Alright everybody, here's your chance.
NWR is going to undergo a complete back-end re-write (yes I know, AGAIN), and will have a new look in a few months as well.
Why, you ask, things that are here work already!? Well it's simple, shaving costs, and improving efficiency will be a much needed advantage to have, in order to survive, and to grow. Adding new features as well, require a few things changed, and it's better to start afresh, to whipe out old folleys from the past.
So, what input is needed? Simple, what features do you want to see, what tools do you need, what services would you pay for? Speak now, or forever hold your peace, since if you don't speak up now, it may not be possible to integrate what you ask for until a much later date.
Start typing, it's up to you to keep NWR to your liking!
(p.s. while you will see a few changes over time, the major changes will occur when the new system is complete, which could take several months)
Hi W, long time no see. I just use NWR to post tunes to share with others and as a convienient place to get imput from the mixing clinic members. I always have been willing to pay the going rate for the privilige of having my files uploaded in real time and not having to go through a screening process which can take days. My saying is usually "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" so with that thought in mind, I can only hope that whatever changes you have in mind, the core concept of this site is not lost in the improvements. I trust your judgement. Good luck and be well, Dave (Charvster)
-it could be nice to have a different layout, with a differentiation between listener and musician access right on the page, and to have always the same menus. Like when I am logged I see my name at the right but it's not much of a "flag" to let me know.
- it would be cool if it could tell the % of files uploaded.
- statistics about what's people listening right on the home page.
- the collaboration idea.
- the singles and albums tab could be more explicit, cause when you're there it looks (to me) like you have no singles while you really have.
- also: when you search sometimes it says that there are x results, but lets you see less than x.
Hope it helps. Cheers, Andrés
Charvster, that much will remain the same, with maybe a little more flexibility, if Dragon would return my e-mails!
cordura, I have a feeling the first point has to do with the forums. Forums will be completely modified in the new version.
% of files uploaded CANNOT be done unfortuneatly from a browser. Some browsers have that facility built into them, but there is no way for a server recieving the file to send back any feedback until the file is completely recieved. I may create an upload application that you install on your machine that will have such a feature in the future, but it's a ways off.
The remainder of the items are on the list!
Hey Waldo -- This is such a great site already, but I guess change is always gonna happen no matter what.
One thing that I would like to see changed may be the way that a user actually goes about listening to the songs. Maybe some written instructions, or have the icons (the hi-fi, lo-fi, download icon) there with a bit of text which says "hi-fi" "Lo-Fi" and "Download" next to it. Also making these bigger, or more visible may help the average user who isn't computer saavy to figure out how to listen to a song. I only say this because sometimes when I send my link to friends, etc., they can't figure it out...
Just my $.02...otherwise, excellent just the way it is.
Take care.
Waldo,
You may change what you need to stay competitive.
While I am a new user, I find your site the best in its class. If something can be changed to help save a buck.........have at it!
Also, I find the fact that you provide this level of service at NO cost to be a fantastic deal. I think anyone who posts material should kick in something. Having said that I posted my first tune here a few weeks ago and haven't kicked anything to the cause yet. Frankly that makes me a hypocrite! Actually I have some stuff ending on ebay in a day or 2 that should place enough coin in my Paypal to buy the infinite(within reason) package. People come here and listen, or download indie music, and that is great! If people come here and post, they should contribute SOMETHING. I am sure this has crossed your mind, and I am also sure it is an agonizing decision. The site is something you obviously do for love of music, this is admirable but don't think that doing something to broaden the expense load would be bad.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to post my tunes here and I intend to contribute so the opportunity stays here for a long time!
I call on everyone to do the same.
Thanks for the chance!
Joel Mislang
I don't the extra click one needs to do to get to the list of songs. Why not one click and then a list of singles and albums on the same page?
In my case I only have singles and it seems clumsy to have to click Discography, then Singles, and finally get to the list of songs.
I think the word "Discography" is a perhaps bit arcane for the general public, too... maybe something like "Songs" or "Music" would be more clear to the lowest common denominator?
