Somesongs (what can be done?)

[Reist]

I like somesongs. I think it's a great concept. I also think the participation has been pretty lackluster, and the user interface is a little clunky. Do any of you have suggestions that could improve somesongs and bring it into the new decade with pizazz?

[Niveous]

- A new interface
- A conscious effort from us SF'ers to use it and participate.


Maybe we should do some kind of cross promotion. For every song we do for the FAWM, we post them on Somesongs...

[jack]

maybe someone should ask Jeff what he wants to do with it?

if he (or anyone else) wanted to update the UI, one option could be to use cchost. It's being used by ccmixter (as well as many other community sites). It's open source and free. It's pretty stable and has upload functionality, the ability to rate and review, create accounts, etc.

[roymond]

I thought Sam was well down this path, and Jefff offered admin rights.

[Lunkhead]

I emailed with Jefff about somesongs a little bit. Not to speak for him too much but he said he was open to handing the site over to a new admin. Also I have actually gone pretty far down the path of reimplementing the site from scratch. I did that for a few reasons: 1) I don't know PHP, the language that the site is written in now, 2) I didn't have access to the original code anyway, 3) I wanted a project to work on that was mostly about learning some new programming tools, and not about thinking up a new idea for a Web site, 4) I thought there were some small changes that could be made to the somesongs UI that would really improve the user experience.

I did not come up with a new UI, but instead made some incremental changes to it. I added a Flash MP3 player to the site, for listening to songs right in the browser. I also made some changes so that data can be saved in the background sometimes, without a page reload. For example, you could go to the page for a song and listen to the song on the page and save changes to your rating and comment while the song played. It doesn't work like lala.com or the old thesixtyone.com interface, though, where songs keep playing without interruption while you browse around the whole site. Anyway, if you want to check it out send me a PM and I'll send you the URL. Or should I just post it? It's fairly functional but definitely still a beta at best, and my current hosting setup is having some issues so it's kind of slow right now.

I haven't worked on it in a while and I haven't pursued hosting services. I kind of feel like I wouldn't want to go through all that unless the site was actually going to be used again.

Do people think they would use the site? Would people want the data from the current site migrated to a new version? Or would people want to start from scratch? Would an incremental change to the UI be good enough? If not, what kind of "new UI" would people want? How do people feel about the site name, "somesongs", and the site look and feel? Would other people be interested in helping out as admins?

[Generic]

A few years back, there was a concerted effort to Save Somesongs. It worked for a little while, and then most of us got bored. I know I barely have enough time in my life for Songfight, much less to keep up with Somesongs (if it were to become active again).

If you ask me, though, adding an integrated Flash-based mp3 player can only make it better.

Lunk, go ahead and post the link. I'd love to at least take a look at it, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Happy birthday, by the way.

[Niveous]

I'll for the preservation of a great resource like Somesongs. I'm not the best with computer languages but if you need some help on the revival, I'm in. Just tell me what you need.

[Lunkhead]

I would just want people to actually use it. Working on it as a hobby project has been good experience. Actually hosting it for real and running it and updating it would cost money and would mean committing time to keeping it up and running properly according to the users' expectations. If you want to check it out, I've got the in-progress app up here:

http://www.bozos.com/ssj/

I've had a few SF! and somesongs veterans check it out so far and leave some feedback. You should be able to register, log in, post songs, poke around, etc.

[Reist]

I think a standalone flash player would be useful - with a star system integrated into the player, as well as a "more from this artist" button.

Does that seem plausible to you guys? Or is it a dumb idea?

[Ross]

What is the purpose of some songs - I guess I always had the impression it was just a kind service for those who did not have a place to host their own songs. Is there more to it than that?

[roymond]

What is the purpose of some songs - I guess I always had the impression it was just a kind service for those who did not have a place to host their own songs. Is there more to it than that?

Well, it doesn't provide any hosting of songs, actually. You have to provide a link to you songs to post any on somesongs.

Here are some things that somesongs provides:

- a place to post new songs for others to hear
- feedback from interested listeners
- a place to listen to new songs from different artists
- an uncluttered UI with no advertising, etc.

There are no rules, no challenges, no expectations. Its navigation is simple and to the point. I love that about somesongs. The straightforward ratings and "tops" lists are a wonderful way to listen to new songs.

I look forward to recording again and taking part, if it actually lives. It does require a certain critical mass of participants to make things interesting day-to-day.

YEA SOMESONGS!!!!

[Generic]

I think a standalone flash player would be useful - with a star system integrated into the player, as well as a "more from this artist" button.

Does that seem plausible to you guys? Or is it a dumb idea?

The original somesongs didn't have a button labeled "More from this artist," but you could always click on the artist's name for a complete list of their tracks. Wasn't that enough?

Hey Lunkhead, the new design looks nice! A little slow, but I guess that's because you're hosting it on your own site.

Also, I tried to give Frankie a [good] and got an error message saying "java.lang.Double" repeatedly. What have you got against Frankie? (Actually, this happens anytime I want to give a song its 5th rating. This might be why none of the songs up there have scores yet?)

