Ask HN: MusicWalla - A Social Online Radio : Review my product concept
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
17 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 38.6 ms ] threadYou'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.
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.
I'm sorry, but you're doing user experience research all wrong if you are asking them if they like your feature ideas.
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?
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.
I think your idea is a good one, though and I get it.
http://www.vikasvadlapatla.com/musicwalla
http://www.slideshare.net/vgvikas/musicwalla-business-pitch-...
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.
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