My finances have been hit hard because of the global ecomonic downturn. My music sales have made me just enough to buy a weeks shopping for one. That’s not good for 2 years figures. Although I share a lot of my music for free. So I took a bit of a gamble and dedicated myself to building an idea I had several years ago. I can finally report that I’ve finished the site and I sent it live about a week ago. Sure, there might be a bug or two floating around, but I’ve tested it well and i’m very proud of my achievement. The idea was to create something that provide some sort of income so that I could spend more time developing music and be able to survive.

I’ll give you some details about my new site first, then the gumph on my Youtube statistics.

The site is a bit like an enhanced directory for accommodation and events and it’s called Megabunk. I have spotted a number of other sites that cover similar areas to my site, howver they charge commissions etc to those renting out. Mine is a bit different. It’s a contact site, so it just puts you in touch. So therefore it’s completely free to use. The search elements of the site are tuned towards accommodation and work together with Google maps. I’m very pleased with how it all works. There is also an easy to manage calender so that people can keep track of booked dates. I also considered that people might want to use the site in different ways. It’s free so people might just want to have a listing on the site that points to their website and not use the internal messaging system. I’ve allowed for up to 10 profiles per host user. This allows those who are a bit flush with multiple places to rent to receive mail on the same email address.

Just before I went live I spent several days making some instructional videos and the total viewing time of them all comes to over an hour.I combined the videos into a playlist, and as is usual with my posts, I’m going to give you a link to the videos:

Megabunk instructional videos

It’s advisable to at least watch the introduction vid before going to the site. You can go directly to the site at the following link, and remember that I wrote the whole thing myself (including a few small open source functions that I adapted).

Megabunk

The way I intend raise funds to maintain the site is by placing advertising instead of charging the members. The overheads for the site are very small. Just one person running it (Me!). I’m hoping it will do well then i can put more into it to improve and promote it.Commercial TV stations have been providing free television for many years, and have been earning their money through advertising. That’s how I believe it should be.

So, if you know anyone with a hotel, villa, apartment, flat, caravan etc. Even if they have a spare room to rent for a week in the summer, then please let them know about Megabunk. The only thing it will cost them is a little bit of their time to set up a profile, and that will hopefully bring them more enquiries and/or visitors to their website. It’s a bit like free advertising for them. It’s not only for those with accommodation. Event organisers can set up an event profile that gets returned with the accommodation results

Now to the business of my Jeffstunes youtube channel.There’s been quite a bit of momvement since my last post, due to the long gap. So here are the numbers.

Channel vies have topped 50k at 50,976.
My subscribers have topped the 2k mark at 2,209 and my overall video views are fast approacing 1.5m at 1,463,739.

There are 5 music videos I’ve uploaded since my last post so I’m hopefully going to be telling you about those in the next few weeks.

It was time for some video experimentation. I have made lots of videos where I have recorded the song first. Then I produced the video to go with the song. The problem has always been about getting a good enough recording from the video performance. After giving this some thought, I came up with a way to achieve it with little cost involved. This is not taking into account the Microphone cost. I’m assuming it’s already there.

I will explain what I did over these 5 videos to achieve a decent recording. Some of you might find this useful when doing performances to video.

Now back to the focus for this post. This is my take on Imagine by John Lennon. I hope you enjoy it.

Imagine – Jeff Edwards

Now the Youtube gumph.

My total video views have finally surpassed one million. Mind boggling. Most of the nations in the world have contributed. I think there are roughly 10 countries that I don’t have views from! The total tally for my views is 1,045,460.

The Subs are about to pass another milestone at 1,923.

My channel page has seen a total of 41,970 visits.

My next post will be the second of these five recordings.

Now for the next video. It’s a classic song called “If tomorrow never comes” by the one and only Garth Brooks. If you know this song then you may also know that Ronan Keating had a hit with it. This is for all but especially for all my American friends who have been watching and commenting on my vids over these past three years. Fitting, considering that the USA is the home of country music. This is my interpretation. I hope you all like it.

If tomorrow never comes – Jeff Edwards

A few times a week I walk to the post office and a few days ago I was making the same trip and there were a number children riding bikes that waited outside and followed me for half of my journey back. Before they turned off, one of them called out my name! It would seem to me that the only possible way they could have known me is through Youtube because I know absolutely nobody in my local area. I keep myself to myself. All my friends are several miles away. This isn’t the only time I’ve been recognised whilst out. I did some calculations and it seems to make sense. In my county alone it worked out that statistically about 1,000 people would have seen one of my videos!
I must admit that at first it made me feel a bit mystified when people looked knowingly at me, when I know that I didn’t know them.

Enough of that though. Here’s what’s happening to my Youtube numbers.
My subscribers are climbing steadily and are currently at 1770.
The total times my channel has been viewed is 39,207.
My overall video views are an incredible 932,723.

I haven’t done much on Youtube recently, so I am going to try and get more videos out this year than I did last year.

Here is my take on “Blackout”.

Jeffstunes singing Blackout by Muse

Here’s the latest Youtube statistics digest.
My subscribers have climbed up to 1,619.
My channel has been perused 36,499 times.
The total viewing figures for all my videos now stands at 831,005.

I haven’t yet planned my next video upload. It will probably be another of my enormous request list, or perhaps I might put up another original!

Now to the song. Here is my rendition of this wonderful tune from the album X&Y.

Jeff Edwards singing Swallowed in the sea by Coldplay.

As always, it’s time for some Youtube figures, and my subscriber tally has increased to 1,414.
The viewings of my channel have gone past the 33k barrier to 33,008. My total video viewings is creeping ever nearer to 700k at 687,830. I’ve got my fingers crossed on that being passed quite soon.

