Discoverability on the Fediverse and Thought Dump
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More fodder for thought: XR fragments
add Matrix rooms to your 3D Models using XR Fragments
https://xrfragment.org playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLctjJGlTmeE64XPSQER2BSbjmqVGaWM4J XR Fragments is a specification for 4D URLs & metadata for XR designers, browsers &...
MakerTube (makertube.net)
There are many videos on this channel just posted.
Thinking of this being a possible building block using open web tech to achieve the kinds of things you are talking about. Immersive, hyperlinked, etc.
This looks amazing! Just watching the full vid now.
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This looks amazing! Just watching the full vid now.
Many more videos to learn about XR fragments https://makertube.net/a/leondustar/videos?s=1
Including "spatial hypermedia browsers" https://makertube.net/w/6YctkAKZXxuyBwKrssfhx3
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MusicBrainz was cited before but this would be a fantastic data-viz project based on their data ! Anna's Archive recently put up a call for a paid project like that, explicitely to help them in their fight for piracy.
Really love the pixel one. Reminded me of this old relic, The Million Dollar Homepage, but more mystical.
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Many more videos to learn about XR fragments https://makertube.net/a/leondustar/videos?s=1
Including "spatial hypermedia browsers" https://makertube.net/w/6YctkAKZXxuyBwKrssfhx3
This is quite the rabbit hole!
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Not sure how best to approach this really but I was thinking about discoverability on the Fediverse and taking notice of a lot of the streaming articles coming out of late (plus Liz Pelly's book). At the same time, I'm also seeing interesting visual platforms popping up like https://www.soot.com and https://rooms.xyz (both backed by private investors though
) and wondering about what it would take to pull people away from streaming, if knowing "it's bad" isn't enough. It sort of reminded me of things I liked about the early internet and sites with clickable Flash-based comics and online places such as BowieNet. So, without this turning into a Grandpa Simpson-style ramble, I feel like there needs to be a site that takes the best of the links below and makes a strong, fun visual space where musicians can be found randomly, either by something like location, or by creating clusters of artists or maps of listener recommendations. Mirlo have just started testing out linking musicians to labels (without it being a paid feature like Bandcamp) and I think that's a really exciting start plus the Fediwall from Indie Beat and @limebar is also really cool (in the last day there is also a live app hoping to launch called Subjam which is aiming to link to music venues and their communities) and I was curious if there's a way of building on that and even linking a few different ideas together? Here's a few examples of things that are/were slightly more offbeat ways of discovering things (aside from the aforementioned Soot and Rooms):- Ghostly's now defunct app, where you could select from their catalogue based on "Mood" (but it was actually a colour wheel, because I downloaded it at the time).
- This genre map where you can click around then it gives examples in a playlist.
- Every Noise at Once (although I appreciate we don't necessarily want to fall under genres pushed as part of an end of year ad campaign cough cough Spotify Wrapped).
- Radio Garden - imagine this but with musicians and showing lines that indicate links between them. It's slightly infuriating that you can collaborate with your friends across your projects but on streaming, your musical projects aren't shown as being related in any way. It'd be a neat way of visualising that context and encouraging people to discover how different people are interconnected ("interdependent").
- A Number from the Ghost is one person's site but what if there was something showing fedi musicians videos in this kind of way? Or as floating images in a "constellation" (to use @Alex's terminology) that are scattered around and clickable.
Obviously some are more complex or resource-intensive than others, but it seems like there might be some weirder ideas that could help people get found in the same way you might stumble into a record shop and find something bizarre? It's hard to articulate, so I'm going to end the post here and let other people chime in.
Edited to add in Emma Warren's book, which might also have started some of this.
Slightly different angle/side quest, but this was the aforementioned interactive comic from years ago and there's a whole channel now comprising of interactive stories. Somehow ended up watching this too, about interactive album artwork.
Also, going back to the first MakerTube video around Matrix rooms, @limebar, I can totally see this as a way of displaying a FediWall or something like NHAM, but I might be misunderstanding its potential use? I clicked on the A Number from the Ghost site again too and under the "what is this?" link, you can click through to loads more sites using three.js. This electronic music site is mesmerising.
