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.

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]

What is Social Media?

Posted on April 22, 2015 by Yashpreet Bhangal

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]

Technology and Social Networks

Posted on April 17, 2015 by chang

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.