[HN Gopher] Show HN: Digs.fm - For passionate music explorers (l...
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Show HN: Digs.fm - For passionate music explorers (like Goodreads
but for music)
Hello everyone! As someone who's constantly on the look for new
music to discover and being very deliberate about the things I'm
listening, I needed a better way to organize the albums I want to
listen to, listened and liked. And also I would like to see the
discoveries of other folks who I know I like. So I started
creating the tool I wish I had in the first place. In Digs, the
basic idea is that: - you can add music releases (albums, EPs,
singles, mixes) in three lists: Want to Listen, Listened, Digged.
You can also use tags and notes to better organize these lists. -
you get a public profile where your activity is visible (i.e. what
you added to your lists). Example profile: https://digs.fm/alskn.
- you can add other people as friends. Then you'll see their
activity in your home feed. - you can either like or add a comment
to any activity of your friends (or yours) - you can explicitly
recommend a release to one of your friends You can think of it
like Goodreads, but for music. I would assume it's mostly targeted
to people that like to listen whole albums and would like to keep
track of what albums/mixes they want to listen to, sometime in the
future. This is very early yet and there are a lot of rough edges.
You can find a few screenshots of the basic functionality in the
homepage, from where you can also create an account -
https://digs.fm. I'd appreciate any feedback, thanks in advance!
--------- EDIT: I figured it's worth expanding a bit on some
highlights: - In the search box, apart from searching, you can
copy/paste any release URL from
Discogs/Spotify/Bandcamp/Mixcloud/MusicBrainz and it will basically
fetch the release and then you can add it to your lists. - There
are browser extensions for Firefox and Chrome, so that when you're
on some of the aforementioned sites, and you stumbled upon an
interesting album, you can click the extension icon and the item
will be added to your "Want to Listen" list. - For certain
releases, you'll notice there's an embedded web player, for
convenience.
Author : throwaway874839
Score : 102 points
Date : 2022-08-22 14:26 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (digs.fm)
(TXT) w3m dump (digs.fm)
| Saturdays wrote:
| Does anyone remember 'the sixty one', I used to use that all the
| time to discover music, was really cool - sadly, I left with the
| rest after the redesign plus overall the music discoverability
| market was already shifting away from it:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thesixtyone
| astrolx wrote:
| Oh damn, I had forgotten about the sixty one. Spent so much
| time on it! Thanks for the nostalgia.
| fein wrote:
| Not the same at all but I use this site to find artists that
| are "close" to an artist I already listen to a lot. I like it a
| lot.
|
| https://www.music-map.com/porcupine+tree
|
| Not sure how well this works for what you have in mind, but it
| may help. I'm not a fan of the "just play stuff related to the
| artist I'm listening to" to find new things, rather I would
| prefer to get a list of artists and explore those on my own.
| swyx wrote:
| just signed up!
|
| the new user experience leaves a lot of user gap (i signed up
| with username/password). ideally you'd give me a way to pull in
| my spotify/youtube history and generate recommendations off of
| that.
|
| right now my recommended/recommending tabs are empty. huge cold
| start problem.
|
| i'll leave now but just telling you why new users might churn.
| achairapart wrote:
| I'm trying to login with Spotify but kept redirected to the home
| page.
| [deleted]
| throwaway874839 wrote:
| see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32554640
| achairapart wrote:
| Thanks, will try with email.
| marban wrote:
| Music (discovery) on the Web, i.e off-device, and not integrated
| seems DOA to me for various reasons.
| ConanRus wrote:
| dotty- wrote:
| Seems cool. This project gives me some last.fm vibes. Do people
| still use last.fm? I used to be a big user of Last.fm back in the
| day, but just slowly lost my interest to make sure my Last.fm
| "scrobbler" was always running. Havent thought about that site in
| years.
|
| I tried signing up with Spotify, but after accepting the
| authorization on Spotify's side, I was redirected back to digs.fm
| but not signed in. Now when I click "Continue with Spotify", the
| page just refreshes without logging me in because I've already
| accepted the Spotify authorization.
| adrianmsmith wrote:
| > Do people still use last.fm?
|
| Absolutely! https://www.last.fm/dashboard shows shows about 500
| scrobbles (track listens) per second, in the "All Time
| Scrobbles" section of the page.
|
| (Disclaimer: I work at last.fm.)