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Not sure how best to approach this really but I was thinking about discoverability on the Fediverse and taking notice of a lot of the streaming articles coming out of late (plus Liz Pelly's book). At the same time, I'm also seeing interesting visual platforms popping up like https://www.soot.com and https://rooms.xyz (both backed by private investors though
) and wondering about what it would take to pull people away from streaming, if knowing "it's bad" isn't enough. It sort of reminded me of things I liked about the early internet and sites with clickable Flash-based comics and online places such as BowieNet. So, without this turning into a Grandpa Simpson-style ramble, I feel like there needs to be a site that takes the best of the links below and makes a strong, fun visual space where musicians can be found randomly, either by something like location, or by creating clusters of artists or maps of listener recommendations. Mirlo have just started testing out linking musicians to labels (without it being a paid feature like Bandcamp) and I think that's a really exciting start plus the Fediwall from Indie Beat and @limebar is also really cool (in the last day there is also a live app hoping to launch called Subjam which is aiming to link to music venues and their communities) and I was curious if there's a way of building on that and even linking a few different ideas together? Here's a few examples of things that are/were slightly more offbeat ways of discovering things (aside from the aforementioned Soot and Rooms):- Ghostly's now defunct app, where you could select from their catalogue based on "Mood" (but it was actually a colour wheel, because I downloaded it at the time).
- This genre map where you can click around then it gives examples in a playlist.
- Every Noise at Once (although I appreciate we don't necessarily want to fall under genres pushed as part of an end of year ad campaign cough cough Spotify Wrapped).
- Radio Garden - imagine this but with musicians and showing lines that indicate links between them. It's slightly infuriating that you can collaborate with your friends across your projects but on streaming, your musical projects aren't shown as being related in any way. It'd be a neat way of visualising that context and encouraging people to discover how different people are interconnected ("interdependent").
- A Number from the Ghost is one person's site but what if there was something showing fedi musicians videos in this kind of way? Or as floating images in a "constellation" (to use @Alex's terminology) that are scattered around and clickable.
Obviously some are more complex or resource-intensive than others, but it seems like there might be some weirder ideas that could help people get found in the same way you might stumble into a record shop and find something bizarre? It's hard to articulate, so I'm going to end the post here and let other people chime in.
Edited to add in Emma Warren's book, which might also have started some of this.
Just chiming in quickly to say that I think the more artists can be connected TO something the better. Label, location, story, technology, famous artists etc. the easier it is to get into them.
So I think this is somethingg that discovery could use in some way.
F.ex. I discovered synth pioneers like Suzanne Ciani and Morton Subotnick because of Buchla synths, and I discovered Yann Tieresen because of his Youtube videos.
Polar Sonics Tour 2025: Chapter 1
Shot and edit by Coline Béalwith Yann TiersenAnna SabotLucie Marsal-Connect w/ Yann:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yanntiersen....Twitter: https://twitte...
YouTube (www.youtube.com)
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Just chiming in quickly to say that I think the more artists can be connected TO something the better. Label, location, story, technology, famous artists etc. the easier it is to get into them.
So I think this is somethingg that discovery could use in some way.
F.ex. I discovered synth pioneers like Suzanne Ciani and Morton Subotnick because of Buchla synths, and I discovered Yann Tieresen because of his Youtube videos.
Polar Sonics Tour 2025: Chapter 1
Shot and edit by Coline Béalwith Yann TiersenAnna SabotLucie Marsal-Connect w/ Yann:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yanntiersen....Twitter: https://twitte...
YouTube (www.youtube.com)
I keep going back to the thought that many music makers are going solo and doing a lot of non-musical work themselves that traditionally a label would do. But labels also had to reinvent themselves, and just like with music distribution platforms, some of them also aim to be social, fair, cooperative, even artist-run.
I miss these labels in TSMN, or at least discussion about them.
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I keep going back to the thought that many music makers are going solo and doing a lot of non-musical work themselves that traditionally a label would do. But labels also had to reinvent themselves, and just like with music distribution platforms, some of them also aim to be social, fair, cooperative, even artist-run.
I miss these labels in TSMN, or at least discussion about them.
I also think that much of the function of a label could be recreated in different ways. Like webrings, collectives, some sort of shared social media account or blog etc.
Not saying it is easy though as people needs to organise and agree.
