Hey Chris,
I actually took a look at the statistics again, and found that I was perhaps wrong in the issue of people not sticking around the site. Many people do not stick around; however, people who search for "video game music remix" or some similar term stay around for an average of 6 minutes. That's an eternity on the Internet. I'm not sure what that indicates, but it seems to show that people who do discover the site are impressed with it.
The problem with content of this site is that the content is provided by the users. In 2005, I wrote a blog (
http://www.gamesareforchildren.com) and it was very successful within one month of starting out. I think that's because I was able to write a long, detailed article every day. With this site, though, it's obviously impossible to write one song per day and have it be of any quality.
But even if I did write one song per day, I wouldn't be able to concentrate on the programming. For a year, I worked as hard as I possibly could, spending one or two hours every weekday and up to twelve hours a day on many Saturdays and Sundays to improve the site. There just isn't any harder I could work without missing work or skipping meals or avoiding the gym. While it is true that people volunteered to help out, and some have been very helpful, many people who volunteered have not devoted enough time to make a difference. If the site does fail, I can't say that I didn't work hard enough.
What was a major mistake was not seeing this "market" (if that's what it is) as "competitive." Many of the sites devoted to video game remixes are very hypocritical: they state that music should be free, but they don't allow people to remove songs; and they state their communities are open, as long as people follow complex rules and avoid being banned. After looking around at things, I suspect that some sites are making a profit and don't want to draw attention to their finances because of the public uproar that would ensue. I may have been stupidly lured by an assumption that those at the top levels of the community are interested foremost in sharing music, when in reality some (but not all) communities are actually for-profit.
-quintin