Survey Results

Posted on April 29, 2015 by Keina Shimizu

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.

Real-time
Music-oriented social media, like Instagram as being the picture/photo-oriented one.
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.
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.
Try before you buy
The tracks, live chat with artistes and dJs as well other fans.
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.
music, gossip, promotion
better sound quality, longer duration of watching/listening youtube.
Spotify, Facebook
Unsure. But an ability to pay and receive music instantly or to trial listening before buying would be good.
Isn’t this similar to Soundcloud and Spotify? It does not seem like a new service.
Suggested bands/artists based on your own tastes
User friendly interface, compatibility with other social networking sites.
Suggesting similar artists according to the music gender
Come out with lyrics
Advertise on YouTube, Facebook and in the MV.
The music sound is clear and high quality
Posts on the inspiration behind musical pieces; feature song or artist of the day
Geared towards getting to know the individual behind the music
Music being played on and on with different music generation.
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.

Introducing Networx7 (Video) – Why miXXerS?

Link

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)

Ethical Ways to Attract Visitors To Our Site

Posted on April 23, 2015 by chang

For a social website, especially a new website, it is important to know how to attract more visitors. We have thought about this and found some useful and also ethical suggestions from Forbes where this information is sourced.

Focus on content creation. Good content markets itself. When you put the effort into building and promoting great pieces of content, the natural result is more traffic to your website via shares and referrals.
Add social sharing buttons to your website. Don’t assume that your readers will take the initiative to share your content on their own. Instead, make it easy for your site to accrue more visitors from social networking sites by adding social sharing buttons to your company’s blog posts.
Answer questions on social networking sites. When you see people asking questions online, provide whatever helpful information you can. Doing so will earn you both website traffic and customers for life.
Distribute press releases for actual achievements. While you shouldn’t abuse press release distribution websites to promote insignificant accomplishments, take advantage of this traffic stream whenever you have something noteworthy to share.
Use SEO responsibly. Don’t over-optimize your website, but do make use of current SEO best practices (which put the emphasis on looking “natural”) to let the search engines know where they should list your site in the natural search results. High rankings will result in plenty of new visitors to your website.
Invest in your website’s blog. By publishing high-value posts consistently, you’ll build your relationship with your readers, resulting in visitors who check back frequently to view your latest posts.
Share slide decks and other presentations. Posting informative materials to sites like Slideshare will help you to increase both brand awareness and website traffic through exposure to new markets and new potential customers.
Build a killer email newsletter. When readers find valuable email newsletters, they tend to share them with others. If your current email followup sequence is lackluster, making improvements here could result in significantly more referral traffic.
Publish a helpful podcast. Similarly, producing a regular, high-quality podcast will increase referred website visitors, while reaching new visitors through podcast directories.
Deploy infographics. Infographics get shared more often than most other types of content. This makes them ideal candidates for traffic generation campaigns that make use of content marketing.
Run a YouTube channel. YouTube is one of the web’s largest search engines, making it a great way to expose new audiences to your brand.
Ask visitors to share your site with others. Simply asking your visitors to forward your articles to others or share them on their social networking profiles is a great way to quickly boost page views.
Write guest posts for top industry sites. Ask other websites in your industry if you can pen guest posts for their blogs. Having your content featured there isn’t just great for traffic – it’s a good way to build your perceived authority as well.
Connect with influencers in your niche. Having an authority figure in your industry share just one of your blog articles can result in a tremendous amount of new traffic, subscribers and buyers, so make relationship building a key part of your company’s marketing strategy.
Pay attention to up-and-coming social networks. Newer social networks likeTumbler and Pinterest are sprouting up all the time. Because there can be a significant “first adopter” advantage to the people that establish a presence on these sites early on, keep an eye out for these future opportunities.
Eliminate website errors. If the search engines aren’t able to index your website properly (which can occur due to a number of different errors), you may not be receiving all the search traffic you should be.
Add pillar content to your website. Every website should have at least a few pieces of “pillar” content — in-depth, well-written content that will always be of interest to readers — to help drive traffic via person-to-person sharing.
Over-deliver on your company’s products or services. From a word-of-mouth traffic standpoint, over-delivering can’t be beat. When you go above and beyond in your industry, customers will recommend you to others – leading to more traffic and a higher marketing ROI.
Interview experts within your industry. People love hearing from experts, so if you can snag an interview and publish it on your site, you’re in for a big surge of traffic from the authority’s existing audience.
Comment on other websites. Leaving valuable comments on other websites’ blogs can be a great way to build traffic back to your own site. Just be sure to say more in your comment than, “Great post!” or “Thanks for sharing!”

