I've been using this yesterday and today and love it! Others in this thread have mentioned similar services but I hadn't heard of most of them so I'm excited to try digs for awhile. I'm an avid last.fm user but am pretty much using it for data on my current listening. The social aspect has pretty much died on there, and is off to a great start on digs. Their recommendations are ok, but I like the idea of recommendations from friends rather than algorithms. I may not be your typical user (do not use streaming services, buy music on Bandcamp or buy physical CDs and rip them) but do fall into what I perceive to be your general target audience: I tend to be a full album listener and am always looking for new music. One thing I have used it for so far is adding albums I have already purchased on bandcamp but haven't had a chance to listen to yet to "Want to Listen", as well as albums that are brand new to me that I see on other's feeds.
- One little quirk I noticed is that adding albums from bandcamp doesn't seem to work if the artist is using a custom domain. I tried it with the browser extension and by copy-pasting the URL. Maybe you can change the way a bandcamp site is detected? Does the code only look at the URL to determine if it's bandcamp, or does it load the page and try to parse it?
- Another issue I ran into is the search; it seems like you need to type the album name exactly and with correct spacing and punctuation, not just partially.
Examples:
I tried to look up "tUnE-yArDs w h o k i l l". It wasn't case-sensitive, but I ended up having to type all those spaces in the album name.
Hot Chip has a new album called "Freakout/Release". I tried to type "hot chip freakout" and it couldn't find it, but once I added "/release" it came up.
- I'm torn on this one, because I really liked being able to make an account without providing an email address, but social notifications might be more useful if I didn't have to go to the site to see them. Definitely should be opt-in, but I think the option to receive email notifications or notifications through the browser extension would be perfect.
- This is just a personal nice-to-have feature and I know it can be somewhat contentious (if you are looking towards future monetization licensing might be a headache), but I would love more open source code. I found the browser extension on Github but it would be fun to see all of it, and I would definitely contribute to development given the chance.
Anyway, thanks for the cool site, I've had a lot of fun with it so far and can't wait to get a few more friends and start getting really good recommendations.
Hey, thanks for the amazingly kind words. That's very encouraging to hear!
> One little quirk I noticed is that adding albums from bandcamp doesn't seem to work if the artist is using a custom domain. I tried it with the browser extension and by copy-pasting the URL. Maybe you can change the way a bandcamp site is detected? Does the code only look at the URL to determine if it's bandcamp, or does it load the page and try to parse it?
I didn't know custom domains were a thing with Bandcamp. I've added a ticket to tackle this somehow (seems like they all CNAME to dom.bandcamp.com, so that could be useful).
> Another issue I ran into is the search; it seems like you need to type the album name exactly and with correct spacing and punctuation, not just partially.
Searching is something that could be improved a lot. Thanks for that specific example, it really helps. This'll be prioritized soon.
> I'm torn on this one, because I really liked being able to make an account without providing an email address, but social notifications might be more useful if I didn't have to go to the site to see them. Definitely should be opt-in, but I think the option to receive email notifications
Yeah there's already a ticket for that. I totally agree with making it opt-in. I myself despise notification noise I didn't explicitly asked for :) This will be definitely done short-term.
> This is just a personal nice-to-have feature and I know it can be somewhat contentious (if you are looking towards future monetization licensing might be a headache), but I would love more open source code.
This is something I occasionally considered a few times myself. To be frank, the code is far from a point that I'd be comfortable releasing at this point. I haven't considered monetization yet (not even remotely), but I would like leave that option open.
Perhaps I could start small, and release some code I've written to wrap the MusicBrainz database and make it available as a Rails model.
This definitely needs more consideration - not something that's likely to be done soon, since there are other things I'd like to focus on (like those you suggested, polishing and bug fixes).
Awesome, thank you! Any plans to allow you to put a little note about why you want to listen to an album/where you heard about it/etc? Also maybe if you click "want to listen" from someone else's post, show that somewhere? I'm starting to get a pretty long queue to listen to, it would be nice to see a little info to help me decide what to try next.
Ohhh, I see it in list view. :) I haven't switched out of table view since I started using the site. Also I've been almost exclusively using the mobile site, you do have to scroll in list view to see the notes. I'll try out the tags. Can you see others' notes/tags? I don't see them, but maybe I'm missing that too. I think it would be cool to bring the social aspect in there too. I left a comment on my own "Want to Listen" post yesterday for the purpose I'm thinking about.
It definitely would be cool to see if people click "want to listen" from someone else, I've already seen albums move from profile to profile. You could even track how each album spreads, and show a "virality" chart...how "contagious" it is, and then how many people actually listen or dig the album eventually.
Still having a lot of fun with this, thanks again!
