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The XX shared their new album with only 1 fan to see how it goes viral.
- brittohalloran 14y agoAhhhh, hence the "this website wants to track your location"
- daleharvey 14y agoIt has a visualisation of who is listening to it on the page
- tnorthcutt 14y agoNeat idea, and pretty visualization. I think they could have done a lot more with it, though. For instance, sometimes dragging the slider to a point produces no result (other than colore dots on the map - no sharing lines, though).
- Matsta 14y agoEssentially a good idea, but really badly executed. Looks like a flash website from 2005
- andr 14y agoThis is more about the social experiment than reaching new levels in graphic design.
- SquareWheel 14y agoI actually really like the graphic design. And the music too, for that matter.
- SquareWheel 14y agoAs somebody that opens a dozen HN tabs at once, I do not appreciate the automatic playing music.
- scrrr 14y agoYes, but you could have expected it when opening a music artist's page. The parameter in the URL is a little bit strange though.
- corin_ 14y agoNot really strange, the entire point of the page is tracking how this link spreads and therefore being able to track who gave the link to whoever clicks it is clearly useful information.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- jentulman 14y agoThat I can cope with, what's really annoying is that it stops playing if I minimize the window.
- CamperBob2 14y agoThe worst part of the whole experience is when you realize that there still is no visual indication in a Firefox tab when the page it contains is running a video or Flash script, or otherwise is making noise in a way that the browser engine can detect. Do any other mainstream browsers make it easier to find the tab that's responsible for making racket without madly clicking through all of them and/or closing every open browser window?
- mmcnickle 14y agoThe issue is that the plugin model means that Firefox has no way of knowing if sound is playing via a plugin. The plugins access the OS's sound layer directly. Edit: The relevant bug report: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=486262 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=486262
- christianmann 14y ago
- nodata 14y agoAren't The XX from London? What does the starting point represent? The hosting server at Microsoft? Edit: Duh :(
- Paul_S 14y agodoesn't work for me (FF15) - stuck at 100% loading :(
- alexchamberlain 14y agoWorked in Chromium (Arch Linux), but it does say it's in collaboration with Internet Explorer.
- xyzzyb 14y agoWorked fine for my FF 15.0.1
- samwilliams 14y agoEven works on FF 13.0.1 (Fedora)...
- propercoil 14y agoconfirm ff15 stuck at 100% ubuntu 12.04
- crisnoble 14y agoThis is very cool, awesome visualization from an awesome band. Weird that IE sponsored it but beautiful nonetheless. If you want to listen to the album with the ability to skip tracks I recommend NPR's first listen: http://www.npr.org/2012/09/03/160323435/first-listen-the-xx-coexist http://www.npr.org/2012/09/03/160323435/first-listen-the-xx-... (interestingly the first listen was published Sept 2nd, and Sept 3rd is the first day for the linked data viz)
- dpcan 14y agoLooking at the page's source, they have created a browser update path for users of older versions of IE. Looks like this is another way of getting rid of old browsers.
- yuchi 14y agoIn the last year I became almost but not quite entirely unlike an IE-team hater... I mean, they're doing a lot of cool things both on IE itself and on Google/Apple/Mozilla-esque experiments.
- SolarNet 14y agoI think it has to do with Microsoft's recent social kick (everyone is on that kick lately >.>) and it also uses the visual style from IE's recent ads. (Like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFE4rkSaKOY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFE4rkSaKOY)
- dpcan 14y agoIt looks like they track our geo-location and the referring website. I like watching the animation, and it's a cool site. What would be more awesome (IMO) is if they took this information and created a visualization of the path their band took to finally reach me. So, it showed them on the map, in their garage playing, to the studio, to distributing the track to that one guy, to him posting it to a website, to another guy re-tweeting, to some kids posting to Facebook, and finally reaching me on Hacker News - and do this with a map with photos on it as well. Over time it would just get longer and more interesting. Especially if they let me link myself to the site somehow with a photo so when others watch their path, they see the people that got them there. Just a thought. Kind-of like the beginning of that Movie "Lord of War" where they follow the bullet from manufacturing to the hands of the warlords to it being fired.
- spydertennis 14y agothis is a cool idea but eventually it would just be lots of minutes of photos of people sitting in front of their computer screen.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- simias 14y agoI can see a problem with this, when I open the link the URL remains the same (i.e. the "referrer" part is not updated). If I were to share it I'd just copy/paste the URL, in effect meaning that I won't appear as a "node" in the graph. I wonder if that's why the graph seems very "centralized" around a few points. Unless it's because I refused to share my location. They should explain why they need it beforehand, I would never allow that by default (I only understood the point once I saw the map). EDIT: Also, it will probably not take the retweets and similar into account, as the URL will remain the same. Overall it's an interesting concept but I doubt it'll provide any worthwhile data.
- johndavidback 14y agoMy guess is that they use the referrer only as a point of origin on the map. Each subsequent user to hit that referrer id plots on the map in sequence from the original, based on their geolocation. They probably do not plot users who do not share their locale. Just a guess.
- Shorel 14y agoBoo, scary websites want to know where you are. Honestly, I don't see the problem, this is not worth raising the cat-signal for. And you are right about the referrer. They don't generate it, use it or do anything useful otherwise. May be doing it right is a good plan for another YC startup.
- Foy 14y ago>Boo, scary websites want to know where you are. Nothing wrong with being alarmed by a site that automatically plays music and wants to know where you live. If the cashier at Subway or any other stranger with whom you had minor contact one day asked where you lived wouldn't you be more than just a little alarmed?