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Not sure how best to approach this really but I was thinking about discoverability on the Fediverse and taking notice of a lot of the streaming articles coming out of late (plus Liz Pelly's book). At the same time, I'm also seeing interesting visual platforms popping up like https://www.soot.com and https://rooms.xyz (both backed by private investors though
) and wondering about what it would take to pull people away from streaming, if knowing "it's bad" isn't enough. It sort of reminded me of things I liked about the early internet and sites with clickable Flash-based comics and online places such as BowieNet. So, without this turning into a Grandpa Simpson-style ramble, I feel like there needs to be a site that takes the best of the links below and makes a strong, fun visual space where musicians can be found randomly, either by something like location, or by creating clusters of artists or maps of listener recommendations. Mirlo have just started testing out linking musicians to labels (without it being a paid feature like Bandcamp) and I think that's a really exciting start plus the Fediwall from Indie Beat and @limebar is also really cool (in the last day there is also a live app hoping to launch called Subjam which is aiming to link to music venues and their communities) and I was curious if there's a way of building on that and even linking a few different ideas together? Here's a few examples of things that are/were slightly more offbeat ways of discovering things (aside from the aforementioned Soot and Rooms):- Ghostly's now defunct app, where you could select from their catalogue based on "Mood" (but it was actually a colour wheel, because I downloaded it at the time).
- This genre map where you can click around then it gives examples in a playlist.
- Every Noise at Once (although I appreciate we don't necessarily want to fall under genres pushed as part of an end of year ad campaign cough cough Spotify Wrapped).
- Radio Garden - imagine this but with musicians and showing lines that indicate links between them. It's slightly infuriating that you can collaborate with your friends across your projects but on streaming, your musical projects aren't shown as being related in any way. It'd be a neat way of visualising that context and encouraging people to discover how different people are interconnected ("interdependent").
- A Number from the Ghost is one person's site but what if there was something showing fedi musicians videos in this kind of way? Or as floating images in a "constellation" (to use @Alex's terminology) that are scattered around and clickable.
Obviously some are more complex or resource-intensive than others, but it seems like there might be some weirder ideas that could help people get found in the same way you might stumble into a record shop and find something bizarre? It's hard to articulate, so I'm going to end the post here and let other people chime in.
Edited to add in Emma Warren's book, which might also have started some of this.
Part 2 from Yann Tiersen released just now:
Polar Sonics Tour 2025: Chapter 2
Shot and edit by Coline Béalwith Yann TiersenAnna SabotLucie MarsalSpecial Thanks to:Marie-Kell (Emka)-Connect w/ Yann:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yan...
YouTube (www.youtube.com)
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Slightly different angle/side quest, but this was the aforementioned interactive comic from years ago and there's a whole channel now comprising of interactive stories. Somehow ended up watching this too, about interactive album artwork.
Also, going back to the first MakerTube video around Matrix rooms, @limebar, I can totally see this as a way of displaying a FediWall or something like NHAM, but I might be misunderstanding its potential use? I clicked on the A Number from the Ghost site again too and under the "what is this?" link, you can click through to loads more sites using three.js. This electronic music site is mesmerising.
Wow. What a collection of links! I could look at that stuff ALL DAY AND NIGHT.
As for the potential use... I may be way wrong about this... but... the XR Fragments video I posted was less about "Matrix" and more about an open web toolset. As I understand it, XR fragments are a way to pass 3D spatial data openly between resources to collectively define an interactive space. So... looking at that link with all of the three.js sites you posted -- imagine they could be interlinked in some way and coexist in the same space?
I think this is what XR fragments, as a tech, is trying to do.
So I was thinking of it as a potential building block for a universe of interrelated music sites... a space for music discovery where users can hop from place to place by some kind of affinity.
Also, I am entirely full of shit.
I don't know for sure if this is what it means to do but I think so...If that "some kind of affinity" could be something like the similarity cloud site you sent or the plex sonic analysis type data etc... that could be great, or could be artists linking to one another...
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Wow. What a collection of links! I could look at that stuff ALL DAY AND NIGHT.
As for the potential use... I may be way wrong about this... but... the XR Fragments video I posted was less about "Matrix" and more about an open web toolset. As I understand it, XR fragments are a way to pass 3D spatial data openly between resources to collectively define an interactive space. So... looking at that link with all of the three.js sites you posted -- imagine they could be interlinked in some way and coexist in the same space?
I think this is what XR fragments, as a tech, is trying to do.
So I was thinking of it as a potential building block for a universe of interrelated music sites... a space for music discovery where users can hop from place to place by some kind of affinity.
Also, I am entirely full of shit.