Now a look forward to my next post. I have already done a recording of the song, and in my opinion, it is one of the most wonderful modern compositions I’ve ever heard. I wont spoil it by saying anything now, and I’m hoping that will have created an air of anticipation. Until I write again

This song is called “You found me” and is by a group called “The Fray”. It’s not the first of theirs that I have uploaded to youtube. Some time back I did “How to save a life”.

This is MY version of it. I hope you like it.

You found me – The fray (My cover)

Last, but by no means least. It’s the low down on the Youtube figures.
My subscribers have increased to 1,408.
My channel viewings are now at 32,714.
The total views for all my videos is 677,653.

Coming next is a Coldplay cover, with a dedication to a couple of Youtube subs.

It’s time I did some of my requests and this is the most requested of all of them. I’ve had requests for a number of Neil Diamond songs, and I have already got through quite a few, but up until now, this one has been out of the list.

The title is “Love on the rocks”. I hope you enjoy my rendition of this beautiful song. Neil Diamond compositions are always a joy for me to sing.

Love on the rocks – Jeff Edwards

OK. It’s numbers time. Everything seems to be moving forward well on Youtube.
The Subs to the Jeffstunes channel are now up at 1,406.
My channel has now been looked at 32,593 times and the overall video views are now 673,277!!

Looking ahead to my next post. I’ll be doing another most requested tune, and it is going to be one from “The Fray”. Then after that, a Coldplay number

It’s been a while since I uploaded my last video to Youtube, but the video views are still as strong. I recorded some requests recently, and this is the first of that batch.

It’s one of the many well known songs from The Carpenters. I was watching a documentary about their rise a couple of nights ago. I think that had something to do with me uploading it.

It’s entitled “For all we know”, and this is my rendition of it.

Jeffstunes cover of For all we know by The Carpenters

Now for an update on the statistics. They’ve moved on a bit.
The total subscribers to my channel are now 1,368.
My channel has been seen 31,758 times.
The total views for all my videos now stands at 648,469.

I’m hoping to upload a Neil Diamond classic realtively soon. Then it’s a Fray song. That’s coming up

Here it is:

Jeffstunes singing use somebody

I’ve just finished a website so I thought I’d put some stuff about it in the video. It all started with answering my comments on YT. If you attempt more than 4 comments in 10 minutes, you get challenged by Captcha. Some of the word challenges that the Youtube Captcha made up were really very amusing. You can make it generate loads by continually clicking “Can’t read”. Virtually all the words do not exist in real life, and pretty soon i started dreaming up dictionary definitions for those words. I was thinking of how amusing it would be if someone made a website with the fake Captcha words and fake definitions in a disctionary. It would be so funny. I couldn’t wait for that to happen, so I quickly put together my own site and called it “Captchionary”.
I sat down for a day going through some of the captcha images I’ve collected and added them to the site with definitions. I’ve made it so that anybody can submit their own captcha definitions. The more I get the better. I can’t wait to see what other people come up with.

So if you see a Captcha image that has a word you could make a definition for then right click on the image and save it to your computer. Then visit the Captchionary website at:

The Captchionary

Fill out the form at the bottom and upload your image, or just provide another definition for one of the existing words. Then leave up to the vetting process. While you’re on the site. Why not check out some of the existing words and definitions. You can click the “Hit me” link for random words. My cheeks already hurt from some that I’ve read.

Now down to my Youtube affairs. Here’s the latest lowdown on the statistics.

Subscribers = 1,208
Channel views = 28,081
Total video views = 537,056

Until next time…

What do you reckon. Take a listen:

You’ve got a friend – A Jeffstunes cover

My Dad part 12

The 2 other alcoholics beside my dad that I talked briefly about, were engaged in employment with my father for a short time at a firm called “Taylor woodrow” in Greenford. I think the firm were in the process of closing down their operation there. I remember once being invited to their annual summer party. It was good fun, but I didn’t really know anybody there. I visited his place of work on a number of occasions. I think he was employed in the capacity of some sort of security guard. It was a vast site with many buildings, yet none of them seemed to be staffed in any way. I’d say that was probably the perfect environment for my father to work in. Nobody to see him drinking, and he did at work. There were many objects around his place of work, and if they weren’t nailed down, then he would take them. Actually he probably also took some things that were nailed down. By the time his appointment was over, his house looked like a bit like the offices
The circumstances in which his employment ended are not important, and I don’t know anyway. I just know he stopped working there.
My father also used to lavish gifts upon me of jewellery and other precious items. The problem was that he didn’t buy any of these items. He took them. Something I found out at a later date. Did he leave me any of those objects. Not a chance, he stole them back off me to sell for drink probably. I can’t say I’m too bothered. I’ve never been one to wear jewellery. I kept them in a draw. I also didn’t really consider them mine. The brutal truth is that he didn’t have a right to give them either!
So, what does it feel like to be the son of a common thief and an alcoholic?
I imagine it’s no different from anybody else. Most of us disagree with some of our parents actions, it’s just that those of my father were illegal

To be continued…

The Youtube figures have been climbing steadily. I’ve worked out that I get on average between 1,100 and 1,300 views a day. Strangely though. Every now and again one of my videos enjoys a boost in views without any apparent reason. Like one video getting 4,000 views in 2 days. I’m still scratching my head.
My subscribers have increased to 1,183.
The amount of times my channel has been seen is 27,367 and I’m pleased to say that the total video views have pushed over the half a million mark to 521,210.

Coming up next is more covering. There’s a duet on the horizon, so I’m not sure if that’s going to come first.