Monthly Archives: April 2015

Roles of the users within miXXerS

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Many of the users within the miXXerS social networks will play vastly different roles. These different users could be generic music lovers, the artists/musicians themselves, promoters or even venue owners.  Each of these users aims to get something different out of the social network and these differences are presented below.

Generic User: The generic user may have a number of different reasons for using the social network. This could be simply to follow their favourite artists in order to see any new music, upcoming gigs or simply what they are getting up to in their day to day lives. They may also simply want to find new music, be it within the same genre as their favourite artists or if they are more into the live scene, any upcoming gigs within their local area or region. Thirdly, they might just want want to use miXXerS as a place to communicate with their friends or general people sharing the same interests within music.

DJs/Musicians: The aim of musicians within the social network will depend on the position they are in. Famous musicians would likely use the site to simply communicate with their fans, announce/share the release of new music and to announce any gigs they will be performing. Lesser known and independent musicians would likely use the network to release any music they may have recorded and to communicate directly with any friends/fans that are also interested in their music. Like famous musicians, they may also use the network to announce any upcoming gigs.  Stats and the ability to advertise which is available for premium users will also be useful for them.

Promoters/Party Producers: Promoters/Party Producers are likely to only use the network in order to announce any new music or upcoming gigs/concerts from their associated artists. Promoters from a specific music label for example may be there to combine all of the related news for the artists within their label, whilst gig promoters may promote any upcoming gigs occurring at their associated venues. Stats available for premium users will also be useful for them. Stats and the ability to advertise which is available for premium users will also be useful for them.

What is Social Media?

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Social media, Social media, Social media!!!!

What is this social media and why everyone is always talking about this. Social media is a website, an application or a platform where people can share contents which included pictures, video’s, musics, share similar internet, exchange information on certain topics. Social media is a platform where people feel connected with each other, even if they do not know each other personally. There are hundreds of social media website floating around on internet but there are only few which has literally “broke the internet”. Social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram  seem to be like limbs of human beings these days. It has no limits. Recently this platform has been used by many organisations across the globe in order to keep close contact with their customer, so customers feel more connect to the organisation. Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are like top of the agenda for many global business as they can interact with individual from anywhere across the globe without inconvenience through these platforms.

Board members of top organisations, consultants are always looking for new social platform which could be used by their business in order to gain more profit. Having so much information knowledge and interest in social media there seems to very little understanding regarding the term “Social media”. With the help of this post i would like to gain attention of my peers who are working on similar project regarding the different between social media and related concept on web 2.0. In order for us to fully understand this concept, we will have to travel back in time when the foundation on social media was laid in 1979 and a big thing called “social media” was created on top this foundation 10 years later. The first social media website was known as “Open diary” which was created in 1990s. Due to the tremendous change in the speed of internet and popularity in the concept of blog writing, in 2003 a social platform name “myspace” was born.

Let’s talk a little bit about web 2.0 now. web 2.0 actually came into existence in 2004 around the same time Facebook was born and this is where the confusion took place. Term web 2.0 was used by academics and researcher in order to describe new ways of utilising the world wide web. This was an era where application and programs weren’t just created by individual but the whole community took part in the process in order to make continuous improvements. Blogs and wikis are the best examples of web 2.0 are often confused with “social media platforms”. In order to use web 2.0 an individual doesn’t have to go through any special training and there aren’t any specific update which are require to use this facility but functionalities such as AJAX, Adobe and RSS are requirements for using the service to its full potential.

Kaplan.A.,Haenlein.M.2009.Users of the world, United! The challenges and opprotunities of social media. Avaliable on : http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681309001232, [Accessed on 10th april 2015]

Come on DJ Keep Playing That Song… What is it is like to be a DJ?

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Before I joined to this group project, my idea of DJs were pretty vague. People standing before turntables with headsets, moving on rhythm, continuously nodding to the beat while closing their eyes and stopping the vinyl record occasionally with their fingers, rewinding and playing music to get people to dance… that’s all. Although something tells me it is not that easy, so I did some research on what is it like to be a DJ, how you can create the career path to be a DJ, how much money the DJ can earn and so on.

