Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: q's about new unnamed app
Author: Andrew Z Posted: 7/25/2000; 3:54:59 PM Topic: q's about new unnamed app Msg #: 19069 (In response to 19027) Prev/Next: 19068 / 19070
I'm kinda confused about this as well. Let me run thru a scenario or two and you can tell me if I got it, or your XML Player can do it.1. Allow swapping playlists with others. Sounds like it via shared folder. 2. Upon receiving a playlist activate some other action (such as submitting to a streaming server, automate or initiate a purchase, trigger a database action, etc) I ask because "Scroll through your music list, double-click on songs to add them to the queue. In the background, your servant, our software, is choosing songs from the queue and playing them." isn't clear to me whether the playing is being broadcast via a network or just run locally off the harddrive. 3. Is the aggregator anonymous? Can it be used to see what *I* submit to the most popular Userland list? What about other sites? Can I submit to anybody using an XML-RPC backend or only Userland servers? The aggregator sounds like a top 40 list which usually just tells me what to avoid. :)
Here's the scenario I was thinking over last night while trying to sleep. Since I am not a big MP3 person (although I like streaming MP3 stations) I may be making crazy suggestions here.
Record Label A wants to sell more music and related merchandise. It doesn't want to sell music files online for fear of piracy. In order to promote musicians and make more sales it tries the following:
Streaming MP3 radio stations based on a subscription fee. Make it very cheap and very easy to select what music the customer wants. Make it almost commercial free. Run short 10 second spots every 15 minutes or so with online specials if necessary. The label makes it possible for users to hear what the label has. The user could even get the company playlist, edit it, and resend it for playback. If the sub service is used, allow the users to upload playlists to hear before they buy. All music is streamed. When the customer likes what he wants he can click a button on the playback device.
By putting in short commercials you add buying incentive as well as prevent people from just using your streaming bandwidth as a cheap radio replacement.
After the customer is done listening she can proceed to checkout or save her playlist and purchased list. When purchasing the user is taken to a website. There the user can decide to have a CD burned with her music. But the user can also spend more money for things like music videos, artist biographies, artwork etc. Burn it to a CD or DVD that prevents further duplication for casual users. Ship it overnight to the user. Or better yet, store the info in the playback device, take it to a record store, the mall, or even a library and have the CD burned locally while you wait.
The customer gets custom CDs with exactly what she wants. The label can promote most of their material via automated "try before you buy" methods while allowing instant tracking of sales and cusotmer data.
Would your system allow some parts of this (minus the obvious kiosk and other backend e-commerce bits)? Is it a means for business to make use of your new app?
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