Reference: http://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2012/08/31/20-easy-ethical-ways-to-attract-more-website-visitors/

SWOT Analysis

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Yashpreet Bhangal

This is a SWOT Analysis for our site

Strengths:

It can be accessible from anywhere around the world
Potential for Discounted Tickets to concerts
Potential to meet/chat with artists
Secure Way of Purchasing tickets
Help new Talents gain Fan Base
Records Label can scout talent easily

Weakness:

Investing Personal saving
As it is a new business people not trust it when launched
Difficult to monitor if illegal content is uploaded

Opportunities:

Global expansion, record label across the global would like to stop talent
New DJ and musicians are always in making
Their is room for new innovative services in the music industry that are still to be explored.

Threats:

Record label might not want to become part of new business
It is a web based business, so it is easier for competitors to program similar functionality on their webpage

Porters Five

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Yashpreet Bhangal

Porter Five analysis

Threat of new Entrance: Threat of new entrance is really high as at the end of the day as it is only a piece of program, so anyone can hire a programmer or a web developer in order to produce a web service which can easily compete with miXXerS. In order to avoid that happening and maintain our customer base miXXerS will carry on updating new features and exclusive offers to the website and try get as many users, musicians DJs and party producers as possible to become part of such a multi cultural platform so it will be harder for our competitors.

Threat of Substitute: Threat of substitute is low to medium as we do not actually have direct competitor. There are webpage floating on internet which provide similar service such as MeeMix, Last.FM, Pandora and Worldsings but they do not integrate events as part of the site. Fans will also be able to buy tickets to concerts online with as well by using Paypal which means their confidential information is also secure.

Bargaining Power of Fans: It is low, as the fans will be able to buy ticket to go visit their favourite DJ at lower prices on this platform.

Bargaining Power of DJs/Musicians: It might high if there is a new entrance because they might have different business examples providing all the services at cheaper rates but for the moment It is also very low, as this is the platform which they require in order to boost their experience and fan base.

Rival vary Among Existing competitors: it is also low as mentioned earlier on their aren’t any direct competitors who are offering exact same service at us, so it will be easier of the brand to create its awareness and gain a fanbase.

PESTLE Analysis

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Yashpreet Bhangal

We found that the PESTLE Analysis strategy is useful in the development of miXXerS:

Political: In order to run the social media lawfully, the brand has to follow the electronic commerce regulation 2002 (Gov.uk.2013).

Economic: The UK has the 6th largest economy in the world. After the financial crisis hit UK in the face in 2008 today UK continue to struggle. Before the financial crisis the GDP growth rate was around 3% but recently it is only 1.79%. Currently, the law abiding citizens of united kingdom are still struggling but slowly started to recover from credit crunch. We believe social media platform such as Networx7 would be extremely beneficial for musicians, DJs and party producers currently based in UK or anywhere across the globe, as they would be able to see who is getting more rating on social media and spot the talent which will make their life so much easier. (EconomyWatch.2013.)

Social: As this is social media platform and it tends to target a wide range of audiences across the globe with numerous ethnic backgrounds, it is essential to provide the user with an option to translation the whole webpage into their mother tongue in order for them to use the website to its full potential. With the help of this platform, DJ’s from different country can collaborate their music and create something unique and distinctive which is not only beneficial for them as an individual but also beneficial for record labels. Recent statistics shows that 97% of the people listen to music several times a week (Social Statistics.2015), which highly emphasises the point that this website is going to be very beneficial not only for DJ’s but also for music lovers. This platform is going to break through all the social factors and bringing all music lovers whether they be music producers or simply music listeners together through music and musical events.

