Web maps and Storyboards (Finalized!)

Here are the finalized Web maps and Storyboards that I did for the group which considers not only the design of the websites and the features we can provide but also addresses any social, legal or ethical issues that may arise when it is used.

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Survey Results

I collected the survey results to see how potential users view our potential service. This provided us with information that informed the development of our site. The results are  summarised below. So far our total response is 94 though only 32 people have completed the survey. You can find the survey here.

Question 1.1 : Age Group

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Ages vary between 16 to over 30 though, more opinions of teenagers would have given a better balance to the survey. This survey may reflect the opinions of adults.

 

Question 1.2 : Gender

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The balance between men and women is ideal. the survey may reflect unbiased opinions at least from view point of gender. This is useful information as we would like to provide information on the gender mix at events which is useful to party producers but also to users who attend the event, as this sometimes affects the decision to attend, especially for young people. Think Ladies Free Night!

Question 1.3 : What is your country of origin?

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The survey consists of 10 countries. Although those variety will give us international viewpoints, there is no English origin. Although the web site will be implemented in UK, this survey may not reflect the opinions of domestic users, but reflect international views of users living in UK.

 

Question 1.4 : How often do you attend concerts/parties?

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The average times those surveyed attended concerts/parties is 6 or less. The potential users of the site will be those attending parties at least “1 or more times per month”, which is 9 out of 32. although it is assumable almost everyone will listen to some music, attending music events are different from just listening to music.

Question 1.5 : How do you access music? Select all that apply.

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This is a multiple choice question and people could tick boxes more than once. As expected YouTube is used by 1/3 of people. Highlighting the importance of not just music but video. 40% of people use some kind of downloading service which is a mainstream way of accessing to music today. The ability for people to add their YouTube Videos to the site will be useful as well as the ability for them to upload videos directly from their mobile. Though ensuring copyright is adhered too will be problematic.

Question 1.6 : Do you find these services satisfactory?

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It looks like almost all have no problem with the way they access music, there are only two opinions about previous tools. it doesn’t help me to discover good songs. It only features and advertises popular songs not the music of my taste.” and “can’t download music and always my favourite videos are erased.” Those are also complaints on the inability to customising music by their own taste.  By giving freedom of selection of music taste on miXXerS, we may attract many potential users.

 

Question 1.7 : How do you discover new music? Select all that apply.

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Here we enjoy variety of answers as it is also multiple choices. Finding new music from social media gained 20%, which is comparatively a rather large share of replies. There is enough potential to enlarge this share by creating a useful site. We also can add people answering “By going to concerts operas.” if we succeed to take them to our site by providing enough concert information. Other reply “Blogs” could potentially be included into our site.

Question 1.8 : Do you find these services satisfactory?

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Written answers are “discovering new music is always difficult unless you have friends who knows a lot about the music.” “Because I still find it hard to find out about good new/ unknown artists” and “It would be nice to have a forum that could make new and innovative music more accessible instead of being lost in the clutter”. This sounds like finding new music is not easy since existing media may provide unfiltered information of new songs only. People need to have customized information which our site may provide. It seems that users are also constantly searching for new artists and new music, so being able to more easily have access to this via the miXXers site would be important. Connecting the dots between music and musical events will be an important component for this and so we believe miXXerS is on the right track.

Question 1.9 : Would you consider using a service that combines the following:

Being able to listen to new and existing music online,

Connecting with musicians and DJs and,

Provision of information about their upcoming events,

Connecting with friends and people with similar music/event taste?

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It is nice that almost 80% people agreed to use the service such that our site will provide.

 

 

 

 

Question 1.10 : What features would you suggest for such an online service?

The following are replies.

  1. Real-time
  2. Music-oriented social media, like Instagram as being the picture/photo-oriented one.
  3. Less public social connections but more private social connection
    if my favourite musician will come to my area, I d like to know that asap to get a ticket. Maybe they should send me an email of notification for events in a particular area.
  4. An online community or forum which show the different genres and artistes for ease of searching. The community would give people a stronger reason to stay connected.
  5. Try before you buy
  6. The tracks, live chat with artistes and dJs as well other fans.
  7. Short impression of the atmosphere, artist and their music. In a short film or so, that can experience right away, and get in the mood. And then book with one clic.
  8. music, gossip, promotion
  9. better sound quality, longer duration of watching/listening youtube.
  10. Spotify, Facebook
  11. Unsure. But an ability to pay and receive music instantly or to trial listening before buying would be good.
  12. Isn’t this similar to Soundcloud and Spotify? It does not seem like a new service.
  13. Suggested bands/artists based on your own tastes
  14. User friendly interface, compatibility with other social networking sites.
  15. Suggesting similar artists according to the music gender
  16. Come out with lyrics
  17. Advertise on YouTube, Facebook and in the MV.
  18. The music sound is clear and high quality
  19. Posts on the inspiration behind musical pieces; feature song or artist of the day
  20. Geared towards getting to know the individual behind the music
  21. Music being played on and on with different music generation.
  22. Ability to download

By examining those 22 answers to 6 categories, it is said that there are two major categories people may concern; “social media function” and “music quality”. As for social media function, people needs other factors to their music site such as “more private”. they prefer a friendly site even it is for music. Another aspect, “music quality”  is also important. they concern quality of music when they listen/download. The third popular category “customized music taste” includes “Suggesting similar artists,” “posts on the inspiration behind musical piece” that are not officially provided. Those answers will will influence the future development of our site. The music and social site required now should cover those three factors.