(P.S. -- Have you seen Dilbert this week, the stuff about interface shock? -- I'm not at all suggesting your interface is bad, just thought you would find it funny...)
I miss Dilbert... Nope, don't get any papers delivered to me these days, gotta save my pennies, occasionally catch the odd one though when I wind up crashing at a buddies place on the weekend ;)
But yes, it's become apparent to me that a great deal of folk don't know what 'discography' means. It was on the basis that people looking for music would know, when I orignally put it together, but hey, I guess I thought most too bright! Oops ;) Yes, it's been on the list for a while to re-arange the artists individual 'sites'.
The new interface may not be entirely designed by myself, someone has offered to help out, so it might turn out better than I can think of, who knows, it's gonna be a big job.
Yeah, I'm with boydrj and alchuck on this one - I think you could simplify the artist page so that it's easier to use and so that you get to the individually listed songs faster. Right now the individual songs are hidden behind layers of pages and clicks. Why not have the songs listed on the opening page for each artist? I mean, that's what people are coming here for, right?
Secondly, I'm interested in webhosting, but frankly your prices are way beyond what the market's charging. I'm willing to believe that what you're charging is fair for what's being offered, but I am *not* gonna pay $260, $410 or $610 for a year's webhosting when I can get it for $10 a month somewhere else. You're pricing yourself out of the market. I'd like to use your webhosting service for two reasons: I trust you more than the others, and I'd like to steer my web bucks to Nowhere if I can. I'm looking for a secure webspace for works in progress, complete with passwords and a homepage. It doesn't look like a lot to me. Can't that be cheaper?
Well... you asked...
Here's the thing; I mostly only pay for hardware and software, and there goes my budget.
BUT...
Assuming you're looking for service charges to be gotten, there's one thing I WOULD part with bucks for.
The service of liscensing cover material for broadcast on the web.
I'd also REALLY like to listen to other people's cover songs on the web.
It'd be a lot easier for me, to find indie bands I liked, if I could just do a search for, say... "Roxy Music", and there are three NWR artists who've done numbers by 'em. With links supplied to the bands' regular site, to hear their originals as well.
"Cover City" on NWR, or something like that... Heck, I'd probably even pay for a few downloads, if they were good versions.
Yeah... I'm still a fan. I don't think there have been a lot of interesting NEW things coming out of the media machinery, but so many great numbers have already been written, it'd be a blast to hear a few!
I'll volunteer my OMD-ish version of the Association's "Cherish", if you're interested... I tried getting it liscenced a year ago, and the mails and paperwork wasn't worth the effort...
PLUS
Cover songs are a great way for unknowns to get noticed...
Hope This Helps, M.
BTW, what the hell does 'I love yaBB 1G - sp1' mean? It's in my post above, but I never put it there.
[quote]
% of files uploaded CANNOT be done unfortuneatly from a browser.[/quote]
Hey Waldo, can't you use the old html system, like the Ultimate Bulletin Board does? If you don't know it, when you search a big forum, it shows a page saying how many hits it took up to that point, and it keeps refreshing it between x seconds. I know it sucks a little, but you can improve it usin a popup or something. Check Digidesign's board (http://duc.digidesign.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi) , they do it like that.
Cheers, Andrés
dobro, where the hell are you getting that pricing from? Prices start at $2.50 a month, $5.00, $7.50 and $9.00.
The most expensive hosting is $14 USD a month for professional database hosting full domain hosting, etc., for sites like NoWhere Radio, I HAVE NEVER seen anybody with a price lower than that! And besides That's NoWhere Hosting, not NoWhere Radio's prices! I ALSO cannot compete with those companies that have a 2 Billion dollar facility at their disposal, with deals from the government for mass bandwidth. I also don't have 2,000 sites crammed onto one server like these other hosts do, where maybe 1% of them use more than 100MB (evening out their bandwidth max's) Bandwidth really and truely costs me $5USD a GB, and I cannot price myself under that, or I would be paying for you!
The pricing I sent you a while back (about 6 months ago I believe) was the pricing of another companies, not my own! I didn't own/run NoWhere Hosting at that time! I believe I told you the prices would change in that e-mail as well.
