FolkWorld Editorial by Michael & Christian Moll
10 Years FolkWorld - A Decade of Folk on the Internet
FolkWorld, the European online folk, world and roots music magazine celebrates its 10th anniversary in the world wide web on 1st November 2007. This issue is being published to coincide with the anniversary. Also with this issue, FolkWorld is re-launched at a new .EU domain: www.folkworld.eu, to fully reflect the European dimension of the publication.
Over its 10 years, FolkWorld has developed into the biggest and ultimate resource for European folk, world and roots music on the internet. The "Home of European Music" has accumulated on its website more than 5,000 CD reviews and over 500 articles, live reviews and interviews, plus regular news updates, from European and international artists. Every day 10,000 worldwide visitors are looking for information about European folk music on the FolkWorld website.
Back in 1997, the trigger for developing FolkWorld was the discontinuation of the German print magazine Folksblatt, to which we had been main contributors over the previous few years. Folksblatt was merged with the other German magazine, Folk Michel, to form the new magazine Folker. Thus Folker has also reached its 10th anniversary this year, and FolkWorld would like to take this opportunity to congratulate our colleagues.
We felt not at home with the new Folker magazine, and decided to go our separate way and develop a magazine with international coverage and readership - on the internet. In 1997, to develop a large scale folk music website was still comparably pioneering work, and probably not many internet mags have survived with the same concept over such a long period.
Since, our independent and non-profit web magazine has gone from strength to strength, and features today articles from a varied team of folk writers from across Europe, from Germany, England, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland.. The magazine features folk and world music artists and genres from the North Cape to the Mezzogiorno, from the Golden Horn to Finisterre, and beyond.
A lot of memories come when thinking back the 10 years of FolkWorld and the folk scene. We feel proud that the FolkWorld team was able to keep the magazine alive for these 10 years, surviving the end of our student days and the challenge to keep the magazine running alongside a full time day job, and surviving the migration of one of the editors to the UK. We are now working on making it sustainable for a longer term future - but still keeping true to the concept that the magazine is 100% independent and not-for-profit, and is produced based on the enthusiasm and spare time of its contributors.
A big thank you to all of you who have supported FolkWorld over the years - contributors and technical supporters, musicians and record companies who sent review CDs, bands, and last not least all of you readers - without you this would not make much sense! A special thank you goes to Tom Keller, who kept FolkWorld going as "Acting Editor" over the last couple of years when both editors had to scale back their commitment, and who still is one of the backbones of the magazine.
FolkWorld's 10th anniversary issue has the theme "A Decade of Folk", with a number of guest contributions, looking at Europe's folk, world and roots music scene over the past ten years. To mark the decade, FolkWorld's editorial team put together a list of the magazine's greatest and best loved artists, in six regional categories with ten artists per category - a real "who is who" of the folk scene from 1997 to 2007.
Finally, a few important changes in FolkWorld, which were necessary to make the magazine sustainable to run in the future:
- Reminder email:
FolkWorld will no longer send out reminder emails to mark the publication of a new issue. Instead we aim to publish FolkWorld on a regular basis with its publication dates will be announced well in advance - so you can let your computer, blackberry, mobile or whatever you may wish to use remind you instead!
- Contact email addresses:
All FolkWorld email addresses have changed - see staff page - and the old addresses will no longer be available. This was an absolute necessity as FolkWorld was completely spammed out (with several hundred spam mails a day), and the team could not manage anymore to filter the emails for relevant emails. It is likely that many emails from you readers may have been deleted along with all the spam. We wish to apologise for this, and thank you for your understanding. Feel free to contact us at our new addresses (which are organised in a way that they can easier be changed in the future if deemed necessary).
- Domain name:
FolkWorld's main domain name is now www.folkworld.eu - however, the old www.folkworld.de will remain and transfer all visitors to the new domain.
We hope you will find this special anniversary edition of interest, and leave you with our best wishes
your FolkWorld Editors
FolkWorld title images
over the years
Issue no 2-13 - graphic by Annegret Haensel
Issue 14 - Berroguetto
No 17 - Kapela ze wsi Warszawa
No. 19 - Tatihou Festival
No. 25 - Calvin Vollrath
No. 29 - Isle of Harris
No. 30 - Chris Stout