> I haven't switched out of table view since I started using the site. Also I've been almost exclusively using the mobile site, you do have to scroll in list view to see the notes.
Yeah the list view is not suitable for mobiles since it's a table. I'll have to come up with another way to display the tags and notes in the thumb view. I've put a ticket to tackle it, because apparently more people are using this on mobile every day.
> Can you see others' notes/tags? I don't see them, but maybe I'm missing that too.
So notes are private, but for tags I have a ticket to add a setting to choose if it's going to be public or private. Right now they're private. I think I'll prioritize this.
> It definitely would be cool to see if people click "want to listen" from someone else, I've already seen albums move from profile to profile. You could even track how each album spreads, and show a "virality" chart...how "contagious" it is, and then how many people actually listen or dig the album eventually.
That's a neat idea, it never occurred to me, thanks! Added it to the backlog.
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As a minor suggestion, if a comment talks about a release in general (like a review), then it might be more suitable for it to be added on the release page (as opposed in a "Listened" or "Digged" activity item). If you scroll down on a release page, you'll see a "Community discussion" section, and if you add a comment there, it will appear in your activity feed.
Sorry, one more tiny thing. I listened to an album from the "Want to Listen" list, I just marked it Listened but the update says "digged". I don't think it actually added it to Digged, just something I noticed. I'm gonna start using that Canny link for these, sorry this probably isn't very convenient for you.
There are a lot of dismissive replies to this comment but as a woman who has tried this in "safe" but unfamiliar cities, things can get scary very quickly. Catcalls are inevitable, and only the beginning. A catcall from a passing car that has slowed to swerve towards you is terrifying. Yes, self-defense and being aware of your surroundings help, but don't exactly lend themselves to the state of mind described in this article. I am not speaking from paranoia, but from experience.
Thank you for the reminder. As a 95 kg white male who only on a few very rare occasions felt even a bit nervous walking anywhere, it is good to get a reminder that different people experience our same world very differently.
> It is not the physique / weight but the intent, which is some kind of sexual harassment at a minimum.
that seems like a weird take. Most of the time I'd think people wandering unfamiliar streets will be accosted by assholes looking for money than looking for someone to sexually harass. Even catcallers will have various motivations which might not involve intent to sexually harass (even though that's usually the effect).
Men have a lower risk of being sexually assaulted while a mugger or a scammer will happily target individuals of either sex if they think they can get away with it. Men do tend to the preferred target for someone looking to start a fight however which can make a difference depending on the area and how territorial the local thugs are.
Still, I'd feel way more comfortable as a 60kg woman who was fit and knew how to defend herself than I would as a 60kg man who had no idea how to fight and little muscle. In either case if someone assaulted me I would be targeted because I'm being perceived as weak and vulnerable, and in only one of those scenarios would I be in a position to quickly give an assailant cause to reassess and back off.
Staying aware of your surroundings and taking sensible precautions when wandering (anywhere) is good advice for anybody.
>Still, I'd feel way more comfortable as a 60kg woman who was fit and knew how to defend herself than I would as a 60kg man who had no idea how to fight and little muscle.
I imagine that just demonstrating that you're ready and able to fight would be enough to dissuade an attacker who was just looking for an easy mark, but even if they persist I'm not sure raw strength would necessarily win out over skill and stamina. I suppose it's a matter of how skilled and how athletic/healthy you are vs the person you'd be fighting. I doubt I'd find a decent answer to the question though. I'm not sure it could be researched ethically and even it could, what would a representative sample of street muggers and rapists even look like? It might need to include everything from gangbangers and strung out junkies to drunken frat boys and mentally ill homeless people.
Strength is critical in fighting. I have assumed that even an expert can't go up against people in different weight classes in fighting sports, and that basic skill is something that all sporty people have.
My original point was not about being accosted. You would be surprised how quickly someone yelling about your genitals will take you from "aimless strolling" to fight or flight, regardless of their weight or your level of fitness.
This is my first comment but I have read this site daily since I created the account in March. I felt that my experience would be a valuable addition to the thread and I am not attempting to speak for all women. I'm sorry if it came off that way and I am genuinely happy that you haven't had this experience. This site seems to be a bit of an echo chamber sometimes so I thought I'd offer a differing opinion.
I hope you keep commenting! I think your experience brought a good balance to an otherwise one-sided viewpoint.
I think a lot of people here haven't really been exposed to actual dangerous areas in the world, but even in seemingly safe areas, I know a lot of my female friends feel very unsafe walking there alone. All it takes is one drunk dude...
Thank you! I love seeing the technical posts, I'm such a nerd. I haven't had much to contribute, just absorbing. This post was different, I learned about flânerie in college, loved the concept and tried it, and got a reality check. Thought it would be worth a comment.
The wording of this struck me; is it better to lie than to go unheard?