[Lunkhead]

Oops, I'd actually fixed that a while back but not updated the site on my server in a bit. I updated it now, so you should be able to place that 5th vote, if you'd like. It is really really slow, though, sadly. Not much I can do about that for a bit.

[Reist]

The original somesongs didn't have a button labeled "More from this artist," but you could always click on the artist's name for a complete list of their tracks. Wasn't that enough?

I'm not sure - if the "more from this artist" button (within the flash player) instantly played a different song by the artist, I would absolutely use it - I think curiosity would be tweaked with an instant reward, as opposed to searching through a list and deciding which song you want to hear next. People are lazy that way.

I don't know about you guys, but I think if somesongs is going to survive/thrive, it's going to need more than a facelift - it needs an entirely different way to present its core concept. The site as is just seems outdated and tired to me. Mind you - I don't have any useful skills with which to help this project, so I'm pretty sure my opinion shouldn't count.

[Lunkhead]

I hear what you're saying, Reist. That's kind of why I was interested in seeing what people had to say about it. I'm not sure if it's worth it to me to take it over and make only incremental changes, as that may not really be enough to get people to use it again. I really have no idea what a complete overhaul should be like, though. I would love to make it more like the way thesixtyone.com used to be, maybe. (Their current UI is totally bizarre to me.) It would take a very long time for me to be able to replicate the functionality of that site, though.

[jack]

I would just want people to actually use it. Working on it as a hobby project has been good experience. Actually hosting it for real and running it and updating it would cost money and would mean committing time to keeping it up and running properly according to the users' expectations. If you want to check it out, I've got the in-progress app up here:

http://www.bozos.com/ssj/

I've had a few SF! and somesongs veterans check it out so far and leave some feedback. You should be able to register, log in, post songs, poke around, etc.

i think it looks great man! pretty similar to jeff's version.

keep in mind that somesongs is like a dinosaur on the internet now. it predates myspace, youtube, hell it predates social media apps in general. it's like a crusty old man, refusing to adapt to new technology, prefers function over fashion, no pop up shit, no banner ads, just a simple interface to take care of business without alot of Flash (pun intended). being a crusty old guy myself, i kind of like that about it.

would i use it again. maybe. but there's alot of competition for my online time honestly. more than when i was using it 5 years ago.

[roymond]

I don't know about you guys, but I think if somesongs is going to survive/thrive, it's going to need more than a facelift - it needs an entirely different way to present its core concept. The site as is just seems outdated and tired to me. Mind you - I don't have any useful skills with which to help this project, so I'm pretty sure my opinion shouldn't count.

The reason most every other site of its kind TOTALLY FUCKING SUCKS is that someone thought that they needed some "cool" features or funky graphics. If you care about music, use sites that ARE EASY TO USE, SERVE MUSIC RELIABLY and DON'T CLUTTER THE SHIT OUT OF THE PROCESS OF SERVING MUSIC.

Survival is about usefulness to the audience. If twittering your thumbs and freaking out over how gross someone's avatar is turns you on, then you're not very interested in music.

But yeah, something pretty could be nice, too.

[Reist]

The reason most every other site of its kind TOTALLY FUCKING SUCKS is that someone thought that they needed some "cool" features or funky graphics. If you care about music, use sites that ARE EASY TO USE, SERVE MUSIC RELIABLY and DON'T CLUTTER THE SHIT OUT OF THE PROCESS OF SERVING MUSIC.

Survival is about usefulness to the audience. If twittering your thumbs and freaking out over how gross someone's avatar is turns you on, then you're not very interested in music.

But yeah, something pretty could be nice, too.

You're right, there's absolutely no improvements that can be made. Do you still use askjeeves? It, like, totally served my search purposes by letting me ask questions in like, real life terms. All these new fangled websites with their ads are so much less useful to me as an artist.

[jack]

The reason most every other site of its kind TOTALLY FUCKING SUCKS is that someone thought that they needed some "cool" features or funky graphics. If you care about music, use sites that ARE EASY TO USE, SERVE MUSIC RELIABLY and DON'T CLUTTER THE SHIT OUT OF THE PROCESS OF SERVING MUSIC.

there you go, spoken like a crusty old guy. all caps included.

[Reist]

The reason most every other site of its kind TOTALLY FUCKING SUCKS is that someone thought that they needed some "cool" features or funky graphics. If you care about music, use sites that ARE EASY TO USE, SERVE MUSIC RELIABLY and DON'T CLUTTER THE SHIT OUT OF THE PROCESS OF SERVING MUSIC.

there you go, spoken like a crusty old guy. all caps included.

Oh, was that spoken as a joke? Because then my sarcastic remark was hardly needed.

dang internets.

[jast]

Oh, was that spoken as a joke? Because then my sarcastic remark was hardly needed.

So if it wasn't a joke, your remark was needed? Interesting.

Well, roymond isn't really wrong, anyway. Simplicity is a wonderful thing. The challenge is to put in exactly the right features and leave out everything else. Which, of course, isn't very precise advice.

[jack]

GODDAMN YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN!