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I must admit I am a bit surprised that a social network based on music never really took off. If you really squint at it, TicToc kinda sorta is. Instagram made

I must admit I am a bit surprised that a social network based on music never really took off. If you really squint at it, TicToc kinda sorta is. Instagram made photos social in a way that Facebook never really did. I think taking a photo and applying a filter as a way to express mood/personality is just an easier thing for the average person to do. It also requires almost no license. The user took the photo with their phone, no one else owns it. Even if a short snippet of a commercially created song is a perfect explanation of my current mood, I can't widely share it on a social network without license. I think that revolution could come but it requires something fantastical. It would require a music making device as easy to use as a mobile phone camera. Some method of expressing mood/personality using sound that is effective.

dillondoyle 5y ago
Personally I think it'd be tough to listen to a bunch of moms and tweens singing for 15s trying to go viral ;0 Could be cool to see some simple generative music like pick a genre, a beat, hum a melody and ML composes something. Or a quirky fun karaoke social app. Add remix, duet, group lives like tiktok IG have.
pvarangot 5y ago
> music making device as easy to use as a mobile phone camera The technology is kiiinda there, look at the iPad music production stack. If you have what it takes you can put up a complete track only in your iPad. I think there's at least two big issues: - Iterating on music until "it's good enough" is not as fast as iterating on a picture or video where you can do multiple takes and check exactly what's going on in your screen. - Conveying your feelings with music is kinda like learning a new language, and then becoming a poet. Like for example everyone has access to sharing text now, with your friends or with the world, yet not everyone is making poems or short stories that convey their emotions effectively.
- reggieband 5y ago
  Those kind of issues are really the tip of the iceberg IMO. Writing a 140 character tweet or taking a photo with a modern mobile phone has a higher average quality with minimal effort. Yes, not every tweet is poetry but a huge volume of average tweets are consumable (if not entirely palatable). What I mean to say is, the average person is certainly able to write a better Tweet or take a better Insta snap than that same person could reasonably create a pleasing snippet of audio worth sharing. That would be true even if they took the time and effort to learn to use even the simplest iPad music production stack.
Minor49er 5y ago
While there isn't a social media network based on music, there are countless Discord servers, message boards, and other online communities that post onto sites like Bamdcamp and Soundcloud to share their work woth each other. Given the diversity in music creation processes, related interests, openness, etc, a social media network based on music would be pretty limiting unless it catered heavily to a niche.
- baran1 5y ago
  are you on any of those?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Minor49er 5y ago
    Yeah, I'm on a few. They mostly cater to industrial/experimental electronic, but there are a couple that talk about theory and technique that are really welcoming. If you're interested, shoot an email to info at moonmusiq.com
nafey 5y ago
Maybe YouTube fills that niche. However comments section on any song is utter trash. Maybe music can be anti social as the article said...
kevinmchugh 5y ago
SoundCloud and Spotify both have social networking features. SoundCloud especially you could see as akin to Flickr, where users shared content (but don't do their creating/editing)
micromacrofoot 5y ago
I'm surprised Spotify has never really expanded their social features, it seems like such an obvious thing to do and could give them an advantage (it already does a little)... but I guess it's an expensive advantage they don't need. It might have kept me around a bit longer.
cmehdy 5y ago
TikTok is a social network based on seeing people in portrait mode. There are entire subsets of it where music isn't the focus at all, and the fact that so many people do exactly the same dance on exactly the same song should hint at the differentiation being the person shown. TikTok for the music industry is where the ads need to be because the youth is there, not because music is there. Youtube is closer to being "the" social media for music: concerts are published on it (sometimes live even), special events and channels like Cercle/Colors/etc, performances of artists self-published (covers included), music videos get posted there and being a "billion view" video is still a bit of a marker, "radios" appealing to very specific descriptions of all kinds exist with 24/7 activity, multi-million views channels aggregating new artists acting as discovery (Chillcow, Koalacontrol, and thousands more), etc. "Discovery" on youtube alone is pretty poor I'd say, but as mentioned in the tweets it's not really a viable product in itself anyway.
- reggieband 5y ago
  I think everyone's TicToc experience depends on how the algorithm sorts you. I know that if I open it up right now (which I won't since I should be working and the app tends to distort time and fast-forwards 2 hours of my life) I am almost certain to get a person with a guitar, banjo, piano, accordion or whatever in a 1-2 min snippet with them saying "I just wrote this little tune this morning ...". Alternatively, I almost never get any dancing at all, maybe 1 out of 100 videos. I also get a lot of music recommendations, like a "best 20 indie albums you've never heard of" compilation. On the subject of the songs not being a differentiator, I completely disagree. The songs themselves are memes. People use them to signify the type of video you are watching (or to attempt to subvert your expectation).
  - rhino369 5y ago
    Man TicTok must think I'm a pervert since I get 50% of women dancing in bikinis.
    - djhn 5y ago
      As long as you keep telling TikTok that they're right in this assessment of your taste by watching the videos, as opposed to skipping them, that's exactly what you'll see. To be fair though, if you shared your gender with tiktok, it'll have a very strong prior about this.
13415 5y ago
You mean Napster? It did take off...
baran1 5y ago
Historically I think licensing has been the biggest hurdle. Nowadays music is moving towards being commodified and licensing is less of an issue. Still to be determined whether or not it's possible to build a community around a fractured space, I'll report back when we launch :)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

dillondoyle 5y ago

Personally I think it'd be tough to listen to a bunch of moms and tweens singing for 15s trying to go viral ;0 Could be cool to see some simple generative music like pick a genre, a beat, hum a melody and ML composes something. Or a quirky fun karaoke social app. Add remix, duet, group lives like tiktok IG have.

