sick of doing constant updates, the popularity of the site dwindles and no one cares enough to view it every day, the hosting service quits hosting free sites... there's a seemingly limitless list of reasons why personal sites don't last very long. But somehow I've proven him wrong. This site's ten-year anniversary is just around the corner! Keeping this site free for all who visit has been challenging to say the least. In the past ten years we've battled with URL cloaking services and the actual URL (web address) of this site has changed almost twelve times. And on a few occasions we've actually had to completely move the site to different locations because hosting services have buckled under the weight of corporate takeovers. But we've survived. We struggled our way through all sorts of trouble and we've made it to this epic milestone in our site's history. But now a new battle is brewing. A battle that we've feared for quite some time. CJB has gone to crap, and there pop-up adds are driving away our fans. They have started using installer malware and other terrible features to pay for their otherwise-free services. And now I'm in a predictament that's anything but comfortable. Folks, we need to ask you for donations. The donations page used to be a gag, but now we're serious. Without the donations of this site's fans, Matt Rock Online is going to need to continue using CJB for url redirection. And even if we leave CJB, we'll just have to go find a different re-direction service that also has pop-ups and adds. I want to make Matt Rock Online free from pop-up adds. I want the site to be viewable without hassles. But in order for me to do that, I need to ask you, the site's visitors, for donations. We're not asking for thousands or even hundreds of dollars. We're just asking for people to donate ten bucks, or five bucks... just enough so that we can end our dependence on CJB for URL re-routing and turn Matt Rock Online into a real website with a simple name that everyone can remember. You're probably asking why I won't pay for it myself. It seems like it's cheap nowadays to acquire a domain name. The answer? Sharyn and I are poor right now. The game studio that Colin and I formed is currently struggling with recruiting efforts and gathering production costs. I have a deal in the works with a prominent television producer, a deal to make a game and probably lots of money, but it's a slow-working project and I probably won't see any money from it until June or July. And Sharyn's business hasn't been up and running since she left Idaho and the two of us drove cross-country. Our financial situation has massively transformed from prominence to worry in a matter of months... back in October we were anything but poor. It's funny how fast things can turn around. We're asking for your help. We need to stay dependent on Geocities and CJB ads until we can rustle up enough cash to become our own independent website, free of the tyranical pop-ups that currently plague our website. With your donations, we'll finally become a proper dot-com. You don't have to donate. You can still view this website and enjoy its content. But think of how much better this site would be if you helped us! If you're interested in helping us out in any way you can, then go shop in our store or better yet, use the donations link to help save this site. Thanks for reading this article! |