You can also check out this Documentary about the DJ and Producer Lifestyle

https://www.careersinmusic.com/dj_nightclub-dj/

Here are some points people not familiar with DJ culture may find them interesting.

  • There are two different kind of DJ careers: those who just play the music and those who create music and play them as a performance.
  • The DJ needs skill of networking and social skill to build a fan base.
  • The DJ cannot pursue money as his/her priory goal. Sometimes they must play unpaid. After becoming famous, they earn money from performing and from the royalty of their own tracks. “On average, a reasonably successful DJ can expect to make a few hundred dollars per show.”
  • Many DJs work few hours at weekend nights, from Thursday to Saturday.
  • DJs must work with promoters, bookers, night club managers. At first you become friends with them to let them book you.
  • To be a DJ, you will be offered to perform gigs for free, so people will know you, and you can build fan base. Then your DJ career may on a right track though it is pretty competitive.
  • There is no working union for DJs though as a tracks owner they belong to a music royalty organization.

My conclusion is, it is for your weekend jobs. The interesting thing is as part of their necessary tasks, building a fan base by using social media is recommended. I believe our site will help many DJs who doesn’t have enough time or skill to do that. Even if they have, it is always nice to have extra sites to collaborate with their works and ways to have deeper engagement with fans. In a DJ’s world, social media is powerful and it is going to be more powerful as the era of Web 3.0 arrives.

Technology and Social Networks

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2014-04-20 22.18.01

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instant messaging, Video conferencing, Web meetings: These and many other collaboration and social media platforms are now an everyday part of people’s lives around the world. Why this phenomenon happened?

1. People want to change the traditional ways of communicating and chase new and interesting forms.

2. The Internet makes these kind of instant communication possible via social media

3. Computers and smart phones have become necessary things in our life.

How does social media makes our lives different?

1. Building a new culture

2. Making the communication more efficiently

3. Providing more interesting learning experiences

4. Sharing personal opinions

5. Changing traditional way on finding jobs

So, we want to build a new social network including these features to improve people’s lives. What we want to build is a website for musicians/DJs and party information.  With respect to DJs, this is a musical subculture; it is an important part of a party. Second, we will provide a platform for DJ culture lovers to communicate. Third, you will learn more about DJs musicians and music through our website. Fourth, you can make your comments in particular zone. Fifth, we provide party information. If you are a DJ, you can find a job through the site.

Because the social networks are based on modern Internet, different new technologies will shape the features of social media. According to the related articles. These technologies shape social networks:

1. Arduio

2. RFID Tags and Transponders

3. Geomagnetic Sensors in Mobile Devices

4. Optical Pattern Recognition and Augmented Reality

5. OpenID,OAuth and Identity Graph

6. Mind Reading

7. Natural language processing

We could adopt these technologies, but we do not have to. Depending on the design of our social network we will adopt the appropriate technology.

Ethical Considerations for miXXerS

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image

“Further well trodden themes in social networking research – such as identity, use/non-use, motives for use, privacy, surveillance, friending, commodification, and user exploitation – all surface issues with ethical dimensions”. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

I was tasked with looking at the ethical issues that may arise in developing miXXerS. Ethical issues that arise with interactions between users, online and offline communities, social network developers, corporations, governments and other institutions are complex. Social networks have changed how we create and/or maintain social relationships/roles and there are ethical implications of this.  Each stakeholder can have diverse and also conflicting motives and interests and the same will be the case for the mixed audience of miXXerS. Social relations between people who have/desire some type of relationship or affiliation personal, business or otherwise are at the core of social networks. For miXXerS this is no exception.

