Revolutionary Idea?

[Mikehoncho16]

Hi, I know not a lot of people know me here, but I just wanted to know people's opinions on something.

I'm thinking about starting a website dedicated to music and the desire for a social connection. The website would

feature a way for people to search for the song they want to listen to, and when it comes up with a result, they

can rant, discuss, or just talk about music, maybe even life! The way it could work is in two different ways:

1. Users could search for just the audio. Doing this would redirect them to an audio stream of the song. This would
include the basic features, a.k.a. the chat-style environment.

2. Users could search for a music video (though it would be more limited, since you would be having to find an official
video.) This would redirect you to the video where you would have the option to use basic chat or video chat (it's basically
up to the user.) This could go against the whole "watch the video" scheme, but it allows for an additional way for people to
communicate.

Know now that this is not limited to one style of music, it is open to all types of music. It's not musical distribution, it's musical
recreation.

So go ahead and vote on the poll and list away recommendations! I appreciate all kinds of recommendations!

 

[monkat]

Meh.

I don't think it would take off. If youtube comments on songs are any indication, it just won't be very fun.

Not to mention that youtube is probably a better place for it anyway...

or last.fm...

And don't forget that, to do this, you would need to license so much music that it would bankrupt you, regardless of any software you create to prevent piracy.

 

[Mikehoncho16]

Your sig makes me laugh (in a good way

)

It would be more of just a standard chat than a comment-style system (although comments would be interesting to look into.)

And I'm sure there's some way to go around licensing (although if I did have to license it all, I have several people interested in investing.

Overall, it's more just an idea than it is something that will actually happening.

 

[monkat]

Well, the chat system is essentially the same thing as commenting, but it may create a different atmosphere. It remains to be seen.

Chances are, though, it would just explode into "NO IT SUCKS!" "NO IT DA BEST!" fights, and would just be boring.

Licensing is necessary unless you become popular enough that labels will put the music on there themselves - unless your investors are millionaires, you might be SOL. If you really work out the idea, though, make it a little more appealing, then you might be able to find some real corporate investors.

 

[Y05h1]

Yup, this is not simply about designing a website, it's also about designing a functional business model. So wether or not it's a good idea, the only way I see it working is that people would be trying to get their music onto the network rather than the other way around (you asking people for music). It would as such need to be a platform that allows for musicians to gain publicity, but also make a profit. If people can listen to free music of their choice, why would they ever purchase music?

Some reformatting that could theoretically work: Have it as a sort of radio channel. The only difference to the radio would be this discussion idea you have, and people could then discuss about songs as they are playing, or something of the sort.

Better idea: look at what Spotify has done. It works, and it's amazingly popular. Draw ideas from there.

Oh, this would be a pain to develop btw. So don't spend your time trying to develop this website, rather you still need to think up of a stronger idea that has a proper business strategy, or uses unlicensed music. Oh, and one more thing: to get started, you'd definitely need some connections to good indie artists.

 

[Mikehoncho16]

IF I was to do this idea... I could honestly go broke, you're right. I'll see if I could get more people interested in this. I assume I could initially set up the website with the goal of raising enough money to pay for the music licensing... I don't really know what I would do, I would probably just set it up as a place to create an account with ads on the sides. Money really is the key issue, seeing how my investors aren't *erhem* millionares.

 

[NoOneDies]

I think I saw a website like this one. I can't remember the url and whether if it allowed comments or not, but yes it was all related to music. Creating such website might be kinda expensive though...

 

[Law]

is this last.fm?

 

[Lube_Skyballer]

is this last.fm?

Yep.