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| Question from a 10+year last.fm user: how does last.fm stay
| afloat? I have to assume that the vast majority of users are
| like me and mostly in it just to have a scrobbling server
| endpoint. It's been years since last.fm had the
| radio/streaming components for advertising revenue, and I
| have no idea what percentage of your userbase pays for the
| Pro subscription.
| dotty- wrote:
| Cool dashboard page. Thanks for sharing.
| throwaway874839 wrote:
| > I tried signing up with Spotify, but after accepting the
| authorization on Spotify's side, I was redirected back to
| digs.fm but not signed in.
|
| Ugh, a friend also reported this to me but I couldn't reproduce
| it. Mind letting me know what browser you're using? If you
| don't want to disclose, feel free to email me at [redacted].
|
| Thanks for reporting this.
|
| P.S. I'll post a comment regarding comparing to Last.fm soon :)
| dotty- wrote:
| Just using up-to-date Chrome. I see the network request where
| I get redirected to
| "https://digs.fm/users/auth/spotify/callback" with a code and
| state. It returns a `Set-Cookie`, but I see my next request
| to the digs.fm homepage has another `Set-Cookie`. Unsure if
| you are just re-generating session IDs on every request or if
| the session data from the callback is being overwritten when
| I hit the homepage again.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| Might it be something to do with how your account is
| registered with Spotify? Mine was signed up for with Facebook
| (ugh) and I'm seeing that bug.
| [deleted]
| bovermyer wrote:
| I have the same issue. Firefox, Windows 10; also Firefox,
| macOS.
|
| I don't see myself in the New Users list on the main page.
| Perhaps it's completing the authorization on Spotify's end,
| but not creating the user account on the Digs end?
| throwaway874839 wrote:
| Sorry for that, I found the root cause, unfortunately it'll
| be a bit before that's fixed, I guess (depends on action on
| behalf of Spotify).
| technotarek wrote:
| Selfish, but possibly not alone in the following request...
|
| I was a passionate, early user of last.fm. On its face, your
| service is similar in its goals. How does it differ? How do you
| think it's better?
|
| A good question to ask myself: why did I stop using last.fm? My
| quick response is life (becoming a father, the pandemic and a
| lack of live music) and possibly something to do with migrating
| from an ipod to Spotify. Also, I still use my account a bit to
| see historically what I've been listening to and what the ear's
| of some friends have discovered. That is, I'm still scrobbling!
| throwaway874839 wrote:
| See my comment at the top level for a comparison to Last.fm.
| Let me know if that clarifies things. (I use last.fm too!)
| JadeNB wrote:
| Link to top-level comment:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32552617 .
| declnz wrote:
| Nice! Have signed up and will play. What would work for me
| especially is some kind of API, so we could integrate it into,
| say, music players...
| throwaway874839 wrote:
| Yep, that's on my radar definitely, probably in the long-term
| plans. It's a great idea.
| throwa111way wrote:
| I like Hype Machine a lot. I listen to a lot of new music - music
| by artists with no prior success. I am part of a small audience
| of music listeners. But consider if you want to make value in
| music, elevating the new artist is a goal.
| parham wrote:
| Good job but a heads up: this has been done a gazillion times...
| loads shutdown after a short run. Worthwhile researching others
| for reference at least
| throwaway874839 wrote:
| Any suggestions to research are more than welcome!
| throwaway874839 wrote:
| A few people mentioned that this has some Last.fm vibes. While
| that's true, here's my thoughts on how they differ and what
| prompted me to create Digs:
|
| Last.fm mostly answers the question: "What I've been listening to
| mostly, this month?" whereas Digs.fm aims to answer the question:
| "Which album I discovered (i.e. listened for the first time) AND
| liked last month?".
|
| This essentially comes down to the fact that Last.fm tracks
| "listens" of an album/track/artist, no matter if its the first
| time you're listening to it or the 1000th, where in Digs.fm _you_
| (manually) track the _first listen of a release_.
|
| Likewise, Digs aims to answer: "which album did my friend
| discovered and liked?" or "what album does my friend wants to
| listen to?". The premise is that, the fact that a certain person
| (which I know) found this interesting, is a good signal that I
| might be interested to that as well.
|
| So, I'd say that, while they do share similarities, they're
| different tools that aim to tackle different needs. I myself was
| using Last.fm around 2008, then forgot about it until last year.
| I activated it, but I haven't looked at it ever since. I'd say
| it's a good tool to look at the yearly reports once or twice a
| year, but to me that was about it.
|
| In contrast, I use Digs daily (I'm biased :P) to see what my
| friends discovered, add new albums to listen to my lists or pick
| something to listen from my "Want to Listen". Also, I love
| discussing about something that I listened or someone else
| listened (this is done by commenting on activity items).
