Are you still using sendspace as a promotional tool? Unless it's personalized, as part of a larger campaign or sent specifically to a few key DJs or buds (for whom sending a track "just to you" has a personal touch that is indeed a stroke of genius), there are better options for getting music in the hands of the people who play it.

These days, any DJ or music writer spends hours every week clicking links and being sucked into the abyss of promo pages. It's actually frightening to think how much time someone like Louie Vega or Kenny Dope spends just sorting through the hundreds or thousands of tracks sent every month with a corresponding promo page for each (though by the time you get to that level, you probably have someone at least doing the initial clicking for you).

Considering how many promos are being sent out these days, the reaction to a label's promo page and the service they use probably has a lot more to do with their music catching on than anyone cares to admit.

Though I know it shouldn't be this way, I've often found myself just moving on to the next flagged email when a promo page doesn't let me do what I want to do or proves to be too irritating to bother. Seven minute instrumental Ableton masturbation from someone I've never heard of? Most people, I think, are nice and will give that a fair hearing unless you make it too complicated for them to bother trying.

There are four primary services in use today among House Music labels that I get sent to every month. I'm the king of cheap, I don't believe there's any product or service on this planet that you can't do for cheaper, but unless pop-up ads for mortgages and erectile dysfunction are concepts what you want people to associate with your music, you could do with spending a few bucks and maybe learning a little more about which of the DJs that say A++++++ WILL PLAY AGAIN are actually even listening to it.

I hated it at first. I'll freely admit that. But like the Boof character in a 1980s Michael J. Fox coming-of-age comedy, Fatdrop decided to hang around long enough for me to decide that I love her. This is the gold standard of promo services. Their reporting for the label is robust, and while their pages allow for some customization, your DJs know exactly what they have to do to listen to and download music. Fatdrop's widespread use has made their interface so familiar that most people can sleepwalk through the process. If everyone used Fatdrop, my life would be 10x easier.

Labels and PR firms run the show at Fatdrop: the service itself is invisible except for a generic "fatdrop.co.uk/promo" in the URL, which completely eliminates the somewhat antiquated model of the DJ pool. Labels have to add DJs directly to grant access; for the labels, this means total control over who is seeing their product.

Most labels require that you leave feedback, favorite a track and give it a star rating to download tracks. This may seem cumbersome if you have hundreds of promos to sort through, but really, it's not that much to ask. Much of it winds up being useless platitudes anyway but if you're getting free tracks, I think most people agree then 30 seconds of your time is a small price to pay. (Some DJs apparently give "five stars will play!!!!" ratings to everything, no matter what it sounds like, which is sheer comedy when the label uses it for sales promotions. Laurent Garnier's nice guy endorsement of everything he's sent was an inside joke among labels for a long time, but it seems someone else has noticed it too.)

Cost: £50 set-up, £35/month for 2gb of bandwith and 5gb storage. Additional bandwith is £6/gb. By today's conversion rate, that's about $78 set up and $54/month.

Info: fatdrop.co.uk.

I have no idea how I was signed up for Release Promo. Supposedly, it uses the model of the old DJ pool, in which labels supply the music for free and DJs are charged $59/month, but with a 3 month minimum (basically, $177 to start).

Unfortunately, the interface is clunky and out of the internet circa 1998. Incredibly, just to preview tracks, Release Promo forces you to download an m3u file and load the songs in iTunes rather than simply using a flash-based player to preview the tracks in the browser. Flash players are everywhere - there are even free varieties which can basically be adapted to any sort of service known to man, with whatever skin you'd like to use. Previewing tracks is of paramount importance when you have little to no familiarity with the label or artists. And you want me to download something just to do that? Thanks but no thanks.

Cost: Free to labels, $177 for a 3 month membership for DJs. They apparently have a "total" package in which labels can pay to blast out their music as well, which is probably how I was added.

Info: releasepromo.com

Label Worx more or less a cheaper alternative to Fatdrop. The service is not terribly different (though putting the feedback form at the bottom means that many people will miss it), with the opportunity to preview and label control on whether or not feedback is required. Really the only substantial difference between Label-Worx and Fatdrop, at least from my end, is a slightly negative one: a little ticker keeps track of how many times you've downloaded a song vs. how many times the label will allow you to do so. I've no idea why this is even on there: with simple IP tracking, the label can easily find out if you've downloaded it from your computer and phone or given it out to 10,000 of your closest friends and deal with your pirating ass accordingly.

Additionally, you can host the tracks on your own server and just use Label-Worx's tracking system for an even cheaper rate.

Cost: £7.50 for hosting and tracking; £5 for tracking only. It roughly works out to $12 for the complete package or $8 for just the tracking.

Info: label-worx.com/promomanager

AheadPR recently redesigned their promo interface and for the life of me I can't figure out. It's easy enough to preview tracks - the flash player here is sleek and cool - but the feedback section is located way down at the bottom of the page and it's not entirely clear where the download option comes from or if one is even provided. I say this having used the service and filled out feedback saying, hey, maybe I'm a mental cripple but I can't figure this one out. Nobody got back to me, probably because the info was sent to the label and AheadPR never saw it.

Cost: AheadPR provides basic information on their website (£400 for their "bundle offer" on the high end, £200 on the low end), but no information is provided that I could find on what this means outside of general audience divisions into Tastemakers and International Press and Radio). To get more detailed info (is this yearly? quarterly? are there additional bandwith charges? how easily can I track it?) you apparently have to fill out a form.

Info: aheadpr.com