M-Jam,
That costs big $$$'s and takes up a hell of a lot of time, as you said, you gave up trying to get one cover licensed. The big boys aren't cheap about this, they want every last penny they think they deserve and a little extra on the side. I'd have to hire extra staff, and have quite a bit of seed money to handle all the long distance phone calls, paper work, and legal advice from real lawyers... I might at it to the list as a future possibility, but that's a really far fetched one.
dobro, that's the name of the forum software I'm running. If you want to change it, edit your profile.
cordura, you CANNOT do that with browser file transfers however, the user himself would have to break up the file into many different size chunks and then point the browser to each different chunk each time it refreshes (an even less efficient way to do things), which simply cannot be done in HTML code, javascript, or otherwise. Once you tell a browser to transfer a file, it starts sending it, and does nothing until the server has recieved the whole file. Nor can the server do anything until the whole file is sent.
W.
hey Waldo: why don't you go the the irc chat, cause I have an idea that can be a solution for that?
/server irc.ircstorm.net /join #homerecording
Cheers, Andrés
"dobro, where the hell are you getting that pricing from? Prices start at $2.50 a month, $5.00, $7.50 and $9.00."
I got those prices from you, last December. I'm glad to see the new prices - I'll check them out - I need webhosting.
Okay, I looked for webhost information, but there's just an email address. What does each of the packages you mentioned include?
For NoWhere Radio mp3 only hosting:
$2.50 a month for iSpace, includes real streaming, etc.
$5 a month for 50MB, direct/deep linkable
You can also stack the two together, iSpace w/ direc/deep linking, for $7.50 a month. Information about this is on the services page, and on the 'get more space' page from your artist admin.
For webhosting, the NoWhere Hosting website is not complete, and some of the automation and features are not complete, but will be in a few months.
Eventually, nowherehosting.com will contain the full price list and service options, but for now, there is two basic packages:
Std. Site hosting
-----------------
100MB of space
1 POP mail account yourusername@nowherehosting.com
URL appears as nowherehosting.com/youraccountname
Optional e-mail forwarding
Optional auto-responder
CGI-BIN
Perl, and PHP support
Optional mySQL database*
24/7 FTP access
2GB of monthly transfer**
Linux environment
$9USD/mo. minimum 6mo. payment
CURRENT SPECIALS:
1) For Canadian customers not paying by credit card: $10CDN/mo. minimum 6mo. payment
2) 1 month free if paid 12mo. in advance
Full domain hosting
-------------------
100MB of space
Virtual Domain hosting***
URL appears as yourdomainname.com
1 POP mail account yourusername@yourdomain.com
Optional e-mail forwarding
Optional auto-responder
Optional e-mail aliases
CGI-BIN
Perl, and PHP support
Optional mySQL database*
24/7 FTP access
2GB of monthly transer**
Linux environment
$14USD/mo. minimum 6mo. payment
CURRENT SPECIALS:
1) For Canadian customers not paying by credit card: $15CDN/mo. minimum 6mo. payment
2) 1 month free if paid 12mo. in advance
* Database setup is a one time fee of $15USD, restricted to 5MB in size. For larger databases, contact administration.
** Additional transfer is rated at $5USD per GB monthly
*** Domain registration fees not included, $10USD for 1 year per domain
Yet another Bulletin Board...Not as good as IKONBOARD, not nearly the administrator capabilities and IKONBOARD IS FREE...just thought I'd suggest..try it at www.screamin-seamen.com
But you know me Waldo...I'm all about the board...really try to give it a good spin, if you e-mail me I will give you my username and password to allow you into the control panel...give it a good scope.
Anyway, I like this site..the only thing I wish to see is perhaps some of the reviewing features of Garageband.com...which makes it tough cuz' you don't exactly have a record contract to offer but perhaps some sort of prizes to encourage reviewing. Also they have the gigs feature which is cool, if you had the site broken up for local areas, getting subscribers to submit to a mailing list for shows in their area would help us bands drag more local people to local shows.
