So, I moved to the Bay Area a few months ago and have been looking for work. In my copious free time I worked on this fun little project.
There are such a huge number of great music videos and performances out there that I was completely unaware of until I started working on ViddyJam. I feel like I discover something interesting and cool every time I use it.
I'd like to have a link to the specific channel (possibly the combination of artist/song?) that i'm currently listening to in the URL so I can send to a friend.
1. Add some suggested artists that let me click and immediately start watching/listening. You want to demonstrate the value asap, so anything you can do to reduce thinking will help. I spent awhile thinking, came up with "Arcade Fire", then found that there were no results. If this wasn't a post on HN, I would've bounced there.
2. Keyboard shortcuts. But this is obvious, and I'm sure you'll get around to it.
3. The on-hover controls are ok, but there should be some indication that they exist before I mouse-over. You could also use some basic icons to make the controls easier to parse (especially arrows for next and prev).
4. As it stands now, there's no way to surf videos easily. After clicking "next", I have to move my mouse out of the central area, then move it back over to click "next" again. The goal of a site like this is to facilitate brainless and easy surfing, so you should try to reduce as many friction points as possible.
the selection algorithm is going to be pretty hard here. i had a different problem, somehow getting stuck in a loop of two videos, back and forth forever. new Jam!
1) I personally like the 'Google search box' method more than suggested artists, but I will definitely implement it and see what happens. Also, no results for 'Arcade Fire'? Bummer, I get plenty?
2)On their way :)
3)The controls are indeed a bit rough, improvements coming.
4) Excellent point. Perhaps we will make the 'Next' and 'Alternate' buttons persistent.
Seems like a great idea but I agree strongly with point 1 here. As retarded as it is it took me 20s just to remember Lady Gaga's name.
Why not just start playing a video with the volume down, a one-click unmute button and then have five or six more popular ones for someone to chose down the side.
I discovered another site that does exactly the same thing but with seemingly better algorithms for pulling the Last.fm data. The site: http://tv.timbormans.com/ was developed in 2007. Just not the same marketing story as viddyjam.
Great idea!
I actually found some nice video's I haven't seen in 25 years.and the recommendations are fantastic!
Keyboard shortcuts obviously; arrow keys and space bar so I can remote control it from a couch, bathtub, shower or while dancing with a hmd.
I liked the idea immediately when I saw the title :)
UI suggestion: Try making the Jam button bigger and slightly more button-ey (even a 1px drop shadow would help), also maybe add a » too. Would make it clearer that it's a call to action.
Nope, not too early, but it says they are pulling data from last.fm, Never used last.fm, but it's seems like their system is not as good as pandora or jango.com
I noticed that when trying to change the artist name while watching a video that the UI disappears when the mouse stops moving, so I can't see what I'm typing in the search box.
Can you sort for music videos as opposed to static images with audio? I attempted to tackle this problem with youvj.com (a weekend project of mine) a while ago, filtering for music video, official, etc in the description and title (as well as popularity and other factors), but never got results I was truly happy with.
There are many songs that do not, and never will, have a 'real' music video. Even songs that do have official music videos are often not allowed to be embedded/streamed. [As I'm sure you know.] I chose to offer the largest amount of music, at the expense of having actual music videos for each song.
Perhaps I could implement some type of pref that could toggle between 'all music' and 'real music videos'.
I went to the site directly and told it I like artists like White Town.
Does it not do as well with more obscure artists? It seemed to do ok with the mega-popular stuff I threw at it (metallica, lady gaga, etc), but nothing too profound.
Ahh, gotcha. Yeah, the more obscure the artist, the harder it is to find videos for their songs. So if you are looking for something really obscure, theres a good chance you wont find much.
However it didn't find me anything for Weezer, surprised.
When typing, it felt really laggy, lots of JavaScript going on?
When I hit Donate, it opened in the current window, killing my music! Needless to say I then hit back again to get back to the music, and didn't end up donating... ;-)
Consider adding Gigs along with Amazon and iTunes? DISCLAIMER: my day job is with GigJunkie.net, we could link your users to gig tickets and share the affiliate. If you're interested, send me an email, tim.iles@gigjunkie.net.
29 comments
[ 0.20 ms ] story [ 65.3 ms ] threadThere are such a huge number of great music videos and performances out there that I was completely unaware of until I started working on ViddyJam. I feel like I discover something interesting and cool every time I use it.
I'd like to have a link to the specific channel (possibly the combination of artist/song?) that i'm currently listening to in the URL so I can send to a friend.
Great work!
Perhaps we can make that clearer.
Couple suggestions:
1. Add some suggested artists that let me click and immediately start watching/listening. You want to demonstrate the value asap, so anything you can do to reduce thinking will help. I spent awhile thinking, came up with "Arcade Fire", then found that there were no results. If this wasn't a post on HN, I would've bounced there.
2. Keyboard shortcuts. But this is obvious, and I'm sure you'll get around to it.
3. The on-hover controls are ok, but there should be some indication that they exist before I mouse-over. You could also use some basic icons to make the controls easier to parse (especially arrows for next and prev).
4. As it stands now, there's no way to surf videos easily. After clicking "next", I have to move my mouse out of the central area, then move it back over to click "next" again. The goal of a site like this is to facilitate brainless and easy surfing, so you should try to reduce as many friction points as possible.
And the fourth video related to Radiohead was a 2 hour and 24 minute video of the 4th meeting of the Bipartisan Fiscal Commission in the USA... a la http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSXhjjsRcCQ&feature=playe...
1) I personally like the 'Google search box' method more than suggested artists, but I will definitely implement it and see what happens. Also, no results for 'Arcade Fire'? Bummer, I get plenty?
2)On their way :)
3)The controls are indeed a bit rough, improvements coming.
4) Excellent point. Perhaps we will make the 'Next' and 'Alternate' buttons persistent.
Why not just start playing a video with the volume down, a one-click unmute button and then have five or six more popular ones for someone to chose down the side.
Otherwise, awesome! I'll actually make use of this!
UI suggestion: Try making the Jam button bigger and slightly more button-ey (even a 1px drop shadow would help), also maybe add a » too. Would make it clearer that it's a call to action.
There are many songs that do not, and never will, have a 'real' music video. Even songs that do have official music videos are often not allowed to be embedded/streamed. [As I'm sure you know.] I chose to offer the largest amount of music, at the expense of having actual music videos for each song.
Perhaps I could implement some type of pref that could toggle between 'all music' and 'real music videos'.
Very cool app though
Does it not do as well with more obscure artists? It seemed to do ok with the mega-popular stuff I threw at it (metallica, lady gaga, etc), but nothing too profound.
However it didn't find me anything for Weezer, surprised.
When typing, it felt really laggy, lots of JavaScript going on?
When I hit Donate, it opened in the current window, killing my music! Needless to say I then hit back again to get back to the music, and didn't end up donating... ;-)
Consider adding Gigs along with Amazon and iTunes? DISCLAIMER: my day job is with GigJunkie.net, we could link your users to gig tickets and share the affiliate. If you're interested, send me an email, tim.iles@gigjunkie.net.
Good work, nice project!