Moreover, in building technological systems computer scientists often tend to build what they think would work best for the user without necessarily considering ‘disclosive computer ethics’. Instead of viewing the technology as a neutral actor this instead focuses on the moral norms and values embedded in information technologies, applications and practices. We therefore would like to build a system which considers the ethical implication of the technology itself as well as the ethical use of the site.

“the emphasis in technology design should be on achieving the greatest good for the greatest number, and developers of social networking sites are seen to have ethical responsibilities for ensuring that their designs are oriented towards achieving the desired goal. The developers, on the other hand, appear to hold a user-oriented view – they make social networking sites for people to play with.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Social networking sites can facilitate deception, social grooming and defamation. Given miXXerS is a site which combines not only music but also parties we must be aware of this. Users will be able to report unethical use of the site per our policies and we will design features which will help to support ethics. This is important. One report found that “active social networkers show a higher tolerance for activities that could be considered unethical.” and that “It appears that they are more willing to consider things that are ‘gray areas’. However, there are skeptics of such arguments. In addition, given the data that is derived from free use of the site is important for our business this also raises ethical questions which all social network sites struggle with as it has become a defacto business model for the web.

Addressing project constraints successfully :)

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Over the Easter Break it was difficult for us to meet as some people were working, and others were out of the country.Though time was one of constraints we quickly made up for this after the Easter break and was able to do everything we planned for and even a little bit more 🙂 In addition we used a social media tool to meet. Skype! This proved useful when we were all able to eventually attend the Skype meeting and we used the video facility to be able to see each other. We again discussed the tasks remaining and everyone said they would follow up on doing what their bit of the project. Social media came in handy here! Getting approval from the Ethics committee also proved difficult even though we submitted our survey early because of this break. However, we got there in the end and got a significant number of responses!

International Music Summit – The Audience, Spotify, Mox, Mixcloud

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At the International Music Summit in 2013 there were some interesting presentations and discussions on some of the ways the models for how we consume music is changing.  I watched this video from the Summit to gain some ideas of how music industry professionals are thinking in this space. In it the presenters talk about how the media industry has been forced to embrace social media and about the desire of fans to interact directly with musicians. They also talk about the way that mobile apps are enhancing the user experience at events including and about the rise of electronic dance music. They also talk about the increase in the use of apps like DJ face for music

-Ted Cohen, EMI Music  “Obviously more and more people want to become DJs… the barriers to entry are getting lower and lower. software is moving from the desktop to mobile”

-Spotify’s Mark Williamson. “22 of the top 100 tracks on Spotify fall under electronic dance music,” 

Capitalising on Clustering, Triadic Closure & Centrality For miXXerS

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triadic_closure1

Source: https://blog.pokitdok.com/social-capital-within-social-health-networks/

 

I looked into how concepts related to graph theory that I learnt could better help us utilise the information on our users successfully. With miXXerS we can look not only at the network as a whole but the clusters and how the individuals in those clusters are influenced by their particular neighbours. With music this is especially true for listeners and can be amplified through the social network site. Our interactions with each other occur locally rather than globally as many times we care more about the decisions made by friends, family or colleagues.

This is important when exploring the link with the Triadic closure concept. This says that if two people in a social network have a friend in common, then there is an increased likelihood that they will become friends themselves at some point in the future. Spotify uses clusters to suggest new songs for its users by taking into consideration the types of genres you list to, which becomes particularly useful when looking for example for suggestions for those that listen to pop music which is very diverse. Using a system that adopts the triadic closure concept music and playlists are recommended.

“If you listen to one artist a lot, they will recommend another song by that artist, or music that has the same feel as that artist. If you only listen to one song by one artist, chances are you just like that song, not so much the artist, so Spotify will recommend a song with a similar feel to that song.” (Cornell University Blog)

Likewise, with respect to users of miXXerS if 2 people in the network have a common musician, DJ or concert they like, there is an increased likelihood that they will also become connected in the future for example through an event that they can be connected at in the case of miXXerS. As a result more targeted suggestions can be made.