Technology: As it is going to be an online social network, it is essential to take technical factors into consideration. As this website is going to be operated all over the world it is essential for us to make sure the countries have facilities such as internet and broadband to make sure that they can use this website to its full potential. Differing technology legislation in in countries should also be considered before launching the services. Encryption for passwords and secure system socket layer protocol will also be implemented in order to project passwords from hackers. As a virtual piece of program that means miXXerS will not have to invest in new technology for very long time as the program will be compatible for with future hardware for long period of time. In addition the site must remain a mobile first site. A contingency plan is also going to be implemented in case of disaster.

Legal: There are many Legal issues which needs to be taken into consideration while working online or offline using social media. Issues such as:

1) Third party Content: Anytime an individual is uploading any sort of content including images, videos, music, text needs to be compliant with copyright law. You should have right to post third party content.

2) Content Ownership: who owns the information and media which has been uploaded on the website. Have you read entire terms and condition of the social media website before uploading all your confidential information. When you delete the information about yourself, is it actually delete or is it still property of social media website.

3) Criminal Activities: If a piece of text or a multimedia files has been a potential source of criminal activities online.

4) Information about an individual: Such information on social media could be a potential source of information to third party organisation without an individuals consent. (Ossian.K.,2012)

Environmental: Environmental issues are not applicable as their isn’t going to any waste disposal or recycling procedure taking place.

Reference:
Ossian.K.,2012.Legal Issues in Social Networking.Available from:http://www.millercanfield.com/media/article/200120_LEGAL%20ISSUES%20IN%20SOCIAL%20NETWORKING.pdf [Accessed on 22nd april 2015]

Social Statistics.2015.How often do you listen to music. Available from:http://surveys.pro/statistics/how-often-listen-to-music.htm [Accessed on 22nd april 2015]

EconomyWatch.2013.he Economy of the UK, GB, British Isles. Available from: http://www.economywatch.com/world_economy/united-kingdom/ [Accessed on 22nd april 2015]

Gov.uk.2013. The Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002. available from:http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2002/2013/introduction/made [Accessed on 22nd april 2015]

What is Web 2.0?

Posted on April 22, 2015 by chang

Web 2.0 is the current state of online technology as it compares to the early days of the Web.

The features of web 2.0 include:

1. More user interactivity and collaboration

2.Easy to connect

3. Communicate efficiently

One of the most significant differences between Web 2.0 and the traditional World Wide Web (www, retroactively referred to as Web 1.0) is greater collaboration among Internet users, content providers and enterprises. In the past, users can only view and download the data or content on the webpage. But now, users can edit or create the data to make them to be a part of the website.

The History of Web 2.0
The foundational components of Web 2.0 are the advances enabled by Ajax and other applications such as RSS and Eclipse and the user empowerment that they support.

Darcy DiNucci, an information architecture consultant, coined the term “Web 2.0 In her 1999 article, “Fragmented Future”:

“The Web we know now, which loads into a browser window in essentially static screenfuls, is only an embryo of the Web to come. The first glimmerings of Web 2.0 are beginning to appear, and we are just starting to see how that embryo might develop. The Web will be understood not as screenfuls of text and graphics but as a transport mechanism, the ether through which interactivity happens.”

Tim O’Reilly is generally credited with popularizing the term, following a conference dealing with next-generation Web concepts and issues held by O’Reilly Media and MediaLive International in 2004. O’Reilly Media has subsequently been energetic about trying to copyright “Web 2.0” and holds an annual conference of the same name.

Reference :

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/Web-20-or-Web-2

The Life of a Typical DJ

Posted on April 22, 2015 by Yashpreet Bhangal

“I found out networking was a big key to any success” – Laidback luke

“I spent a lot of time in my early years in the music industry dicking about with my website and stuff like that, because I felt it was important, whereas I would have been better served by just focusing on making music, and soon I could have afforded someone else to handle the website for me. It took me about 10 years to work that one out.”

These quotes clearly illustrates that there is “Something” missing. Something which could be very beneficial for the DJs who are currently in the industry and those who wish to become successful DJs in future. They clearly desire an online platform where they could create their own network of followers with their talents, rather than investing tones of money into producing and releasing an album.

