Blabbermouth.net is a

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google Search, Google, Facebook, Amaz ...

dedicated to heavy metal and

hard rock Hard rock or heavy rock is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard ...

news, as well as album and music

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

reviews. Blabbermouth.net was founded and is run by Borivoj Krgin. The first version of the website was launched in March 2001; in October 2001, the record label

Roadrunner Records Roadrunner Records is an American record label focused on heavy metal and hard rock bands. Founded in the Netherlands in 1980, it is now a division of Warner Music Group and is based in New York City. History The label was launched in 1980 in t ...

began hosting it. Users can post comments to selected news articles and album reviews, either in response to other user comments or in response to the article itself.

History

Founder Borivoj Krgin came up with the concept of Blabbermouth in January 2000. Robert Kampf, a friend of Krgin who runs

Century Media Records Century Media Records is a heavy metal record label with offices in the United States, Germany and London. In August 2015, Century Media was acquired by Sony Music for US$17 million. Background Century Media was founded by Robert Kampf and Oli ...

, was staying with Krgin in New York and set up a meeting with Gunter Ford of World Management. During the meeting, Ford suggested an idea for a "heavy metal portal", a site which would offer news, merchandise, and CD reviews to get record labels to sell their products through the site. Ford wanted Kampf to be involved. Krgin disliked the idea and wished for a site that offered around-the-clock news, as he thought that no good news sites existed. Krgin began researching how to develop and

host A host is a person responsible for guests at an event or for providing hospitality during it. Host may also refer to: Places * Host, Pennsylvania, a village in Berks County People *Jim Host (born 1937), American businessman * Michel Host ...

his own website two months after the meeting. After a year Krgin felt comfortable going "live". The initial "primitive" version of the site was launched on March 3, 2001. In October of the same year

Monte Conner Monte Conner is a former senior vice president of A&R for Roadrunner Records. He started at Roadrunner in December 1987. He has worked with numerous bands, including Slipknot, Trivium and King Diamond. The bands he has signed, in alphabetica ...

, a friend of Krgin, and a

A&R approached Krgin with the idea of having the site hosted on the Roadrunner servers. This way, Krgin could focus on Blabbermouth.net's content rather than the technical aspects involved in running a site. Blabbermouth.net is described by the ''

London Free Press ''The London Free Press'' is a daily newspaper based in London, Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. It has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Southwestern Ontario. History ''The London Free Press'' began as the ''Canadian Free Press'', ...

'' as a "reliable industry and fan site".Reaney, James (April 15, 2008). "Motley Crue set to rock Sarnia, sources say." ''

''.

Sources

According to his own words, Krgin spends most of his time operating the site. When finding information relating to bands, Krgin claims to search bands' official websites (including social networking sites), which are usually reported on immediately, and band message boards where members of the band post. However, Krgin relies on the contacts he has made over the years ranging from band members, metal journalists, managers and other people in the music industry, stating this is where the "best" information comes from. Krgin supposedly sends e-mails and makes telephone calls daily to obtain new information. Blabbermouth.net has a 'submit news' feature which has proved to be helpful to Krgin. When receiving a rumor he deems worthy of posting, Krgin will first research and contact people related to the band and question them about the rumour. It's claimed that 90% of the information posted is either found online or is submitted directly to the website by bands, managers, labels or associated persons.

Criticism

Blabbermouth.net has been criticized by musicians and music industry persons for

internet trolls In slang, a troll is a person who posts or makes inflammatory, insincere, digressive, extraneous, or off-topic messages online (such as in social media, a newsgroup, a forum, a chat room, a online video game), or in real life, with the int ...

and news posts that are unrelated to heavy metal or hard rock. Krgin said he posts these articles to attract humorous comments from users, and as relief from the constant monotony of album news. In September 2006, Krgin claimed to have performed a cleanup of Blabbermouth.net's comments and to have adopted a policy whereby users can report offensive comments in order to have them deleted from the site. Prior to this, in his own words, "countless abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic and threatening comments" had been posted on the site since the "comments" feature was implemented in early 2002.

Traffic

Blabbermouth.net was visited by more than 1.2 million unique users each month, and it had an average of 80,000 unique visitors per day, according to

Google Analytics Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic, currently as a platform inside the Google Marketing Platform brand. Google launched the service in November 2005 after acquiring Urchin. As o ...

(as of August 2011). The busiest day so far was 298,000 unique visitors in a single 24-hour period over May 16, 2010, due to the death of

Ronnie James Dio Ronald James Padavona (July 10, 1942 – May 16, 2010), known professionally as Ronnie James Dio, was an American heavy metal singer. He fronted and founded numerous bands throughout his career, including Elf, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Dio and H ...

. The second-busiest day was more than 200,000 unique visitors in a single 24-hour period, which happened the day after the death of

Type O Negative Type O Negative were an American gothic metal band formed in Brooklyn, New York City in 1989 by Peter Steele (bass, lead vocals), Kenny Hickey (guitar, co-lead vocals), Josh Silver (keyboards, backing vocals), and Sal Abruscato (drums, percussi ...

frontman

Peter Steele Petrus Thomas Ratajczyk (January 4, 1962 – April 14, 2010), known professionally as Peter Steele, was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. He was best known as the lead vocalist, bassist and composer of the gothic metal band Type O N ...

—April 15, 2010. Blabbermouth.net is ranked as the 12,279th-most-trafficked website globally according to

Alexa Alexa may refer to: Technology *Amazon Alexa, a virtual assistant developed by Amazon * Alexa Internet, a defunct website ranking and traffic analysis service * Arri Alexa, a digital motion picture camera People *Alexa (name), a given name and ...

. Prior to its recent change requiring users to log in with a

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

account in order to post comments, Blabbermouth.net had more 101,000 registered users (users who are registered to post comments on the site) as of August 2011.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Blabbermouth.Net Heavy metal publications American entertainment news websites Internet properties established in 2001 2001 establishments in the United States