In measuring betweenness centrality we will look at the important role of brokers in the network and seek to engage those users. Even if they have fewer direct connections they may be a single point of failure. Closeness Centrality is also important for even if a person have fewer connections the pattern of their direct and indirect ties can allow them to access all the nodes in the network more quickly than anyone else. They have the shortest paths to all others — they are close to everyone else. They are in an excellent position to monitor the information flow in the network — they have the best visibility into what is happening in the network.

Not all network paths are created equally however and more and more research shows that the shorter paths in the network are more important and so the key paths in the miXXerS networks may not be 6 degrees as often sited but 1 and 2 steps through direct and indirect connections. Therefore, it is important to know: who is in the clusters or network neighborhoods and then try to reach them through the influential individuals that lie therein. Some of this type of valuable information will also be available to those that pay for premium subscription.

 

Maximising The Network Effect

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Source: http://munchweb.com/the-tipping-point

Source: http://munchweb.com/the-tipping-point

I found that what I learnt regarding theories about the Network effect could help us to grow the miXXerS site. As we gain more users we can use social network analysis, to map and measure relationships between people, groups, organisations, computers, URLs, and other connected information/knowledge entities. Understanding who is our network and understanding how to maximise our network effect will be essential. Social media networks are not only valuable for artists and their fans, they’re also extremely effective for advertisers which in this case includes musicians, DJs and party/concert producers. Consumers’ tastes in music can say a lot about them (and ultimately their behaviors and likes). The nodes in the network (people and groups) and the links (relationships or flows between the nodes) will be analysed to give us insight into the various roles and clusters in our network.

There are important roles essential for the success of the social media site and we must identify those that are performing those roles or can perform the roles before the site is launched as well as when the site is live. They are the core of the network are are important in reaching a tipping point for the site as outlined by Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point. A few influential individuals can make a big difference through both online and offline roles. These include:

The Connectors: those that can introduce you to everyone you need to know to succeed and are connected to many people.

Mavens: those with useful specialised information which they don’t mind sharing with many.

Salesmen/salespeople: those that can sell the site and persuade others to use it and engage on it.

Moreover, in relation to Rogers Adoption Criteria we would argue that there is no one site that combines all elements of miXXerS. We will incorporate elements of Rogers Adoption Curve as outlined below:

Triability: Giving users the ability to trial the service before deciding to pay for it will hopefully be useful and if we target universities this would lead to a relative advantage.

Complexibility and Compatibility: Given we are mobile first the platform will be suitable for the young generation and we intend to make the site as simple to use as possible, though notifications as well as an simple user interface.

Observability:  If more users use the site then others would be encouraged to do the same when they observe this and if we target key influencers to join the site then they would encourage others to join too.

Relative Advantage: We believe that there is no one site that successfully combines the elements we provide for a range of music lovers and those that cater to them. Therefore miXXerS can capitalise on this advantage in an industry that has tremendous room for growth

We believe that using such concepts will help miXXerS to be a success.

Music for Partying and Studying?

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Music for Partying and StudyingGiven young people are our chosen demographic focus one suggested feature is advice on what music is useful for studying. However, miXXerS is specifically for people who go to parties. While the idea came up it is quite a divergence from the main aim of the site which targets DJs, party/concert goers and musicians and party producers/promoters. Given we are a team of all students that like music we are getting our music on as we work on this project.

The old-age Question: Do you prefer to have music while you’re working?  Some people, just like myself, most of the time have it on when completing assignments. However like others students either thrive off listening to music while study OR find having music on in the background incredibly distracting.

The timeless debate has been made. Meanwhile, a number of academic studies suggest listening benefits the brain, sleep pattern, the immune system and stress levels. This is extremely true for music lovers. Furthermore, many people, including researchers and scientists have a theory that music without lyrics such as Mosaic is the best music for study. According to research, listening to classical music help students in studying by increasing the concentration, improve the retention and ensuring more successful study. While is not the focus of miXXerS, we’ll turn our music on when we do our miXXers research!