Discoverability on the Fediverse and Thought Dump
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I contend the success of DataFarming platforms is due to the stickiness and frictionlessness of their commercial design, not because they are better for music and musicians. We knowingly and unknowingly choose stuff that's bad for us in daily life. Like when I want a cookie. I eat the cookie and it tastes good, even though I know it's bad for me. If I eat a dozen cookies everyday, I acknowledge that my health may be negatively impacted. In terms of culture and community, choices are more complex and their potential effects are harder to foresee.
Feed or not, what I'm trying to do is shed light on the choices in front of us and get us thinking about why we might or might not want them. And you're right, it doesn't have to be either/or.
Great idea. As a federation noob, I have some questions. Is there a separate website for searching or could you search across servers from any place that supports federation? Do servers manually declare which servers they can search? I don't use Mastodon, curious how it works there.
Yeah, this is my thought on it. I love the app idea, but get annoyed with being connected to the online world too much - and where I live doesn't exactly have loads of record shops and venues to opt into something like this (the ones that do exist are slightly spread out). Made me wonder if there's a meeting point between both - as in, if I don't pick up my phone for an hour, it unlocks a track, or if I walk 100 steps, does it show something cool? It could even be something as simple as sharing something unlocks part of a larger musical puzzle and builds community that way. Maybe there's a meeting point between the intentionality and conscious listening and blended online/offline discovery?
And with the federated concern, I think we're all burnt out from what we've been offered previously and whilst it's right to be skeptical of it solving every musician's problems, it's probably the most exciting option to me right now because it's giving a bit more autonomy in terms of being able to take my profile with me somewhere else in the Fediverse if needs change and it's a welcome tonal shift from being an algo and ads slot machine (like Facebook, where I could pay to access my own audience and still not feel that I have any real transparency in the results). I agree that it needs careful consideration though to not turn into more of the same and be privacy respecting if using location-based info (as Loki rightly pointed out in a conversation about it via Mirlo).
Anyway, these are all really interesting ideas from all corners! Also sent the dev of freq.social an invite but they're taking a well-earned break over the summer - fingers crossed they'll join in at some point and add to this. It'd be interesting to get Glenn McDonald involved too (mentioned this before here), but not sure how yet.
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We are talking about discovering... music. Very important for those who like to discover new music but... just music in the end. Maybe professional DJs, labels, and dedicated hobbyists can find the time and the patience to make discovering music their main activity. As of me, I listen to new music mostly when I'm doing routine house tasks. I listen hands free, and when I like something, I'll look who is this, like, maybe follow -- actions that will fine tune my feed.
I'm doing this on Soundcloud because the features are there, and the big community / source of music makers is there too. In the end, for 90% of artists on Soundcloud their mindset is not that different than on the Fediverse or here.
I'm looking forward to switch to a TSMN-friendly alternative, but it needs to be hands-free with likes and follows or equivalent. I won't stop house work because discovering new free/social music requires my focused attention and my hands.
Really important point!!!! Of course as @timglorioso says there are other perspectives as well, and those are important too, but very often in fora like this there's a self-selecting sample of people who are (a) really interested in music and (b) have time to invest (otherwise we wouldn't be posting here!) so as a result there are a lot fewer "casual users" than in the rest of the world.
And great thread in general, including the tension between "frictionless" as on the one hand something that people want but also what corporate platforms use to get people stuck.
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I’d say Spotify could end up being less and less the “everything” place. A lot of artists are pulling their stuff over the “Daniel Ek, AI Warmonger Scumbag Startup” thing.
Or pulling their work because of all the other, especially AI, things that Spotify is doing to devalue creators and creative content. I know I’m looking to pull my catalog from Spotify and have already stopped using Spotify as a platform.
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I contend the success of DataFarming platforms is due to the stickiness and frictionlessness of their commercial design, not because they are better for music and musicians. We knowingly and unknowingly choose stuff that's bad for us in daily life. Like when I want a cookie. I eat the cookie and it tastes good, even though I know it's bad for me. If I eat a dozen cookies everyday, I acknowledge that my health may be negatively impacted. In terms of culture and community, choices are more complex and their potential effects are harder to foresee.
Feed or not, what I'm trying to do is shed light on the choices in front of us and get us thinking about why we might or might not want them. And you're right, it doesn't have to be either/or.
Great idea. As a federation noob, I have some questions. Is there a separate website for searching or could you search across servers from any place that supports federation? Do servers manually declare which servers they can search? I don't use Mastodon, curious how it works there.
There's an existing thread for search here, by the way https://the.socialmusic.network/t/building-a-federated-search-engine/216/6
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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.
@roberta@the.socialmusic.network said in Discoverability on the Fediverse and Thought Dump:
<a href="https://www.anumberfromtheghost.com">A Number from the Ghost</a> 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.
Hi there, I made the above site, and just wanted to stop by and say it's a really interesting conversation! There are lots of potential avenues for ways to discover music outside of Spotify. I think my solution is probably too bespoke to be applied widely (in terms of a completely custom world for each track of music), but the potential to wander and discover music in a virtual environment could work well.
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@roberta@the.socialmusic.network said in Discoverability on the Fediverse and Thought Dump:
<a href="https://www.anumberfromtheghost.com">A Number from the Ghost</a> 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.
Hi there, I made the above site, and just wanted to stop by and say it's a really interesting conversation! There are lots of potential avenues for ways to discover music outside of Spotify. I think my solution is probably too bespoke to be applied widely (in terms of a completely custom world for each track of music), but the potential to wander and discover music in a virtual environment could work well.
Wow, thanks for stopping by! I absolutely love the site and have sent it to countless people. I love open world computer games (the game Everything springs to mind as a console-specific example) and your site put me in mind of those kind of expansive, dream-like worlds.