- stilldavid 14y agoWhat if a major retailer asked for your ZIP code at the register? This happens to me often and is much more analogous to the situation than a cashier asking where I live.
- wmblaettler 14y agoThe concept is very cool, but I find the UI lacking. I'd expect to see a cumulative expansion from patient zero, with a more continuous timeline. This appears to show the current visitors at that moment in time, which could allow for the viewer to see how visits fluctuate with time of day and surges grow larger over time, but it fails to even show this very well. Of course it's easy to criticize, so props for the neat idea and decent execution.
- Dn_Ab 14y agoI wonder if the idea is worth more than the act. By actively talking about how, if 1 fan can make something viral you have created an external something that can catalyze the spread. The idea of 1 person trying to make something viral is interesting in itself and will help generate the impetus that just might carry it through to 'viral', independent of the music and the action itself. It matters if that 1 fan is a highly connected node or only 1 or even 2 from a highly connected node with each having a high reshare probability. Good idea. Used up now I think.
- mmaunder 14y agoThat's pretty, but it doesn't look viral. One expects to see one point going to somewhere between 1 and a large number which spreads to somewhere between 1 and a large number and so on. It should look more chaotic and more like a fractal I'd think. This looks like one fan spread it to a huge number. So I'm guessing there is missing data e.g. the first fan getting too much credit.
- chrisrhoden 14y agoIt's because everyone is sharing the same link instead of sharing their own. The link on this HN page is the original sharer's URL
- mmaunder 14y agoExactly, and it's a real bummer because true virality would have looked much more interesting.
- eevilspock 14y agoHow is HN being a sharing node not "true virality"? I think you don't quite understand "viral".
- sirclueless 14y agoThe point was to see the web of virality, but if everyone uses the same url instead of generating one via the "Share" link on the page itself that falls apart. If you copy-paste the url from HN to facebook, for example, then the HN sharer seems to have originated all of the Facebook inbounds.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- propercoil 14y agocool track (Angels)
- eslachance 14y agoThe "stream" animation is very laggy in Firefox 15, but works fine in IE9, so I guess "In collaboration with IE" is more "optimized for IE"... I kinda like the music though, and the social experiment is nice. I'm assuming the massive spike in sharing that stems from the US is actually this post right here! It would be nice to have some solid stats, as well as some info on my own share. With the mass of wires it's hard to tell whether someone actually stems from me or not.
- wmeredith 14y agoI'm not sure if the big spike was HN or not. This hit the front page of Reddit and The XX already has a large following of tech savvy hipsters.
- ewolf 14y ago"A collaboration with Internet Explorer" and everything's jaggy on a big screen — can't deny the irony. When will Microsoft finally learn how to properly use web technology? Regarding the link copy issue: They could've just added an automatic redirect/URI change on page load. Too bad they didn't think of that.
- diggan 14y agoWhen will Microsoft finally learn how to properly use web technology? When they invent some good web technology. Oh, wait, they totally did... You heard of AJAX?
- ewolf 14y agoThey certainly contributed to the web, even if part of their contribution was rather counter-productive (IE, we're looking at you!). But you have to admit that it's quite embarrassing for a company as well-known and large as Microsoft to finally use HTML5/Canvas on a website and still not being able to draw smooth curves.
- diggan 14y agoWell, I say AJAX feels like a better feature than Canvas. Where would we be without AJAX?
- jamesaguilar 14y ago> When they invent some good web technology. Oh, wait, they totally did... You heard of AJAX? Presumably your first sentence is incorrect, then, yes?
- vannevar 14y agoYou're never going to get virality from an experiment involving a band that has already had a hit record. The best you're going to get is to see how quickly the music media finds out that the link was released.
- notJim 14y agoThat's what I would have thought, but I found this on Facebook before my music–blog reading friends found a link to it.
- mnicole 14y agoListened to it on Rdio this morning, now I feel like I cheated.
- circa 14y agoYeah but this leaked weeks ago. When was this launched? Still really cool.
- circa 14y agonevermind. I see it looks like Sept. 3rd. It did leak over 3 weeks ago but this is a cool concept.
- zackbloom 14y agoI'm a little unclear why they're plotting this on a map of the world. Isn't virtually all of the spread over the internet? What is the relevance of physical location? It'd be more interesting to see what online communities were involved (referrer data).
- opminion 14y agoThanks for the music. I am probably the only one put off by the northern hemisphere in what looks like Mercator, so won't moan about that ;-) No thanks for the automatic play on page load.
- scelerat 14y agoIs this Patient Zero the first person to whom they gave the track, or the first person to share the track resulting in viral distribution? There is a difference. Dead ends are possible and entirely likely.
- morgannnn 14y agoI love this. They're such a creative band, cool when they take a real interest in their fans, elements outside the music itself
- tankbot 14y agoCool idea but as others have mentioned, the 'viral' visualization is pretty but doesn't represent any one-to-many shares. Also, poor China... They don't get to play.
- cgil 14y agoIt's interesting to see the clustered areas of popularity, ie. NA and western Europe. Are they limiting distribution/tracking in Eastern Europe and Asia or is there no fan base there?
- error54 14y ago"In collaboration with Internet Explorer" Doesn't even have a good fail back on IE 8 which still has a good percentage of the market.
- eyevariety 14y agoI love how Hacker News has a bunch of pissed of nerds that are mad that a website advertising music plays said music.
- jamesaguilar 14y agoThe scroll bar on the right doesn't work for me, but other than that, it's cool!
- zenocon 14y agosadly, if you live in cape horn you can't play. sidenote: all the "..grr...flash...grr.." comments on here made me chuckle (hint: right-click). it sounds like a good album.