At #FediForum, @n00q discussed a Federated music service for #BandCamp refugees. After a few days of drawing up requirements and specs, and a couple days of code, something interesting is taking shape.Here's a too-fast-tour of a hypothetical album pag...

your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦

@benpate @n00q getting sued by Metallica will be awesome publicity for your Bandcamp killer. awesome marketing move.*

(* snark brought to you by a GenXer who still remembers and resents their Napster fuckery.)

Ben Pate 🤘🏻

@blogdiva @n00q Napster Bad! (I still love Metallica, tho)

Alison Wilder

@benpate @n00q this is so exciting! Have you taken a look at #Faircamp? It's a static site generator designed to provide artists a self hosted easy way to share their own music. Since it's building static sites, I'm not sure if there's any real opportunity for collaboration, but it seems to have come from the Fediverse, so just wanted to be sure you were aware of it!

faircamp

faircamp - A static site generator for audio producers

Codeberg.org (codeberg.org)

Ben Pate 🤘🏻

@alisynthesis @n00q Thanks, Allison. Until a few weeks ago I hadn’t looked into any of this But now I am familiar with #Faircamp

I love static site generators, but I don’t think they work for regular people - too much command line for grandma to use.

There is a place for an easy-to-sign-up website, though. So my current thought is to open source this #Emissary app for musicians, then also host it as a paid but really cheap service for musicians to use.

Chris Wood

@benpate @n00q

Do you know why artists post their music on Bandcamp then if it’s not for the money? I buy albums from there, just on Bandcamp Fridays, because I thought it would help support them.

I stream songs I can’t find on Bandcamp on SoundCloud, for free with an adblocker on my iPhone. Also, almost everyone I know has a Spotify subscription, so as a listener it seems like there’s already lots of places for artists to post music to stream (but I don’t know if they have to pay for them).

Chris Wood

@benpate @n00q what I love about Bandcamp is how easy it is to listen to something completely new. Spotify is great at generating audio background, playing song after song that I’ve either heard before or that sounds the same. But I want to explore different artists and genres that I don’t know about yet and discover new things that I enjoy. Their radio show, recommendation algorithm, weekly personalised email newsletter, and how easy it is to see new music from artists all contribute to that.

Chris Wood

@benpate @n00q I also love seeing updates from artists in my Bandcamp inbox, especially when they’ve released new music or they’re going on tour. The one thing I miss from Spotify (I stopped paying a couple of years ago) is being able to see when artists are going on tour easily so I can go to their gigs.

So I guess my needs are:
- to financially support artists I listen to
- to enjoy their music at my desk, on the go, and at live gigs
- to find out about their new music and upcmng gigs

Chris Wood

@benpate @n00q
- to discover new music I might like in a similar vein to artists I already listen to, in other genres that I know I like, and in different genres that I’m not very familiar with
- to see what artists are up to and follow them on their musical journey

smallcircles (Humanity Now 🕊)

@benpate @gribbles @n00q

I think that is a private repo you linked?

Jens Finkhäuser

@benpate @n00q Honestly, it seems good. But what I need is bookwyrm for music.

I'm kind of disappointed that the world seems to think music services need to be creator centric, and book services need to be consumer centric.

The best is when both are served IMHO.

Ben Pate 🤘🏻

@smallcircles @gribbles @n00q Oh man, that’s the second time I’ve done that! So Sorry. Repo is public now.

Ben Pate 🤘🏻

@jens @n00q This is a great suggestion. What kinds of “listener-centric” features would you need?

This whole idea is just getting started, so it’s a perfect time to affect its direction.

Ben Pate 🤘🏻

@chriswood @n00q There’s a ton here that I’m going to re-read several times before I can respond properly, but for now, thank you for all of these thoughts. I will do my best to address all of them somehow

Ariane :btfly: Noxie

@benpate @n00q please, very please like absolutely please, have the share links be like the new tidal ones !

It's good to show the service, but providing links to what people already use is just awesome! In the week since tidal added that I've seen multiple friends considering switching because of the ease to share stuff with people on other platforms. Music unites, music services should follow that lead :ablobcatheart:

For everything else I feel the success of the platform will be rated primarily by the phones apps and experience. I am no android (or iOS) dev, but I really hope they work great, better than the webui.

Like seriously Deezer had a better web UI than Tidal but I switched because of the app....

I wish you all very VERY good luck, loads of success and an amazing adventure! :ablobcatheart:

(Tidal share link example) https://tidal.com/track/52105469?u

Ben Pate 🤘🏻

@Ariane @n00q This is a beautiful UX. Thank you for showing it to me.

It should be relatively simple to replicate - just need to include multiple sets of links, one for each streaming service.

I’ll see how to work it into this layout!

Ariane :btfly: Noxie

@benpate you're welcome I've never worked in UX but it's always been something I was passionate about and one of my primary reason to shit on so many FOSS projects xD

It's not free if you have to pay in spoons or days of learning, you still got those shackles to remove.

@n00q

Chris Wood

@benpate @n00q Yeah, that was a big brain dump! In terms of priority order, I think I'd prioritise my own needs like this:
1. Hear about artists' new releases
2. Listen to artists' music
3. Help financially support artists
4. Download artists' music
5. Discover music related to albums or artists I already listen to
6. Find out about artists' upcoming gigs
7. Discover music from genres I'm not familiar with
8. Follow artists on their musical journey (written updates and photos)

Chris Wood

@benpate @n00q Feel free to reach out if you'd like me to test anything or give feedback. And do be kind with yourself, that was a huge list of needs! I think if you can identify the most important needs for listeners and artists overall and start with solving those, you'll be onto a winner.

Ben Pate 🤘🏻

@Ariane @n00q I regret that I have but one “Like” to give for this post...

But yeah, lots of OSS has horrible UX. I think it comes from well-meaning developers “scratching their own itch” instead of listening to the needs of regular people who are very much not like them.

Commercial stuff can be better, depending on management.

I’m aiming for something half community driven, and half design driven. That’s usually worked out for me in the past.

Ben Pate 🤘🏻

@chriswood @n00q Thank you, yes. I absolutely will reach out.

Cards on the table: This has gotten way more attention than I expected, and I HAVEN’T thought through the important details yet.

But there’s obviously interest in having something like this, so here we go

We have discussed some kind of Federated discovery service. That’ll come next, once I have basic profiles working.

Payments were out of scope, but we could do that, too, with enough interest.