Platforms such as miXXerS would definitely provide the DJs the boost they are looking for and help them gain enough fans which will follows them and help them continue their carrier in future. DJs are always learning and mixing new vibes, trying to bring and mix music from different cultures together and also keep up with new music and trends. miXXerS is a platform which will not only help them gain a fan base also help them get business and musical and moral supports from their peers. At the start majority of the DJ do gigs for free and loose a lot of money in that process as they are trying to create a fan base and they have to undertake these tasks in order to make connection to the community which will help them spark their carrier, so in order to avoid that dj’s can simply use networX7 in order to create fan base and do gigs and gain funds.

“As a full time DJ I had to suffer and sacrifice a lot of things… I had to quite my job in order to do the gigs because I wasn’t getting enough time. “DJ Gareth Emery

This clearly shows that there is definitely potential in this field and once you have create a large enough network of people or followers you are going to reach success in shorter time.

Taylor.K.2014. The Life Cycle of a Career DJ: From 1 to 25 years. Available from: https://blog.soton.ac.uk/networx7/wp-admin/post.php?post=233&action=edit&message=6 [Accessed on 22nd of april 2015]

Can Social Media be Dangerous?

Posted on April 22, 2015 by Yashpreet Bhangal

Social media are taking over every aspect of life. Young teenagers and older people are on social media and are well connected. Top educational and commercial organisation are heavily involve with social media. Educational organisation use social media to promote/ advertise and create a fan base and commercial websites are used in order to promote their products, provide customers with vocational deals and offer and to advertise. Social media such as facebook are used a lot by university students for group assignments and to socialising, but everyone seems to forget that every coin has 2 sides to it. While people are using social media to its full potential and gaining benefits from it, there are also people who have suffered heavily because of social media.

In the businesses sector organisations are attracting many customer by advertising on social media, but there are organisation who are suffering a lot because of this. For example news channels. Currently the news are feeling under threat as social media are becoming the platform and primary source of news. Even though TV is still the most popular form by which individuals are retrieving news the figures also clearly shows that online social media is catching up with news channels, which can be seen as a hazard by new channels (Quartz.,2015). Whereas social media could be used to promote a business it can really affect the reputation of the company. In 2012, a Korean american women who visited Papa Johns in New York discovered that the sales assistant identified her as a “Lady chinky eyes” she tweeted about this experience and local newspaper published that as a news. Within a few days the news travel from one part of the country on to international level which resulted in giving an organisation bad reputation. (Park.j.,Chaa.M.,Kim.H.,Jeong.j.,2012).

Social media can be very harmful for individual as well as they waste hours daily on social media “socialising”. Privacy is another issue which has been highlighted via many academics and individuals on social. Privacy is definitely something worth considering for individual and social media designer of future. Social media platform do have the potential to reveal confidential information of individuals without their knowledge. uploading inappropriate images and status about work placement can also get individuals in a lot of trouble, some can even end up loosing their jobs. Social media platforms have been blamed repeatedly for cyber bullying over the course of years. Once again uploading images or personal/confidential information regarding individuals on social media can be extremely heartbreaking. Teenagers have committed suicide due to these incidents in the past.

A lot of fake information is also floating around on social media so if you read something, do not believe it immediately. People can use platforms such as Facebook and Twitter in order to create fake profile to harass people. Certain cases can been confirmed where social media website were to conduct social engineering tasks in order to hack confidential information of the organisation. Cases related to music industry as also came forward when the song which was not released yet was published on social media website, which is currently effecting the music industry a lot.

Nevertheless the choice is yours on how you want to use the social media, it can be a great way to social and share information but it could also ruin your life if not used appropriately.

References:

Quartz.,2015. The unstoppable rise of social media as a source of news. Available from: http://qz.com/388418/the-unstoppable-rise-of-social-media-as-a-source-for-news/ [Accessed on 22nd april 2015]

Park.j.,Chaa.M.,Kim.H.,Jeong.j.,2012.Managing Bad News in Social Media: A Case Study on Domino’s Pizza Crisis. Available from: http://www.academia.edu/2428819/Managing_Bad_News_in_Social_Media_A_Case_Study_on_Domino_s_Pizza_Crisis [Accessed on 22nd april 2015]

miXXerS

Mingling Music & Party Lovers

Category Archives: Research

Ethical Ways to Attract Visitors To Our Site

SWOT Analysis

Porters Five

What is Web 2.0?