|
| Ultimately, I wanted a way to track and organize music
| discoveries (not listens), and make it so that I can easily share
| them with friends, and perhaps spark a discussion around those.
|
| In fact, a few people asked for an integration with Last.fm, in
| which you could import the albums/artists from Last.fm in Digs,
| and add then manually add those that you want to a list.
| raffraffraff wrote:
| Back in 2009/2011 last.fm was much better. It had working radio
| (you could stream from it directly, for a small fee) and their
| discovery stuff was great. Not sure what happened at last.fm
| but they just completely screwed up. They dropped streaming,
| disabled or broke a bunch of other functionality and reverted
| their API to the stone age.
| mattsmart wrote:
| If I recall, it was around then that they were bought out
| by... CBS? (Say no more)
| technotarek wrote:
| I'm one of the ones that asked for a comparison. Thank you. I'm
| not sure I'll appreciate the difference until I give it a try
| though. I know that when I look at my history in Last, I could
| clearly see what I discovered and what I obsessed over for a
| period of time. But let's say your tool isn't different in any
| fundamental way. So F'n what? :) Not the most tasteful
| examples, but where would Burger King or Wendy's be if they had
| demurred to the big M?
| lawgimenez wrote:
| Sign up with Spotify not working on my end though.
| uneekname wrote:
| Same, I just keep getting redirected to the homepage after
| login
| throwaway874839 wrote:
| I'm sorry for that. There's an outstanding bug on the Spotify
| implementation. It'll be a while before it's back to working
| again (pending action from Spotify).
| zeruch wrote:
| I'll give this a go. I was an active Last.fm user for years and
| still miss that kind of interaction; a DeviantArt but for music
| listeners...
| ohg wrote:
| If you were able to have as many releases as rateyourmusic.com
| and provide a public API then I'd be very interested. But due to
| the userbases of sites like rym and discogs who have contributed
| a lot to the information and number of releases on those sites,
| it's hard to see how new contenders in this particular space can
| compete
| throwaway874839 wrote:
| A public API will be implemented long-term. Releases are all
| fed from MusicBrainz database (2.6M releases atm), so I'd say
| that chances that you'll find what you're looking for are high.
|
| And if not, then you can add a release by providing a
| Spotify/Discogs/Bandcamp/Mixcloud URL in the search box, and it
| will fetch the proper metadata.
| vlokshin wrote:
| I like the idea a lot -- I'm someone who listens to a lot of
| music, constantly gets music recommended by friends, and
| recommends music to friends. I also design/PM software.
|
| I just signed up and am very confused on what I can do. I see a
| feed of albums from strangers, but there's no way to listen to
| it. If I want to add music, I have to copy and paste links shown
| at the top of my screen (they're not even hyperlinked).
|
| If I'm discovering music: - I want a quick/easy way to listen to
| what's in front of me - I want a quick/easy way to get recs from
| friends
|
| If I'm sharing music: - I want a quick way to share music
|
| I feel like these are your core experiences and I'm having
| trouble finding my path through any of them. I see there's a
| browser extension and a bunch of community features, but the
| first user experience (at least on web) for any of those core
| paths above isn't there.
|
| Can you deliver on one of those paths in a really easy way? Looks
| like you've already got tie ins with discogs. Can you start with
| just a spotify web player? I think the preview of a song can be
| made available publicly, which would at least get a delightful
| enough first experience for listeners (listen to what you see if
| it looks interesting -- not sure many would "save" without that
| or at least some solid meta data)
|
| I want what I think this product is supposed (based on your
| description) to be to exist, so I hope this feedback is helpful.
|
| Edit: Signed out and noticed you have "continue with spotify" on
| the logged out / sign in page https://digs.fm/users/sign_in --
| that wasn't available on your home page https://digs.fm/. I
| would've signed up with spotify if available and maybe that
| would've exposed clearer UX?
| jesushax wrote:
| To be fair, Goodreads also doesn't let you read the book right
| there on the site. And while I agree it would be convenient for
| music, I'm so desperate for a good discovery mechanism that
| I'll gladly accept this (currently I use ListenToThis and then
| look the names up on Youtube if they seem interesting)
| throwaway874839 wrote:
| Thanks for the suggestions. It's true that the UX definitely
| lacks in many parts, and in many others it's unclear what one
| should do after they sign up for the first time.
|
| Let me try to clarify a few things. First and foremost, Digs is
| supposed to be a bookmarking tool (you add and organize albums
| to lists). Then, it's a social network.
