Ask HN: MusicWalla - A Social Online Radio : Review my product concept

[vikasvadlapatla]

Hi guys, I recently came up with a concept for a social online radio. It is just a half-baked idea as of now but the following presentation should give you a gist.

I'm a user experience researcher so all it's features are a result of different user data acquisition techniques. I am working on adding game dynamics to this model(foursquare style badges and user upvoting).

I would love to get some valuable inputs from you guys!

www.vikasvadlapatla.com/musicwalla

Direct link to presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/vgvikas/musicwalla-business-pitch-7864740

[pedalpete]

Interesting idea, though I think I like it more on a broad friend sharing stream than all listening together. There doesn't seem to me to be a benefit of only having people in the same room.

You've also gone with a 'fair' way of playing users tracks, though as a group, you may have better luck with playing the tracks recommended by the most popular users.

As a user experience researcher, you should know that you'll have the majority of the users just as listeners, and a much smaller percentage who are actively building the playlists, so you'll have to account for that.

[vikasvadlapatla]

I had three types of music rooms in mind: location-based, genre-based, and friend/follower-based.

with respect to playing tracks by the most popular users, i think you've brought about an interesting point. I am currently working on a model where, at the end of every music "round", the most popular user is decided based on upvotes scheme and he/she gets to pick an additional song for the next round.. also allowing him to unlock badges and gain more credits! So far in my user interviews, people have liked this scheme and one of the user's mentioned that a sense of "competition" enhance the playlist and the listening experience.

The third point you made is particularly intriguing and something I hadn't thought about until now..But I am sure users would want to join the room just as listeners. In that case, either the control would automatically move to the next person in queue or it would switch to a computer generated playlist based on the previously played songs.

[petervandijck]

"So far in my user interviews, people have liked this scheme"

I'm sorry, but you're doing user experience research all wrong if you are asking them if they like your feature ideas.

[vikasvadlapatla]

Hi Peter, this question came about in my second round of user interviews.. I asked users about the applications they used on a day-day basis. 9 of the 12 users mentioned Foursquare in this list.

I asked them a follow-up question to judge what made them use foursquare on a daily basis. To my surprise, all users mentioned acquiring more badges as one of their main motives. Some also mentioned the Leaderboard.

This prompted me to further ask the users whether badges and leaderboards would motivate them to use an online radio. Although most of the responses I got were quantitative, I did get a lot of qualitative feedback as well. One of the users also added that he would love to be rated by fellow users (instead of the computer). This encouraged me to ask them about the upvotes, etc..

How would you recommend me asking the users about new features?

[petervandijck]

You shouldn't ask users if they would use feature X, their responses will be almost meaningless. You should ask users about problems they have etc., not about features.

http://fitzgeraldsteele.wordpress.com/2009/08/24/guerilla-re... “You never ask the question you really want answered. If you ask the question you want answered, you’ll miss all kinds of rich information.”

If you ask users if they want more features, or feature X, they'll almost always say yes. It doesn't mean anything.

[petervandijck]

You have WAY too many features for an initial product idea. It's not focused.

Try to describe the value and differentiation of your service in 1 sentence.

Don't add game mechanics, upvoting and the kitchen sink unless it is part of the core value/differentiation.

The competitive advantage matrix you have at the end shows how unfocused you are: your competitor have few features, and you have checkboxes against ALL features.

More features isn't good.

More features is bad. It's less focused. You'll do them worse.

[vikasvadlapatla]

Thanks for the feedback Peter! I do understand that these are a lot of features to begin with and a lot of people have mentioned this to me. I am currently working on streamlining the feature list.

Since the product will function on user generated music playlists, keeping the user motivated to come back and use the product is of extreme importance. And I do believe that one of the main motives for users these days (I call them User 2.0) is game mechanics. My objective with using game mechanics is not only to make the user "happy", but to keep them motivated/addicted

[petervandijck]

If your core product isn't compelling, then game mechanics won't help. Leave them out.

[niketdesai]

Uhhhh. I'd look at turntable.fm and see their "version" of what you're talking about. Their "rooms" are effectively channels, and they have heavy integration with music collections (and I think they'll make uploaded music available to a more general library soon).

I think your idea is a good one, though and I get it.

[vikasvadlapatla]

Huh! Interesting.. pretty much what I was thinking about. Unfortunately, I could not sign up . but I would love to take a look at their product

[kodeshpa]

Try TuneIn radio by tunein.com. TuneIn is rediscovering radio and they have huge collections online stream.

[vikasvadlapatla]

I'll definitely check it out. Thanks!

[phektus]

clickable

http://www.vikasvadlapatla.com/musicwalla

http://www.slideshare.net/vgvikas/musicwalla-business-pitch-...

[vikasvadlapatla]

Thanks! :)

[revorad]

turntable.fm has built exactly that and has a very passionate set of early users. Unless you want to start your own startup, you should probably go work for them.

[vikasvadlapatla]

I just found out about turntable.fm It does some like the same concept. I guess they beat me to the punch. Do you have any inside contact info for the folks at turntable/stickybits? ;) I tried contacting them on twitter but couldn't find their email addresses

[rooshdi]

Sounds like a good idea, now build it!