I agree, I think a virtual environment to randomly encounter music could be really engaging and fun - this Nonpareils video popped into my head as a nod to that: https://youtu.be/RhutMIjpY-s
It feels as though even something simple like the above (which reminds me of very old Windows player graphics) would work as a channel for discovery, although like you say, different folks will gravitate towards different displays of works/links/music. There have been some excellent search and data-based suggestions too.
If you've any more thoughts to share on any of this, would be great to read them!
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Wow, thanks for stopping by! I absolutely love the site and have sent it to countless people. I love open world computer games (the game Everything springs to mind as a console-specific example) and your site put me in mind of those kind of expansive, dream-like worlds.
I agree, I think a virtual environment to randomly encounter music could be really engaging and fun - this Nonpareils video popped into my head as a nod to that: https://youtu.be/RhutMIjpY-s
It feels as though even something simple like the above (which reminds me of very old Windows player graphics) would work as a channel for discovery, although like you say, different folks will gravitate towards different displays of works/links/music. There have been some excellent search and data-based suggestions too.
If you've any more thoughts to share on any of this, would be great to read them!
One way to chuck a quick prototype together could be to use one of the VR apps that federate over ActivityPub. The one I've heard the most about is Immers Space.
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One way to chuck a quick prototype together could be to use one of the VR apps that federate over ActivityPub. The one I've heard the most about is Immers Space.
This all looks very promising. Is immers.space still going? I saw they were a co-op and thought that was a bonus too but I get nothing when I go to their site.
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This all looks very promising. Is immers.space still going? I saw they were a co-op and thought that was a bonus too but I get nothing when I go to their site.
here's their github -- looks like the last commits were January 2024. https://github.com/immers-space/immers
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here's their github -- looks like the last commits were January 2024. https://github.com/immers-space/immers
Ah, that's a shame. Feels like another one of those things that came around slightly too early and now there'd be more of an uptake in folks using it. Wonder what it'd take to revive it.
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Ah, that's a shame. Feels like another one of those things that came around slightly too early and now there'd be more of an uptake in folks using it. Wonder what it'd take to revive it.
That is, aside from the obvious answer of financial resources. https://opencollective.com/immers-space
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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.
Ampwall just released an update to their front page that is based on record shop walls. https://ampwall.com
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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.
I recently came across a fediverse post looking for digital versions of old albums by independent artists. Not because he needed copies of the music, it turned out, but because he wanted to give the artists money.
I've often thought it would be useful to have a service where we could search any song or album title and get info about payment methods preferred by the releasing artist.
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I recently came across a fediverse post looking for digital versions of old albums by independent artists. Not because he needed copies of the music, it turned out, but because he wanted to give the artists money.
I've often thought it would be useful to have a service where we could search any song or album title and get info about payment methods preferred by the releasing artist.
Could this work pulling info from MusicBrainz or Discogs?
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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.
I think @limebar is onto something cool with music vids...
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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 wanted to add that I was looking for indie animation and filmmaker channels on PeerTube and haven't really found that many people. Really love the weirder end of Adult Swim (look up Ambient Swim if you're not familiar: https://youtu.be/1vzgaNfTUw4) on YouTube, which is kind of like olden day, Run Wrake-era and experimental visuals MTV, and Pictoplasma (https://youtu.be/KbdNYOuAYIM), which combines music, characters and animation in a really endearing and cool way. Wonder if there's the possibility of showcasing indie animators/filmers along with musicians too? Just mega excited seeing some of the experiments happening with videos and desperately want something like this to exist.
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I think @limebar is onto something cool with music vids...
I really want the music video channel to be a thing. I don't know how to pay for it (or how much it'd cost). But the technology is sitting right there and works great imo...
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Also wanted to add that I was looking for indie animation and filmmaker channels on PeerTube and haven't really found that many people. Really love the weirder end of Adult Swim (look up Ambient Swim if you're not familiar: https://youtu.be/1vzgaNfTUw4) on YouTube, which is kind of like olden day, Run Wrake-era and experimental visuals MTV, and Pictoplasma (https://youtu.be/KbdNYOuAYIM), which combines music, characters and animation in a really endearing and cool way. Wonder if there's the possibility of showcasing indie animators/filmers along with musicians too? Just mega excited seeing some of the experiments happening with videos and desperately want something like this to exist.
100% would watch an indie animation, film, etc channel. The LiquidSoap script is so doable. Could so easily have a 24x7 station going. A little bird told me RetroStrange is running 24x7 on Linode for around $20/month. I don't know what the bitrates are or storage. You are gonna have costs for:
- owncast bandwidth and cpu
- liquidsoap bandwidth and cpu and storage
1Mbps at 720p looks pretty ok... and 3Mbps 720p looks great (in my limited testing)
and I know how to make a simplistic Roku app for them as well fwiw
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I really want the music video channel to be a thing. I don't know how to pay for it (or how much it'd cost). But the technology is sitting right there and works great imo...
I know a lot of people use Owncast for 24-hour streams, do you reckon that’s the best thing for it? To me, the social aspect is the best thing about Owncast (chats, “gone live!” notifications, etc), but I dunno if I’m atypical in how I use it.
Had a quick look into discoverability options for, eg, Azuracast video, but I’m not really sure how it all works as I haven’t had a TV for a few decades!
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I really want the music video channel to be a thing. I don't know how to pay for it (or how much it'd cost). But the technology is sitting right there and works great imo...
What would be the preferred way for folks to contribute? Would it be a monthly/yearly subscription, anytime donations or a fundraiser-style progress bar (could be set up with a monthly or quarterly funding goal to fund 24/7 programming and running costs)? Mirlo is doing a bit of work on fundraiser functionality currently so I don't know if that'd be useful? It came up in a chat that Cory Doctorow funds his books this way.