I don't know for sure if this is what it means to do but I think so...If that "some kind of affinity" could be something like the similarity cloud site you sent or the plex sonic analysis type data etc... that could be great, or could be artists linking to one another...
Yeah, you're exactly right in terms of potential benefit to fedi folks (and I can picture it), but I have zero technical expertise to even begin describing how to do it (aside from proving examples of stuff that might be close)! To use that "constellation" analogy again and maybe referencing something like Soot, the first "cluster" visual could be something a general Fediverse overview, with offshoots for musicians, labels, radio or whatever, and when you click on the "radio" node, you see Indie Beat, Audio Interface and NHAM Mixtape grouped together, or if you click "musicians", you can search by genre, location or by affinity (something like artists who have collaborated or remixed one another, or grouping by CC and all right reserved even - there's so many parameters it could work on).
And, haha, same, but it's exciting nonetheless!
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Not sure how best to approach this really but I was thinking about discoverability on the Fediverse and taking notice of a lot of the streaming articles coming out of late (plus Liz Pelly's book). At the same time, I'm also seeing interesting visual platforms popping up like https://www.soot.com and https://rooms.xyz (both backed by private investors though
) and wondering about what it would take to pull people away from streaming, if knowing "it's bad" isn't enough. It sort of reminded me of things I liked about the early internet and sites with clickable Flash-based comics and online places such as BowieNet. So, without this turning into a Grandpa Simpson-style ramble, I feel like there needs to be a site that takes the best of the links below and makes a strong, fun visual space where musicians can be found randomly, either by something like location, or by creating clusters of artists or maps of listener recommendations. Mirlo have just started testing out linking musicians to labels (without it being a paid feature like Bandcamp) and I think that's a really exciting start plus the Fediwall from Indie Beat and @limebar is also really cool (in the last day there is also a live app hoping to launch called Subjam which is aiming to link to music venues and their communities) and I was curious if there's a way of building on that and even linking a few different ideas together? Here's a few examples of things that are/were slightly more offbeat ways of discovering things (aside from the aforementioned Soot and Rooms):- Ghostly's now defunct app, where you could select from their catalogue based on "Mood" (but it was actually a colour wheel, because I downloaded it at the time).
- This genre map where you can click around then it gives examples in a playlist.
- Every Noise at Once (although I appreciate we don't necessarily want to fall under genres pushed as part of an end of year ad campaign cough cough Spotify Wrapped).
- Radio Garden - imagine this but with musicians and showing lines that indicate links between them. It's slightly infuriating that you can collaborate with your friends across your projects but on streaming, your musical projects aren't shown as being related in any way. It'd be a neat way of visualising that context and encouraging people to discover how different people are interconnected ("interdependent").
- A Number from the Ghost is one person's site but what if there was something showing fedi musicians videos in this kind of way? Or as floating images in a "constellation" (to use @Alex's terminology) that are scattered around and clickable.
Obviously some are more complex or resource-intensive than others, but it seems like there might be some weirder ideas that could help people get found in the same way you might stumble into a record shop and find something bizarre? It's hard to articulate, so I'm going to end the post here and let other people chime in.
Edited to add in Emma Warren's book, which might also have started some of this.
Thanks for mentioning Subjam, I've poured my heart into this project for many years.
There's definitely a lot of potential here for collaboration. I talked with Simon yesterday and got a good idea of what Mirlo is trying to accomplish, and it's astonishing to me that it fits so perfectly with the sentiment of Subjam and its social purposes (It's organized as a "Social Purpose Corporation / SPC" and have outlined specific social purposes in our charter). I personally am a decades long F/OSS advocate, open media / anti-DRM advocate, and also am looking for the perfect way to support musicians/artists/bands without having to submit to the music industry's status quo. It's great to be in like company here and I'm excited to talk more about possibilities.
Regarding local - This is what I'm focused on: building and supporting local music communities. Musicians/artists/bands, music fans, independently owned venues, labels, record and instrument shops, nonprofit music focused efforts and collectives, everyone who works in this space (sound engineers/lighting/booking/etc.)... Subjam is going to be a one-stop-shop for all of these people to meet up, coordinate, promote and socialize. It just so happens that I'm starting with live audio broadcasting, like a community radio station network.