Then perhaps changing the featured artist section so that once you have passed through the intial new artists feature you still have the opportunity to get featured as at IUMA.
How is the BANNER thing working out?
Laters,
Phat Pat
ps. keep up the great work...nowhere rules!
YaBB is just as free as IkonBoard, and infact, more flexible, since the code is freely editable. I've used IkonBoard in the past and was unimpressed.
The new NWR will have forums specifically designed for NWR itself, not someone elses forum package.
I tried prizes, in fact, a $1700 USD guitar was given away, but I don't have much to give away being an unemployed volunteer! Maybe one day again when I have some cash.
Everythings on the list anyways.
The 'Banner' thing? You mean the banner exchange?
W.
I think one of the things I'd like to see is a bit more flexibility with the discography section. I like the way at IUMA you can create the featured song bit, this would be a nice feature to allow people to sample some of the tunes straight from an artists biography page.
Maybe even allow artists to choose a tune or create samples of featured tunes that would begin playing as background music when the artists bio page opens, as a kind of immediate example of what music that artists makes.
Also if maybe someone had one song that features on two seperate CD's if the mp3 could be assigned to feature in both without having to have two copies of the tune. This might help if artist want to produce a compilation of their stuff and draw from different CD's they have on offer.
The 'background' music bit will never fly, most users are annoyed by sounds coming out of their machine when they aren't expecting it.
However, the 'featured' track bit is already planned for the new revision.
We've also got a system in design in which users can create their own compilation CD from tracks the artist has selected for the program. Royalties would be paid on each track added, for each compilation sold.
W.
Wassup Waldo my big brother....... :)
...just wanted to pop in and say how much I dig the progress you are making. My main suggestion is server speed. ....and I know thats probably the most expensive. ....Ive been beating my head against the wall trying to get into, and use the mixing clinic. ...its damn frustrating :'( .....just anything to avoid that kind of logjam. Great stuff Waldo, you da man.
G w/ a very big 5 ;)
'Server speed' isn't an issue, but bandwidth is. Next step in lines is another $3000 a month, which I definately do not have, and cannot afford at this time.
There will be a new application to 'accelerate' downloads etc. on NWR to be released when the new revision is, and this should help keep things the way they are for a few months at least, then we'll see where things go after that.
Hello, would it be possible for you to seprate the Org. Artist from the Cover Artist. I think this would be a better or more efficent way to search out bands your looking to hear.
I am often also confused by your charting system. I have twice seen people on the charts that have no music available, which i thought was odd. I have also seen recording "tests" on the charts. Is that normal, and are people really tuning into listning to someone test their "pod out".
I am new to nowhere radio, and appreciate the service medium you offer, and look forward to what you have to offer in the future.
Regards,
Jake
What sort of separation do you propose?
Charts are a joke, always have been. They are simply based on number of unique plays, and nothing more. If the artist records silence, and manages to get 10,000 people to listen to it, then it's going to get onto the charts. The new system will have an disclusion system, in which certain things cannot appear on the charts, as well as charts based on other statistics. The main charts will be based on votes.
The current chart system does not remove a track from the charts if the track is removed by the artist. So, the track may have made it onto the charts, and the artist deleted the tack, thus it's not available anymore.
Seperation...hmm. I was thinking maybe just having something as Simple as [b]Cover Artist[/b] / [b]Orig Artist[/b].
I know there is going to be artist that will maybe do both, however logistics ( I wouldn't think ) would not be to hard to manage with php, if that is what you are planning to keep using.
Thanks for your fast reply.
Jake
Coding isn't a problem. So, what you would propose is mainly an addition to the search functionality, in which a user can specify covers vs. original?
Yes. I think it would be a great addition. I am not one to really listen to people perform covers. I would have to think there are people like me, [b] visa versa.[/b]
I know covers are good for showing off areas of ability. Which would be a great fundemental place for people who are looking for a singer / musician with a style type etc.
In my opinion having them mixed together is almost like mixing Hard Rock with R and B.
[b]Thanks again for your replys, and the medium you provide. [/b]
Best Regards,
Jake