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  • Customized music taste
  • Faster flow of
  • information on musicians
  • Better music quality
  • Social media function
  • Better usability

 

 

 

Based on the results of the survey we will have to continually improve on privacy to ensure the reputation of the site maintains in tack. We will also have to be innovative and explore new ways to integrate the musical experience both online and offline at events, in a genuinely social and integrated and mobile way. We would also like to undertake further research to help us continually improve the service and successfully evolve.

miXXerS Graph

The graph represents relationships (edges or links) between miXXerS users and helps to illustrate the path length between them. Users and DJs/Musicians are connected by event, music, chat and RSS. Graph theory concepts will be used to help understand how our users are connected and what clusters have formed. This illustrates what a social graph for miXXerS could look like. You can read more about this in Keisha’s posts Capitalising on Clustering, Triadic Closure & Centrality For miXXerS and Maximising The Network Effect

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Introducing Networx7 (Video) – Why miXXerS?

Link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2F3m2c7Nbc

We all met in the Mountbatten lunch room to check the demo for our site and take some photos and videos for the introductory video Kay did, which we also hope to use in the Dragon’s Den. You can see the result above 🙂 Liam also did the narration for our web demo and we went through the remaining work that we have to do. Enjoy the video! What better way to introduce us and our project could there be than actually using YouTube to do it! (By Keisha Taylor)

Case Study: Scenarios and Personas

I created some persons based on the functionality of the site.

Scenario: Jonathan- semi pro musician and weekend DJ

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Background:

Jonathan, 34, is a sales manager of an franchise company weekdays but he also works as a DJ if he has chances. He is contracted to Juno Record and though he has produced 1 CD he still strugges to success as a DJ. He needs to develop fun base, but how?

 

Story:

Jonathan’s first CD sales is not as good as he wanted. His friends advised him to build a fan base using social network. He wrote information about his CD and music event on his Facebook but basically only his friends saw that. Then he starts using miXXerS after visiting the site to check out some musical events in his area as he learnt about the site from his friends via Facebook.

He went to top page-function 6 registration (DJ/Band/event) and registered his information. Two days after he got an email from miXXerS admin saying he was approved. Jonathan went to the site, top page-1.attend events, select “DJ” from pull down, then found his name and select it to jump to his page. There were no stars, events, nor comments. He then decides to register as a DJ and Musician. He finds out that he can only advertise events if he takes the premium offer and so he decides to sign up for the month free trial. He is then able to customise his profile page and advertise his event and his music. A few days later, Jonathan did a gig that he advertised on miXXerS. He found that slightly more people than usual came to his gig. After the gig he checked his page to find some stars and comments. He now notices that he is starting build a larger fan base.

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Scenario 2: Miki-Asian college student/music lover

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Background:

Miki is 23 years old Japanese international student studying in the University of Southampton, music major. Although she prefers dance/music/DJ activities it is not easy to find music event in the city, since she doesn’t have many friends here and she has some challenge in English.  But she definitely needs to have some fun.

 

 

Story:

Miki has trouble finding music events she likes in Southampton. Since she is an international student new to this country and city, getting sub culture information is not easy for her. Then she started using miXXerS.

She went to the top page, click 7.Register(user), and registered herself as a member. In her profile photo, she felt it’s safe not to use her real photo, so she used an icon for now. After a day she got an email from miXXerS admin saying her registration was approved. Then she went to top page, 1. Attend event. She selected  “Location”, then narrow down her choice by selecting “South East”, “Hampshire”, and “Southampton” to check if there are some events in the city. There is an event which she liked, so she asked her friend to go there. Her friend agreed, so she clicked “ticket” button to buy two tickets and was taken to the ticket site being used by the event producer. They also decide they want to take the opportunity to meet new people in Southampton and click to find other people who are looking for people to attend the event with. She and her friend check the profile of one user who would like to go to the event but not alone and arrange to meet with her. She attended to the event with her friend and meets the new person who they both like. They all love the party and decide to write review! Miki went to miXXerS top page, 1. Attend event, then reached the DJ who had a gig on her event. She added 5 stars to his page, recommended him and wrote a comment.

Web maps and Storyboards (revised)

Following up on the draft web map published earlier here are the revised Web maps and Storyboards that I did. In this map ‘band’ also refers to musician.

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function 1: Function to attend events.

Select Location/Date/DJ/Band/Music genre and narrow down your search to go to the DJ/Band’s personal page to view event information. All events are linked to google map. ticket should be sold online using Paypal or third party ticket sites like Eventbrite or Ticketmaster.

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function 2: request DJ/band

When you would like to ask the DJ/band to play for personal event, use this function. Selection could be by location, data, DJ.Band and Music genre, then narrow down to each event information. When you found the one you wanted, send an email to the DJ/Band to negotiate the detail. Those email exchange will be monitored by miXXerS and miXXerS will take few % of the price.

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Function 3: RSS     Function 4: Chat

This is the optional communication site. Members can buddy up to attend an event or chat about their favorite musicians. Those social aspect also is necessary to bound people in the tie of their favorite music.

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Function 6: register DJ/Band

This is the site for both DJ/Band and listeners can have profits. DJ/Band looking for fan base will register themselves to miXXerS.

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Function 7: register (user)

Users also have to register to use any of this service, since information of DJ/Band and members will be confidential and exclusive to members only. It would be dangerous enough to contact/meet a stranger especially at some night club, so registration is important for the safety of users. It also is required to ask users to buddy up carefully, at their own risk.

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Function 8: review   Function 5 : Upload music

After attended to some events members may write review and evaluate stars to each DJ/Band page to contribute the trustfulness of miXXerS. The administration staff may upload legal music or video clip but they can also link to 3rd party sites like Spotify and SoundCloud.

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

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.