I love how the Fediverse operates and I've thought more than once how great it would be to integrate what Subjam does into the Fediverse. The whole architecture is wonderfully distributed and resilient, while its parts are at the same time so intimately connected. Just like the Mirlo folks though, money is the challenge to overcome. Money is the necessary evil to grow and maintain a platform like this that would integrate well into the Fediverse. I'm very inspired by Dan over at Pixelfed though, he's had great success so far with raising money.
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Not sure how best to approach this really but I was thinking about discoverability on the Fediverse and taking notice of a lot of the streaming articles coming out of late (plus Liz Pelly's book). At the same time, I'm also seeing interesting visual platforms popping up like https://www.soot.com and https://rooms.xyz (both backed by private investors though
) and wondering about what it would take to pull people away from streaming, if knowing "it's bad" isn't enough. It sort of reminded me of things I liked about the early internet and sites with clickable Flash-based comics and online places such as BowieNet. So, without this turning into a Grandpa Simpson-style ramble, I feel like there needs to be a site that takes the best of the links below and makes a strong, fun visual space where musicians can be found randomly, either by something like location, or by creating clusters of artists or maps of listener recommendations. Mirlo have just started testing out linking musicians to labels (without it being a paid feature like Bandcamp) and I think that's a really exciting start plus the Fediwall from Indie Beat and @limebar is also really cool (in the last day there is also a live app hoping to launch called Subjam which is aiming to link to music venues and their communities) and I was curious if there's a way of building on that and even linking a few different ideas together? Here's a few examples of things that are/were slightly more offbeat ways of discovering things (aside from the aforementioned Soot and Rooms):- Ghostly's now defunct app, where you could select from their catalogue based on "Mood" (but it was actually a colour wheel, because I downloaded it at the time).
- This genre map where you can click around then it gives examples in a playlist.
- Every Noise at Once (although I appreciate we don't necessarily want to fall under genres pushed as part of an end of year ad campaign cough cough Spotify Wrapped).
- Radio Garden - imagine this but with musicians and showing lines that indicate links between them. It's slightly infuriating that you can collaborate with your friends across your projects but on streaming, your musical projects aren't shown as being related in any way. It'd be a neat way of visualising that context and encouraging people to discover how different people are interconnected ("interdependent").
- A Number from the Ghost is one person's site but what if there was something showing fedi musicians videos in this kind of way? Or as floating images in a "constellation" (to use @Alex's terminology) that are scattered around and clickable.
Obviously some are more complex or resource-intensive than others, but it seems like there might be some weirder ideas that could help people get found in the same way you might stumble into a record shop and find something bizarre? It's hard to articulate, so I'm going to end the post here and let other people chime in.
Edited to add in Emma Warren's book, which might also have started some of this.
Found another one that looks pretty cool (owing to the use of different colours and sizing), using KEXP's Song of the Day data. https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/midora.dubose/viz/KEXPGenreExplorer/KEXPGenreExplorer
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Thanks for mentioning Subjam, I've poured my heart into this project for many years.
There's definitely a lot of potential here for collaboration. I talked with Simon yesterday and got a good idea of what Mirlo is trying to accomplish, and it's astonishing to me that it fits so perfectly with the sentiment of Subjam and its social purposes (It's organized as a "Social Purpose Corporation / SPC" and have outlined specific social purposes in our charter). I personally am a decades long F/OSS advocate, open media / anti-DRM advocate, and also am looking for the perfect way to support musicians/artists/bands without having to submit to the music industry's status quo. It's great to be in like company here and I'm excited to talk more about possibilities.
Regarding local - This is what I'm focused on: building and supporting local music communities. Musicians/artists/bands, music fans, independently owned venues, labels, record and instrument shops, nonprofit music focused efforts and collectives, everyone who works in this space (sound engineers/lighting/booking/etc.)... Subjam is going to be a one-stop-shop for all of these people to meet up, coordinate, promote and socialize. It just so happens that I'm starting with live audio broadcasting, like a community radio station network.
I love how the Fediverse operates and I've thought more than once how great it would be to integrate what Subjam does into the Fediverse. The whole architecture is wonderfully distributed and resilient, while its parts are at the same time so intimately connected. Just like the Mirlo folks though, money is the challenge to overcome. Money is the necessary evil to grow and maintain a platform like this that would integrate well into the Fediverse. I'm very inspired by Dan over at Pixelfed though, he's had great success so far with raising money.
