Comment by vlokshin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vlokshin | Hacker News Reader

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I like the idea a lot -- I'm someone who listens to a lot of music, constantly gets music recommended by friends, and recommends music to friends. I also design/PM software.

I just signed up and am very confused on what I can do. I see a feed of albums from strangers, but there's no way to listen to it. If I want to add music, I have to copy and paste links shown at the top of my screen (they're not even hyperlinked).

If I'm discovering music: - I want a quick/easy way to listen to what's in front of me - I want a quick/easy way to get recs from friends

If I'm sharing music: - I want a quick way to share music

I feel like these are your core experiences and I'm having trouble finding my path through any of them. I see there's a browser extension and a bunch of community features, but the first user experience (at least on web) for any of those core paths above isn't there.

Can you deliver on one of those paths in a really easy way? Looks like you've already got tie ins with discogs. Can you start with just a spotify web player? I think the preview of a song can be made available publicly, which would at least get a delightful enough first experience for listeners (listen to what you see if it looks interesting -- not sure many would "save" without that or at least some solid meta data)

I want what I think this product is supposed (based on your description) to be to exist, so I hope this feedback is helpful.

Edit: Signed out and noticed you have "continue with spotify" on the logged out / sign in page https://digs.fm/users/sign_in -- that wasn't available on your home page https://digs.fm/. I would've signed up with spotify if available and maybe that would've exposed clearer UX?

Thanks for the suggestions. It's true that the UX definitely lacks in many parts, and in many others it's unclear what one should do after they sign up for the first time.

Let me try to clarify a few things. First and foremost, Digs is supposed to be a bookmarking tool (you add and organize albums to lists). Then, it's a social network.

It's not created with the mindset of it being a music streaming service. That said, for convenience and pragmatism, a web player is included if the release was added via a Spotify, Mixcloud or Bandcamp link, or if the corresponding MusicBrainz release had a Discogs URL associated with it. Ideally, every release on the page should include a web player - this is something I'm trying to figure out how to do automatically, without enormous amount of human moderation. (I understand this is all technicalities, I just wanted to explain how it works currently.)

> I see a feed of albums from strangers.

The "Community updates" feed is the default if you have no friends added yet. If this is too noisy (and after this post it will be, for almost all people I assume), then you can switch to "Friends' updates" by clicking on the dropdown arrow. The choice will be persisted and you won't see that noise again.

> If I'm sharing music: - I want a quick way to share music

The current way to share music, is passively, i.e. by having friends (your friends will see your activity in their home feed). The active way to share is to click on the "Recommend" option, from the action dropdown button in a release page (e.g. https://digs.fm/releases/2782921-DJ-Shadow-What-Does-Your-So...).

> Edit: Signed out and noticed you have "continue with spotify" on the logged out / sign in page https://digs.fm/users/sign_in -- that wasn't available on your home page https://digs.fm/. I would've signed up with spotify if available and maybe that would've exposed clearer UX?

The Spotify SSO is currently broken, so I've disabled it until I fix it. Apparently I forgot to hide it from the sign_in page as well - thanks for bringing this up!

To be fair, Goodreads also doesn't let you read the book right there on the site. And while I agree it would be convenient for music, I'm so desperate for a good discovery mechanism that I'll gladly accept this (currently I use ListenToThis and then look the names up on Youtube if they seem interesting)

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