pouët.net

Hey guys!

Started a service which allows a musician to create "virtual compact discs" and customize it. Maybe someone will find it useful, since it is very suitable to give to non-sceners, to more general public + online streaming and a booklet let you write info about your music, pretty convenient. However, this is a service, not a community, so there are no reviews, comments and no ratings - such is the concept.

Anyway, check it out at www.disc-shelf.com

The service is in beta, if you notice any bugs, contact me at louigi.verona[you know what goes here]gmail.com with the subject "DS Feedback".

wicked idea!

how come?

wicked as in holy fucken awesome?
or wicked as bad?

I think the first one.

Looks pretty good. How will you fund it though? I can see bandwidth costs getting a bit high if it takes off.

Random other suggestions:

Make the shelf where the CDs sit look more like a shelf. And have a few shelves on the front page, so i'll be more attractive to browse through (if you're after people just browsing through and listening that is)

Perhaps a 'download CD' option would be good, where you can download the full cd + artwork in a zip file.

Have a 'short description' field for each CD, and add it to the mouse-over text on the front screen. At the moment you just see a cover and the cd name, it'd be very handy to see a short description so you know if it's ambient sitar music or hard techno..

a nice idea, but last.fm seems to implement this a bit more convenient.

I like! It's a bit like myspace without all the crap, or a bit like last.fm without all the crap.



Call me crazy but I'm thinking PayPal donations and Google Adsense.

psonice:
thx for all the input. shelf thing - yep, had such an idea myself. maybe I'll do it when more important things are taken care of.
Yeah, short description and styles are a very good idea, I will do it.
As for zip - gotta think about it.
Gargaj:
I don't think so. Disc Shelf is presenting your music in a beautiful way. This is the whole point, not just list tracks and show a cover pic. And no ratings and dumb comments.
Cyborg:
In the future payed accounts are planned. Also, nowadays traffic is not THAT expensive. I was surprised at prices myself and after that started to work on the site, having understood it is not such an impossible dream after all.

iverona: if you're considering paid accounts, you might get 'organisations' interested in hosting their stuff with you, like say netlabels. Perhaps a better address would be good for people like that, say disc-shelf.com/groupname

As for zip download.. it's great for convenience, but it'll mean people can just leech everything instead of exploring.

true. this is why I am not rushing toward zips.

as for paid accounts, unlimited number of albums too. currently you can add 7 albums, which I think is quite okay.

netlabels - yeah. but that only after service becomes known.

Iverona i meant wicked as in good idea! :)

yay! thanks )

any plans to do an API of some sort so people could integrate their disc shelf on their websites?

yes, yes, it is what I am working now - you will be able to embed albums on websites ;)

dear US election,

ur doin it wrong

Iverona for president!

Paid accounts though? :( I would lose interest very quickly then. But then I might not be a typical user.

paid accounts are not yet there. free account I think is more than enough now. if you are not steve roach with 2 albums a year, I think 7 albums is ok.
the paid accounts should be thought out well. But some form of funding will be there - I don't want Disc Shelf to collapse couple of years away simply because I have no money to support it.

good idea and neat conception : keep it simple please :p

exactly. I will do my best to keep it as simple as possible, thx for kind words

great stuff! I see lots of potential there :)

thankie, xTr1m! You should release that album of yours - the one you put out when I first showed you the site

While I like the idea, we have different definitions of "beautiful". :) A small, centered little box, with pixel-wide "retro"-icons is not my idea of a good UI or something beautiful.

You should check out SoundCloud - while it does have comments (you can disable that when publishing), it is wicked fast, allows both for streaming and download, and it is really easy to use while still nice to look at. Here is an example: http://soundcloud.com/transistorbass/trashin-elektrostat-2008-walk-off-track

I especially love the timed comments, and that you get to see the waveform. Sharing music is also dead easy.

Oh, and thinking of music on the net as "virtual compact discs" is really an antiquated way to look at it. Much like when people who publish magazines think it is a good idea to make a Flash-page with "virtual page-flips" - it simply doesn't have the right to life in the digital world.

Again: good effort, these are just my comments so feel free to ignore/flame :)

While there seems to be room for improvement on Disc Shelf now is the time to put our foot down and say NO to white backgrounds and candy assed Mac type esthetics. Actually pouët and the old Nectarine/ojuice are my idea of great looking sites.