There's definitely a lot of support for projects like this on the Fediverse! Might be worth starting a thread for Subjam on here and getting some of the folks that do live-streaming to give feedback, like @Mel, @AxWax and @KristofferLislegaard? Would also be cool to see an in-depth demo of how it works (and link to your fedi platform on the contact page of the website to help people find you).
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Not sure how best to approach this really but I was thinking about discoverability on the Fediverse and taking notice of a lot of the streaming articles coming out of late (plus Liz Pelly's book). At the same time, I'm also seeing interesting visual platforms popping up like https://www.soot.com and https://rooms.xyz (both backed by private investors though
) and wondering about what it would take to pull people away from streaming, if knowing "it's bad" isn't enough. It sort of reminded me of things I liked about the early internet and sites with clickable Flash-based comics and online places such as BowieNet. So, without this turning into a Grandpa Simpson-style ramble, I feel like there needs to be a site that takes the best of the links below and makes a strong, fun visual space where musicians can be found randomly, either by something like location, or by creating clusters of artists or maps of listener recommendations. Mirlo have just started testing out linking musicians to labels (without it being a paid feature like Bandcamp) and I think that's a really exciting start plus the Fediwall from Indie Beat and @limebar is also really cool (in the last day there is also a live app hoping to launch called Subjam which is aiming to link to music venues and their communities) and I was curious if there's a way of building on that and even linking a few different ideas together? Here's a few examples of things that are/were slightly more offbeat ways of discovering things (aside from the aforementioned Soot and Rooms):- Ghostly's now defunct app, where you could select from their catalogue based on "Mood" (but it was actually a colour wheel, because I downloaded it at the time).
- This genre map where you can click around then it gives examples in a playlist.
- Every Noise at Once (although I appreciate we don't necessarily want to fall under genres pushed as part of an end of year ad campaign cough cough Spotify Wrapped).
- Radio Garden - imagine this but with musicians and showing lines that indicate links between them. It's slightly infuriating that you can collaborate with your friends across your projects but on streaming, your musical projects aren't shown as being related in any way. It'd be a neat way of visualising that context and encouraging people to discover how different people are interconnected ("interdependent").
- A Number from the Ghost is one person's site but what if there was something showing fedi musicians videos in this kind of way? Or as floating images in a "constellation" (to use @Alex's terminology) that are scattered around and clickable.
Obviously some are more complex or resource-intensive than others, but it seems like there might be some weirder ideas that could help people get found in the same way you might stumble into a record shop and find something bizarre? It's hard to articulate, so I'm going to end the post here and let other people chime in.
Edited to add in Emma Warren's book, which might also have started some of this.
Posted by @stefan earlier.
Stefan Bohacek (@stefan@stefanbohacek.online)
A nice visual exploration of 1,656 conversations: 7+ million words, 850 hours. "By the end of these conversations, several participants seemed to realize that they may never see their conversation partner again, and had to say their bittersweet goodbyes." https://pudding.cool/2025/06/hello-stranger/ Data: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adf3197 #data #dataviz #DataVisualization #strangers #conversation
Stefan's Personal Mastodon Server (stefanbohacek.online)
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There's definitely a lot of support for projects like this on the Fediverse! Might be worth starting a thread for Subjam on here and getting some of the folks that do live-streaming to give feedback, like @Mel, @AxWax and @KristofferLislegaard? Would also be cool to see an in-depth demo of how it works (and link to your fedi platform on the contact page of the website to help people find you).
thanks for tagging me on this, it looks super interesting!
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Not sure how best to approach this really but I was thinking about discoverability on the Fediverse and taking notice of a lot of the streaming articles coming out of late (plus Liz Pelly's book). At the same time, I'm also seeing interesting visual platforms popping up like https://www.soot.com and https://rooms.xyz (both backed by private investors though
) and wondering about what it would take to pull people away from streaming, if knowing "it's bad" isn't enough. It sort of reminded me of things I liked about the early internet and sites with clickable Flash-based comics and online places such as BowieNet. So, without this turning into a Grandpa Simpson-style ramble, I feel like there needs to be a site that takes the best of the links below and makes a strong, fun visual space where musicians can be found randomly, either by something like location, or by creating clusters of artists or maps of listener recommendations. Mirlo have just started testing out linking musicians to labels (without it being a paid feature like Bandcamp) and I think that's a really exciting start plus the Fediwall from Indie Beat and @limebar is also really cool (in the last day there is also a live app hoping to launch called Subjam which is aiming to link to music venues and their communities) and I was curious if there's a way of building on that and even linking a few different ideas together? Here's a few examples of things that are/were slightly more offbeat ways of discovering things (aside from the aforementioned Soot and Rooms):- Ghostly's now defunct app, where you could select from their catalogue based on "Mood" (but it was actually a colour wheel, because I downloaded it at the time).
