Ask HN: Review my startup, HipHopGoblin.com (Pandora + HypeM + Hip Hop) | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Review my startup, HipHopGoblin.com (Pandora + HypeM + Hip Hop)

33 pointszackattack41 comments

It's been impossible for me to find a job, as per this thread: [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=754426]. ctb9 and I started emailing, and he encouraged me to work on a project, so I pursued one of my ideas and made a Hype Machine/Pandora tool for the newest songs in Hip Hop. It took me a week to build this prototype.

It is built in Flash/ActionScript, PHP, and MySQL. I use PHP to parse blogs and then download files, which took some engineering. It uses item-based collaborative-filtering techniques for music recommendation. Music storage is on Amazon S3.

I hope you like it.

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This is awesome. Currently background for a (hopefully regular) cooking session.

1) Don't make it autoplay - "Press play to get started" is much, much, much better

2) Ask me for artists I like and make recommendations

3) Ask me for friends that are also on hiphopgoblin and let me see (and play!) their likes/dislikes

4) Make the player pop out and keep the music playing when I open top 50 somehow (new window?)

5) Can I get some visual feedback when I thumbs up something?

Absolutely love the low barrier to entry!

Seriously, this is awesome. I love it.

1) Autoplay in my dictionary is fine, it saves me time to figure out what to do next. 2) and 3) +1 4) -1

Question: are you planning to monetize it? if so, how? what about copyright?

Another thing I really liked is I dont need to register and it will remember my preferences, I am not sure how, though.

im sure if you clear out your cookies you will loose your preferences. If you dont loose them then yes id be curious as to .. "how !"

Cookies! Nam nam nam.

I'm going to do my best to avoid copyrighted tracks on the site.

Re: autoplay: would you have advised Myspace similarly? Do you think they would have done better if they had? To me, "autoplay is the devil" is one of those complaints like "support openid" or "doesn't work on linux" that comes up a lot on hn and that you're probably better off ignoring.

How do you feel now? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=771935 :P

To add to this list -

1) Add an in-browser audio control

I had to mess around with my equalizers to get it to sound right (bass static problem), and I'm sure we all have memories of scrambling to lower volume when controls aren't nearby.

This seems like a high-demand feature request. I'll put it high in the priority queue. Expect it some time this week. (Ugh. I hate that I'm committing myself..but I also love it ;)

Can you make it so that the top fifty list is a series of links that allows one to play the songs in the list directly?

That's an excellent idea. I'm going to add in this feature soon. It's just sort of tricky with respect to UI.. I'll figure something out. Let me know if you have any ideas?

Done & done.

http://www.hiphopgoblin.com/top.php

Thanks for the appreciation.

#3 - Wow, that's advanced! Way down the road, but I'll keep it in mind for the pipeline. #4 - As per your suggestion, target="_blank". Good idea. Thanks. #5 - Right now the thumbs up becomes bolded, but if other people are also having the issue, I'll see if I can change it to something a little more obvious.

Thank you so much for your support!

I'll be that guy: this seems illegal. What's the plan there?

(I like the site a lot, and hope it lasts.)

Most the songs featured are from mixtapes, implying they have been released for free and the artists are encouraging fans to distribute and remix as they please. Unfortunately, this also limits the 'obvious' monetization strategy of affiliate linking to amazon.

EDIT: Long-term though, it will be tough to avoid scrutiny/prosecution while building a profitable business. Follow the grooveshark model and pass the liability onto the users?

It's not enough that the mixtapes "imply" free release. You actually have to get permission from the artists (and songwriter), or you're fucked. Statutory damages are in the hundreds -- per song.

BTW, grooveshark's model was not to pass liability onto the users. It charges premium subscriptions, and sells ads, and uses that money to pay the web-music license to the music licensing corporation.

Monetization is possible, using Amazon affiliate links. Just be aware that if you don't seek permission, you're liable for every penny you earn (regardless of costs), plus the above mentioned statutory damages.

EDIT: note that for songs distributed by a major label, the artist may not own the copyright, so you may have your work cut out for you. The easiest way to avoid the hassle of getting individual permission for each song is to sign a licensing agreement with the music licensing corporation. The most expensive way to go would be to do nothing at all, since the record labels will go after you if they think there's any money to be got.

I agree, this site will likely violate various copyright laws, in the US and abroad. Check out http://www.soundexchange.com/ to find out information on how to comply in the US, etc.

This is awesome. Love it. Added a link to my precious bookmarks toolbar space.

Is it best voted of all listeners, or does it remember my preferences? It implies the latter, but wasn't sure.

Suggestion: find a way to detect excessive auto-tune use and auto downvote those songs :)

I am honored that HHG found its way into your precious bookmarks toolbar space :)

Right now it works with your preferences, and tries to match you with songs voted up by people with similar preferences.

This is great. A couple of things that come to mind. 1) It would be nice to maybe have a replay option in case I really like the song. 2) It would be nice to be able to go back also in case I accidentally hit next. 3) It would also be cool to see where your crawler found the song, credit in the right places never hurts.

Sure, I can add in a replay feature. The thing is, I don't add in history for songs that you skip. So if you skip a song, and then you hit "replay", it won't be able to find that song. Is that okay? If it's not, I could always adjust the architecture. But let me know.

As for credit, yep, I keep track of everything and want to make sure the UI shines. But I'm working on an "advanced" version of the site, with more info.

Took me a bit of time to realize it's just one gigantic Flash app, I kept trying to highlight the song name but couldn't. But I love love that I can squeeze the Safari browser window to just 377 pixels wide and have everything scale and still usable. Love it.

Thanks for the love, and I'm sending some back right your way.

I like it - but ABSOLUTELY turn off autoplay. Autoplay is the devil.

Don't force choices on users by playing audio for them - and if someone doesn't know how to push "play" then they don't deserve to hear music.

Unreal! bookmarked, and sent it off in a blast to my old crew. Can you make it so that I can share playlists with people? I wanna play the same song to multiple people at the same time.

Awesome. That feature will be in the works, along with top 50 and such. Be sure to follow @hiphopgoblin on twitter for updates.

What if the hottest songs linked to Google searches so I can hit the artists' sites and listen there or buy? Not sure if this is OK to do or not though.

That's an excellent monetization idea. I'll try to keep a list of artists' websites in the database. Ahh... lots to do.

It's great - how are you going to protect it? Any IP in there anywhere? I can sense someone building www.classicrockgoblin.com as I type.

Nice work.

Thank you very much. I'm not sure if there's any IP really; and while I would love to build CRG.com, it's so much energy to just work on HHG. . . though potential partners should surely contact me!

I'm really curious as to how you deal with licencing, PRS etc. I like your app though, as a big Spotify user myself, I think you have a little niche going.

Big question for you - how you gonna monetise this? Not digging for trade secrets of course :)

Great! Works like a charm.

Obvious way to monetize; link to Amazon or any other affiliate music store for every track (and show a cover ;))

I'm glad it's workin' for ya.

Do you know which affiliate programs offer the best conversion rates, and which make it easiest to sign up?

Are you using Pandora to grab music recs? The recs are surprisingly good!

Thank you! I'm actually using item-based collaborative-filtering:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slope_One

This is dope dude... good work.

Thank you sir, thank you

very nice. volume selector would be nice.

In the works, I'll shoot off a tweet on @hiphopgoblin when it's ready.

Click Me http://www.hiphopgoblin.com

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