so, this wasn't the post i'd planned for today... but then my computer committed suicide at 10AM this morning and hasn't yet recovered, pushing much of the rest of my day into work overload on another (not set up) computer. so sorry about the lack of posting--i did have stuff planned; you'll get it tomorrow. in the meanwhile...
@OneLuvGurl sent me a DM asking to join her on blip.fm; i had been peripherally aware of blip, but hadn't dabbled so i said sure, why not, and went at it like a good little social media scene queen. see the fruits of that labour along with my frustrations at my "station" here: http://blip.fm/thegirlriot (and no, it's not yet added to zoolit, haha. i'm not sure i'm keeping this.)
on premise, blip.fm seems pretty awesome. OLG described it as "twitter for music." i like twitter, i like music. seemed a natural fit. i love the idea of carrying on a conversation through songs, as i did about last night's Heroes ep with blip.fm user ZachsMind. so that's a major plus. it's like communicating with other total music dorks, and i like that, because i used to have txt convos using only lyrics. [i am that dork.]
in implementation it's super frustrating. for these reasons:
1 -- shitty music selection. it took me forever to find a song i wanted to post, let alone the one i was actually listening to.
2 -- strike through songs. if the song doesn't work or you don't want me to use it, why is it there? delete it. don't let me preview and then not let me blip. like seriously. wtf?
3 -- incomplete songs. Epicentre by VNV Nation? yeah, no. you only get the first minute. but you don't know that in preview, or, well, anywhere until you get to the 1 minute mark. cos then it stops. but by then it's already in your stream.
4 -- unregulated song titles. "Slide" is by the "Go Goo Dolls." the first song that comes up as "Girl's Not Grey" AFI was unidentifiable. i have no idea if it was a shitty recording of the acoustic of that song, or if it wasn't that song, at all.
5 -- shitty load time. i waited for 20 minutes for "Hurricane" by Something Corporate to load. before i gave up. and found "Girl's Not Grey" by AFI instead (see aforementioned ordeal). which wasn't what i was listening to. until i had to.
in short, song titles should be regulated. also, like on songza, users should be able to vote a link up or down for quality (which would take care of bad copies and shortened songs). shitty load time? i have no suggestion, but i used blip all day, and i had the problem about 1/4 of the time. so maybe not the biggest problem, comparatively. i suppose i could deal.
but the heart of it? APPLE NEEDS TO GET ON a dj system similar to blip where i can stream from my own goddamn music. i have shitloads of iTunes. let me be a user. let me make a stream in the same conversational way, where also in my stream you can buy the .mp3s from iTunes. let me USE the music i've GOT so i'm not so frustrated when YOUR selections are CRAP in variety, length, and quality. just a thought.
"Communities already exist. Instead, think about how you can help that community do what it wants to do." -- Zuckerberg. i just think with an app like iTunes and a share like Apple has in the online music biz, it seems natural to add a similar feature. LET THE PEOPLE MUSIC TWEET! hahaha okay. i'm done here.
[PS: Kathleen Hanna cancelled. i didn't miss her. i feel slightly better about that.
PPS: Rise Against concert was AWESOME. made of win. anyone who says different is a liar.]
10.14.2008
blip.fm: great idea, applied failure.
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2 comments:
As for Blip, def. some bugs, but give it a chance. I like it because unlike the other sites, (last, iLike, etc.), I didn't have to build a library to start using it. (I'm gonna sit there and search/load 45 songs before I can even share a playlist? Fuck that last.fm)
On Blip, it’s click > play > add to a playlist. While the Twitter-like stream is nice, I like it more for discovering new tunes than conversations anyway.
Still though, feels like the site caught on before they knew what they had, got popular, and now needs to fix the growing pains ASAP. They do have a blog section where people are voting on the newest features they want. Still, some are so obvious that I’m surprised the devs never put them in from the start, like player controls, multiple playlists, etc.
iTunes idea: agree 100%.
yeah, i'm not deleting it right off. i am enjoying the conversational aspect...
and yeah, as you know, i bloody hate last.fm. the ONLY reason i like it is because it scrobbles yr tracks--but even then... unless i want to share my stats, it's not much good to me. as music discovery goes, last.fm is the crappiest out there. i'm a Pandora girl.
it IS nice that it is that easy, definitely; i agree with you. i don't want to upload tracks (that's why i like iTunes integration if Apple were to do a blip-like release). i actually love the blip platform. it's the actual content that makes the service sub-par. i do hope they got on some of that, because it does have promise.
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