Since the launch of The Music Hutch (http://www.themusichutch.com/) in December 2006, there has been many obstacles to overcome, from server hacks to massive demands and server overloads, server crashes and third-party websites linking to music downloads at The Music Hutch. The list keeps on going. “It’s been really tough work for only two people managing a big site,” says Gregory Rzeczko, CEO of Soma Studios, “we have lots of demand for this website, and zero funds. We’ve been working on obtaining funds, but in the meantime, we have to work to keep the Site going. There’s been times the server has been sluggish due to it not being able to handle the excessive amount of visitors on certain days.”

On April 30, 2013, an updated version of The Music Hutch has been released. In this newer version, the web server has been upgraded to handle more music uploads and visitors. For a list of the new functionalities that have been released at The Music Hutch, visit http://www.themusichutch.com/whats-new/. “We are seeing an increase in visitors since the new release, and hoping to monetize the Site quite soon, so we may continue further developing, upgrading, and expanding The Music Hutch, before the servers will not be able to handle the amount of traffic the Site receives. We’ve contacted investors in the past, and had no luck. We will now be turning to crowd-funding sites, such as Kickstarter and Fundable,” says Rzeczko.

The Music Hutch is currently receiving over 200,000 unique monthly visitors with about 35,000,000 monthly hits. “We plan on implementing audio and text ads hopefully soon to the Site. Most listeners listen to music from The Music Hutch from websites that embed The Music Hutch player onto their websites, such as blogs and social network profiles. We understand people may not like audio ads, but we do plan to add a skip button. Audio ads will help us to generate revenues so we may continue developing The Music Hutch. In the future, if all works out well, we will implement other ways of generating revenue that are most convenient for the listener,” says Rzeczko.

For ways to support The Music Hutch, visit http://www.themusichutch.com/support.php. Many features are planned for the future development of the Site, including other Soma Studios’ productions, such as Polski Domek (http://www.polskidomek.com/) and Lettuce Debate (http://www.lettucedebate.com/). If Soma Studios’ does acquire funds, Rzeczko estimates The Music Hutch to receive traffic of well over 1,000,000 monthly unique visitors after a server upgrade and with new features developed at the Site.