- This genre map where you can click around then it gives examples in a playlist.
- Every Noise at Once (although I appreciate we don't necessarily want to fall under genres pushed as part of an end of year ad campaign cough cough Spotify Wrapped).
- Radio Garden - imagine this but with musicians and showing lines that indicate links between them. It's slightly infuriating that you can collaborate with your friends across your projects but on streaming, your musical projects aren't shown as being related in any way. It'd be a neat way of visualising that context and encouraging people to discover how different people are interconnected ("interdependent").
- A Number from the Ghost is one person's site but what if there was something showing fedi musicians videos in this kind of way? Or as floating images in a "constellation" (to use @Alex's terminology) that are scattered around and clickable.
Obviously some are more complex or resource-intensive than others, but it seems like there might be some weirder ideas that could help people get found in the same way you might stumble into a record shop and find something bizarre? It's hard to articulate, so I'm going to end the post here and let other people chime in.
Edited to add in Emma Warren's book, which might also have started some of this.
Maybe openverse (https://openverse.org) could be motivated to add another category to its search, one for music. I use the image search quite a bit. Though they only do CC and public domain stuff.
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Not sure how best to approach this really but I was thinking about discoverability on the Fediverse and taking notice of a lot of the streaming articles coming out of late (plus Liz Pelly's book). At the same time, I'm also seeing interesting visual platforms popping up like https://www.soot.com and https://rooms.xyz (both backed by private investors though
) and wondering about what it would take to pull people away from streaming, if knowing "it's bad" isn't enough. It sort of reminded me of things I liked about the early internet and sites with clickable Flash-based comics and online places such as BowieNet. So, without this turning into a Grandpa Simpson-style ramble, I feel like there needs to be a site that takes the best of the links below and makes a strong, fun visual space where musicians can be found randomly, either by something like location, or by creating clusters of artists or maps of listener recommendations. Mirlo have just started testing out linking musicians to labels (without it being a paid feature like Bandcamp) and I think that's a really exciting start plus the Fediwall from Indie Beat and @limebar is also really cool (in the last day there is also a live app hoping to launch called Subjam which is aiming to link to music venues and their communities) and I was curious if there's a way of building on that and even linking a few different ideas together? Here's a few examples of things that are/were slightly more offbeat ways of discovering things (aside from the aforementioned Soot and Rooms):- Ghostly's now defunct app, where you could select from their catalogue based on "Mood" (but it was actually a colour wheel, because I downloaded it at the time).
- This genre map where you can click around then it gives examples in a playlist.
- Every Noise at Once (although I appreciate we don't necessarily want to fall under genres pushed as part of an end of year ad campaign cough cough Spotify Wrapped).
- Radio Garden - imagine this but with musicians and showing lines that indicate links between them. It's slightly infuriating that you can collaborate with your friends across your projects but on streaming, your musical projects aren't shown as being related in any way. It'd be a neat way of visualising that context and encouraging people to discover how different people are interconnected ("interdependent").
- A Number from the Ghost is one person's site but what if there was something showing fedi musicians videos in this kind of way? Or as floating images in a "constellation" (to use @Alex's terminology) that are scattered around and clickable.
Obviously some are more complex or resource-intensive than others, but it seems like there might be some weirder ideas that could help people get found in the same way you might stumble into a record shop and find something bizarre? It's hard to articulate, so I'm going to end the post here and let other people chime in.
Edited to add in Emma Warren's book, which might also have started some of this.
Just wanted to crosspost @timglorioso's comment below:
Promotion and discoverability do feel at odds with federation and decentralization. The Web broke something, now it’s expected to be able to see everything globally. Or maybe it was already broken by the recording industry. Every one of us only has so much attention to give, and so many possible things to give it to. I think Step 1 of addressing discoverability is setting expectations for what discoverability means and what artists are really trying to do. We are so used to being endlessly spoonfed by corporate platforms that we don’t even know what we want.