|
| It's not created with the mindset of it being a music streaming
| service. That said, for convenience and pragmatism, a web
| player is included if the release was added via a Spotify,
| Mixcloud or Bandcamp link, or if the corresponding MusicBrainz
| release had a Discogs URL associated with it. Ideally, every
| release on the page should include a web player - this is
| something I'm trying to figure out how to do automatically,
| without enormous amount of human moderation. (I understand this
| is all technicalities, I just wanted to explain how it works
| currently.)
|
| > I see a feed of albums from strangers.
|
| The "Community updates" feed is the default if you have no
| friends added yet. If this is too noisy (and after this post it
| will be, for almost all people I assume), then you can switch
| to "Friends' updates" by clicking on the dropdown arrow. The
| choice will be persisted and you won't see that noise again.
|
| > If I'm sharing music: - I want a quick way to share music
|
| The current way to share music, is passively, i.e. by having
| friends (your friends will see your activity in their home
| feed). The active way to share is to click on the "Recommend"
| option, from the action dropdown button in a release page (e.g.
| https://digs.fm/releases/2782921-DJ-Shadow-What-Does-Your-
| So...).
|
| > Edit: Signed out and noticed you have "continue with spotify"
| on the logged out / sign in page https://digs.fm/users/sign_in
| -- that wasn't available on your home page https://digs.fm/. I
| would've signed up with spotify if available and maybe that
| would've exposed clearer UX?
|
| The Spotify SSO is currently broken, so I've disabled it until
| I fix it. Apparently I forgot to hide it from the sign_in page
| as well - thanks for bringing this up!
| sideshowb wrote:
| I'd make a feature request for goodreads-style public lists.
| Anyone can start a list with a certain theme, anyone can add
| books to it out upvote them within the list. It's great for
| manually curated discovery.
| throwaway874839 wrote:
| Yep, this will be done definitely in the short to medium-term.
| renjimen wrote:
| I like the concept. I'm missing the social side of music since
| moving away, physically and musically, from my school and
| university friends. It would be great to find music friends
| across the internet.
|
| Some thoughts:
|
| - Since most music can be accessed instantly as part of a
| subscription, the "want to listen" list may lack purpose for most
| users. If I want to listen to something, I'll listen to it at
| that time or very soon afterwards. So it'll be in my "listened"
| list already, and maybe my "digged" list too. Goodreads has a
| "want to read", but that makes sense for many people, since most
| people still pay for individual books and often buy physical
| copies. Books also take a lot longer to consume. Some sit on my
| shelf for months, partly finished. So there is that backlog of
| books to get through that doesn't exist to a significant degree
| for albums. Maybe it doesn't matter though - the list may still
| serve a purpose for those who want to use it.
|
| - It would be nice to see all listeners to a particular artist or
| genre/tag. That would make it easier to befriend like-minded
| listeners. I imagine the success of this website will partly
| hinge on the edge density of the social network, so the more
| avenues you provide users to find friends, the better.
|
| Good luck!
| throwaway874839 wrote:
| > It would be nice to see all listeners to a particular artist
| or genre/tag. That would make it easier to befriend like-minded
| listeners. I imagine the success of this website will partly
| hinge on the edge density of the social network, so the more
| avenues you provide users to find friends, the better.
|
| Great suggestion. Truth is, I was focused so much on the core
| stuff (indexing releases, implementing the bookmarking system,
| user profiles etc.) that the friend discovery aspect is almost
| non-existent. What you suggested seems like a great start
| though.
| est wrote:
| I thought the past tense for dig was dug? :)
| BenGosub wrote:
| I am a programmer and an active DJ myself and as such a type of
| person I do a lot of music organizations into different
| playlists. For example, each month on Soundcloud I keep one
| playlist of "Mixes to listen" (usually private) and one playlist
| of "Favorite mixes for month X". I've been doing this for a few
| years already. You can find these at
| https://soundcloud.com/ulterior
|
| I can see how this kind of a service can be useful, especially in
| recommendations, if you are able to answer what music did the
| digger like from his diggs. Because, as we musicheads well know,
| not everything we dug out is gold.
| throwaway874839 wrote:
| I myself wanted to mark mixes as listen later, among regular
| album releases. So that's why Mixcloud URLs are supported in
| the search box, and it will fetch the actual mix.
|
| For example: https://digs.fm/releases/57246010-Monkey-Shoulder-
| DJ-JAZZY-J...
| BenGosub wrote:
| Yeah, I understand your idea and I thought that it's similar,
| it's like a pipeline.
| jonesnc wrote:
| How is this different from Rate Your Music or Album Of The Year?
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