New radio blogging startup displays scrolling tutorial as homepage | Hacker News Reader

New radio blogging startup displays scrolling tutorial as homepage

phonoblaster.com

33 pointsdetcherry35 comments

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Only login with Facebook == close page and forget about it.

I have to agree it'd be cool to be able to try the app without the Facebook install

Agreed. Facebook signin -> barf.

If they want early adopters, they shouldn't rely on facebook signin.

The fact that people react so strongly to this means he's onto something. Also, there is no parallax scrolling here.

Besides, this is a very nice direction for web design to move toward. The product itself is simple, nice, well executed, with a clearly framed value proposition. Kudos. Keep working on this.

I don't think it's terrible, it's a simple JQuery plugin designed to do exactly what it's doing. However, I will say that this type of layout for the purpose of a tutorial isn't the best idea. It requires too much interaction, and IMHO a tutorial should be more of a passive experience.

The idea seems pretty redundant (Last.fm anyone?) but the landing page is just awesome!

It's really a creative idea, not obvious for everyone though

Not sure what I'm supposed to be seeing, because it doesn't work at all in Safari on my iPad running iOS 5.1.1, in either portrait or landscape orientation.

Other than the scrolling tutorial, how is this better than http://mixlr.com?

Seems like it's not "live", so you can post tracks and people can listen later. You don't need to be doing both at the same time.

On Phonoblaster it's actually "live" but your music selection is being broadcast on a continuous loop and not just once, so yes people can listen to it later.

Really cool and refreshing landing page.

One of the greatest landing page i've ever seen.

sounds like a worse alternative to http://plug.dj

very nice idea

very neat UI.

I personally found it terrible. It didn't completely fit in the small window I opened it in at first (the "scroll down" text was not visible), and when I made it full screen, most of the screen was just white (and the flying elements weren't even hidden outside the actual view area). If you scroll it with the mouse wheel, or spacebar, it just looks ugly. It didn't even advice you to scroll in the right way.

The "scroll down" text isn't visible here either. Full-screen Chrome, 1440x900.

One of the worst cases of overusing parallax scrolling I've ever seen.

Edit: parallax/tacky, call it what you wish. I was thinking of this while writing the comment: http://prinzhorn.github.com/skrollr/ (note: every great thing can be ruined my misuse, I like that library.)

I think there is no parallax in there...

I agree, but people really should expand on why when they say things like this.

I can only imagine that this website was designed by someone using a Macbook (or Magic Trackpad), without realising that not everyone can scroll easily with two fingers, which is extremely short sighted.

I have a MBP myself, and I actually enjoyed scrolling through the site, but when I tested it on my Windows PC the animation was jerky and I had to scroll more than I would've liked, overall unenjoyable. I would've closed the page half way through reading and never looked back.

Yes, Mac's are awesome, but web designers need to remember that they're not designing for themselves, they're designing to every conceivable person in their target market.

Scrolling like this is great, but only in short bursts (Unless you're on a Mac w/ trackpad).

That's an interesting perspective. Nice to remember that, when designing UI/web pages!

On a windows pc it works real smooth with the mouse wheel scroll or mouse wheel click plus mouse moved under mouse wheel clicked target. Do you have a mouse wheel on your windows pc mouse ?

Also, that mac must really be awesome because I don't get any parallax scrolling on windows or linux.

Depends on browser and mouse settings (smooth scrolling on/off).

However the animation and rendering is just very slow for me on Chrome + quad, about 5-10 FPS. I won't even try on Android.

This could have been greatly improved by using CSS3 animations, there's even a drop-in jquery library that makes this an easy fix: http://ricostacruz.com/jquery.transit/

With that said, the effect is overused and tacky. Message could have been delivered more quickly and elegantly.

I felt as if visiting that link was just a waste of time, like watching an old movie I've seen and looking for changes in subtitles.

Sorry you did not like the effect but thanks for the jquery library!

I started using a few parallax plugins, then looked at the great http://johnpolacek.github.com/superscrollorama/ but finally ended up doing my own sauce.

Next time, I'll use your link

What Windows PC mouse? Desktops have barely accounted for 20% of computer sales since 2010. We're all on laptops.

I, for one, use a PC mouse with my MacBook Pro.

Oh so you just assume that every laptop user uses the trackpad? Looking at the office I see 4 Windows users with mouses and a macbook user with a mouse. So, yeah the mouse.

Don't put words in my mouth.

The parent post made a comment about not having two finger swipe. The comment I replied to asked about the scroll wheel on his mouse, which assumes he has one. I replied that most people are on laptops; laptops do not require mice, so it's not a given that he has a mouse at all. Saying most people are on laptops is not the same as saying nobody has a mouse.

The parent post I commented on stated a windows pc and I thought maybe a mouse was present. So I asked if there was a wheel on the mouse connected to the windows pc. Just that.

And since the same 2010 most laptop trackpads do have two-finger scrolling. Not so smooth as in Mac, but that's Windows limitation: in linux the scrolling is smooth.

Even if the sales numbers translated to a 80%-20% laptop/desktop factual usage worldwide, and it doesn't, we wouldn't "all" be on laptops. Other than that being irrelevant to the fact a mouse is being used or not, much less what kind it is. Actually I am on a dual desktop and sometimes on a renderfarm, sometimes rendering content with parallax in it.

My desktop is from 2003. Runs like a champ.

Except there's no parallax.

In general I find parallax scrolling to be an absolutely infuriating user experience.

Very low FPS, jerky, and I have to repeatedly stress out my index finger spinning the scroll wheel.

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