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Not sure how best to approach this really but I was thinking about discoverability on the Fediverse and taking notice of a lot of the streaming articles coming out of late (plus Liz Pelly's book). At the same time, I'm also seeing interesting visual platforms popping up like https://www.soot.com and https://rooms.xyz (both backed by private investors though
) and wondering about what it would take to pull people away from streaming, if knowing "it's bad" isn't enough. It sort of reminded me of things I liked about the early internet and sites with clickable Flash-based comics and online places such as BowieNet. So, without this turning into a Grandpa Simpson-style ramble, I feel like there needs to be a site that takes the best of the links below and makes a strong, fun visual space where musicians can be found randomly, either by something like location, or by creating clusters of artists or maps of listener recommendations. Mirlo have just started testing out linking musicians to labels (without it being a paid feature like Bandcamp) and I think that's a really exciting start plus the Fediwall from Indie Beat and @limebar is also really cool (in the last day there is also a live app hoping to launch called Subjam which is aiming to link to music venues and their communities) and I was curious if there's a way of building on that and even linking a few different ideas together? Here's a few examples of things that are/were slightly more offbeat ways of discovering things (aside from the aforementioned Soot and Rooms):- Ghostly's now defunct app, where you could select from their catalogue based on "Mood" (but it was actually a colour wheel, because I downloaded it at the time).
- This genre map where you can click around then it gives examples in a playlist.
- Every Noise at Once (although I appreciate we don't necessarily want to fall under genres pushed as part of an end of year ad campaign cough cough Spotify Wrapped).
- Radio Garden - imagine this but with musicians and showing lines that indicate links between them. It's slightly infuriating that you can collaborate with your friends across your projects but on streaming, your musical projects aren't shown as being related in any way. It'd be a neat way of visualising that context and encouraging people to discover how different people are interconnected ("interdependent").
- A Number from the Ghost is one person's site but what if there was something showing fedi musicians videos in this kind of way? Or as floating images in a "constellation" (to use @Alex's terminology) that are scattered around and clickable.
Obviously some are more complex or resource-intensive than others, but it seems like there might be some weirder ideas that could help people get found in the same way you might stumble into a record shop and find something bizarre? It's hard to articulate, so I'm going to end the post here and let other people chime in.
Edited to add in Emma Warren's book, which might also have started some of this.
Also saw these mentioned in a recent music newsletter I follow, which are interesting takes on the visual discovery theme (but slightly cheesy and not federated). I feel like they're zooming in on what people liked about MySpace in terms of the customisation and being able to display things like your top eight as an expression of your community group or music taste.
Get a Shelf
A visual summary of all your interests: automatically track and showcase what you're into – from music, books, shows, movies, games & more.
(www.shelf.im)
Make your internet bedroom – Housewarming
AI Creative App — Gen Z Blogs, Mini Sites, and Mixed Media Art
(madeonverse.com)
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Maybe openverse (https://openverse.org) could be motivated to add another category to its search, one for music. I use the image search quite a bit. Though they only do CC and public domain stuff.
oh cool, thanks for sharing that link... they do support audio search but in a rudimentary way
but your comment about "though they only do CC..." made we want to comment
...for musical (and other) artists who have only ever done "all rights reserved" kinds of things before and are apprehensive about releasing CC licensed or public domain works...
please consider this: it feels EXTREMELY liberating to do so!
you don't have to take existing works and re-release them CC or public -- you can make a decision to purposefully make something with the original intention of releasing as CC licensed content and you may be amazed at the results
knowing you are going to release it into the commons (whichever CC license you choose) takes so much out of the picture and leaves behind only the creative process
try it, at least once
a secondary benefit is -- this allows you to post the material freely into spaces you might not have considered before (due to licensing worries) and into spaces that only allow CC licensed materials (like the link above) -- and the net gain for you personally is a bit more exposure -- people in those spaces may come to know about you and backtrack to your other material, you might gain (appreciative) fans
if you choose to allow derivatives and also require source attribution (CC BY-SA or CC BY-SA-NC) you may get more exposure when others expand on your work
i have a mix of licenses in my stuff and that allows me to be in more places but honestly creating something with the intention of CC release feels good
btw, i've done several derivative works of other artists' CC licensed material and I always ask first and give them the right to listen and refuse if they hate it. not required but it feels correct to do this, to me... so far nobody has refused, they all seem to appreciate the work (unless they are just being kind) -- and it feels win-win to me