pvarangot 5y ago

> music making device as easy to use as a mobile phone camera The technology is kiiinda there, look at the iPad music production stack. If you have what it takes you can put up a complete track only in your iPad. I think there's at least two big issues: - Iterating on music until "it's good enough" is not as fast as iterating on a picture or video where you can do multiple takes and check exactly what's going on in your screen. - Conveying your feelings with music is kinda like learning a new language, and then becoming a poet. Like for example everyone has access to sharing text now, with your friends or with the world, yet not everyone is making poems or short stories that convey their emotions effectively.

reggieband 5y ago
Those kind of issues are really the tip of the iceberg IMO. Writing a 140 character tweet or taking a photo with a modern mobile phone has a higher average quality with minimal effort. Yes, not every tweet is poetry but a huge volume of average tweets are consumable (if not entirely palatable). What I mean to say is, the average person is certainly able to write a better Tweet or take a better Insta snap than that same person could reasonably create a pleasing snippet of audio worth sharing. That would be true even if they took the time and effort to learn to use even the simplest iPad music production stack.

Minor49er 5y ago

While there isn't a social media network based on music, there are countless Discord servers, message boards, and other online communities that post onto sites like Bamdcamp and Soundcloud to share their work woth each other. Given the diversity in music creation processes, related interests, openness, etc, a social media network based on music would be pretty limiting unless it catered heavily to a niche.

baran1 5y ago
are you on any of those?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Minor49er 5y ago
  Yeah, I'm on a few. They mostly cater to industrial/experimental electronic, but there are a couple that talk about theory and technique that are really welcoming. If you're interested, shoot an email to info at moonmusiq.com

nafey 5y ago

Maybe YouTube fills that niche. However comments section on any song is utter trash. Maybe music can be anti social as the article said...

kevinmchugh 5y ago

SoundCloud and Spotify both have social networking features. SoundCloud especially you could see as akin to Flickr, where users shared content (but don't do their creating/editing)

micromacrofoot 5y ago

I'm surprised Spotify has never really expanded their social features, it seems like such an obvious thing to do and could give them an advantage (it already does a little)... but I guess it's an expensive advantage they don't need. It might have kept me around a bit longer.

cmehdy 5y ago

TikTok is a social network based on seeing people in portrait mode. There are entire subsets of it where music isn't the focus at all, and the fact that so many people do exactly the same dance on exactly the same song should hint at the differentiation being the person shown. TikTok for the music industry is where the ads need to be because the youth is there, not because music is there. Youtube is closer to being "the" social media for music: concerts are published on it (sometimes live even), special events and channels like Cercle/Colors/etc, performances of artists self-published (covers included), music videos get posted there and being a "billion view" video is still a bit of a marker, "radios" appealing to very specific descriptions of all kinds exist with 24/7 activity, multi-million views channels aggregating new artists acting as discovery (Chillcow, Koalacontrol, and thousands more), etc. "Discovery" on youtube alone is pretty poor I'd say, but as mentioned in the tweets it's not really a viable product in itself anyway.

reggieband 5y ago
I think everyone's TicToc experience depends on how the algorithm sorts you. I know that if I open it up right now (which I won't since I should be working and the app tends to distort time and fast-forwards 2 hours of my life) I am almost certain to get a person with a guitar, banjo, piano, accordion or whatever in a 1-2 min snippet with them saying "I just wrote this little tune this morning ...". Alternatively, I almost never get any dancing at all, maybe 1 out of 100 videos. I also get a lot of music recommendations, like a "best 20 indie albums you've never heard of" compilation. On the subject of the songs not being a differentiator, I completely disagree. The songs themselves are memes. People use them to signify the type of video you are watching (or to attempt to subvert your expectation).
- rhino369 5y ago
  Man TicTok must think I'm a pervert since I get 50% of women dancing in bikinis.
  - djhn 5y ago
    As long as you keep telling TikTok that they're right in this assessment of your taste by watching the videos, as opposed to skipping them, that's exactly what you'll see. To be fair though, if you shared your gender with tiktok, it'll have a very strong prior about this.

13415 5y ago

You mean Napster? It did take off...

baran1 5y ago

Historically I think licensing has been the biggest hurdle. Nowadays music is moving towards being commodified and licensing is less of an issue. Still to be determined whether or not it's possible to build a community around a fractured space, I'll report back when we launch :)

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]