One thing I would like that I've mentioned before is a "Join our Mailing List" widget to put on myspace etc.

I'll take some time later to think of anything else.

jeff

oh, how about having another 'focus group' thing?
you might get more out of having a table full of peeps tossing ideas back and forth.

i don't like how the project opus widget says "Play my music!" on the top. i think in general the player has a bit too much branding on it cause the users will get to know projectopus anyways once they click to buy or download the song and they are taken back to the site.

from the ground up though - i'd say it'd be neat if we could get the option to join some sort of service where we get our own unique branded user experience. take for example my production name Mr. Tunes - would love to have a service like this all to myself but the budget for making e-commerce sites for me is very low. but i could pay a few dollars a month if my music sales were doing ok.

sorry to say this ... i just consider the way this post was worded to be a buzz killer ... dude. certainly, it has all 3 essential elements of vision casting in it:

1. This is who we are.
2. This is where we're going.
3. This is how you can be a part.

however, it doesn't sound like a vision being cast from a position of strenght IMHO - but rather:

1. We're lost.
2. It's not working.
3. Help us revamp the whole thing.

i call this a "buzz kill" because it doesn't accomplish what i hope it was intended to do (IOW, i hope this was just bad copy and that's all). to me, this kind of chat discourages would be members and participants and current users and participants - because it sounds as if you're saying, "whatever we are now, and we don't know, we probably won't be that in the future ... whenever that is?"

who's gonna invest in that? sorry - i've just gotten tired of seeing this post sitting here ... unmoved for so long ... not off the page ... not out of sight ... just sitting there ... no interaction with comments so to speak ... nothing.

[end reaction to the wording and tenor of the above post]

i am going to refer back to my earlier post: mr opus - tear down this wall
as a partial answer to where PO might want to aim itself activity wise.

1.open more doorways into the PO experience - and cover the net with them.

in my thinking ... the player is but one doorway for people to come into the PO experience ... it's a great player ... gets around obstacles, leaps buildings in a single bound, runs circles around anyone elses ... but alone ... it's still a player.

IMHO the playlist and the fan being able to share in the success of their favs are the stronger aspects of PO right now ... and nobody seems to get that yet ... well, except for those who are working it ... and have it in their upcoming plans to deploy.

if you must REDUX - don't (play with look and feel all you need to but otherwise...)
i am not certain what you want to "build from the ground up" when you have so many hidden tricks up your sleeve - so many wonderful potential doorways to work and to deploy that i'd see the mission as one of:

1) building new doorways
2) working doorways
3) deploying doorways
4) massaging doorway experiences into place
5) making entry, clear, smooth, rewarding, fun, and worthwhile.

go get 'em
what the above means to me is that you have the tools in place ... you just need to go after the highest candidates for success (at this time) and work the hound out of them.

expand the local
above i mentioned the city hub idea, are there cities which could be developed into their own "local communities" and thus a doorway into PO? this cannot be the place where everyone knows everyone and all people hold hands and sip latter together on friday nights ... it's global in intent and built with speed for that purpose.

cities?
so, is there a city that's ready to "seed" to begin working? bulletin boards have long known that it takes some recruitment to get moderators on board for different sections of an online community - is there a city with enough artists to begin "pumping" that community and working it into a living beast of its own life force and energy?

if no city?
then what about a state, region, province, locality, etc.? if you cannot get enough people in the U.S. from one city - how about "South West"? or "Southern"? if you cannot get enough people from one country in Asia - then why not "South East Asia"? or "Asia"? IOW, drive it down to the smallest common ground you can find for a given group - one that has some representation - and then find the fitting name and begin to persuade the use of the local pages - build up the local content - the local news ... and get the thing running.

next genres
genre strict people are "snobs" - it's not a dig - it's just that people who are heavy broadcasters, sneezers, advocates, mavens, and activists for select genres are typically hardcore into their genre - which is cool. actually, it's extremely cool when it comes to building online communities ... except you won't find the millions of dj's or house or trance buzzers out there getting into country or jazz or rock and roll or folk.

genre groups - work 'em
genre groups need charts, genre groups need a front page, genre groups need a genre forum, genre groups need splash pages with bands, acts, ads, concerts, etc. for their genre... there's obviously more i could add to this list. i keep thinking of punkers ... there's a powerful genre group - ready for their own space. hip-hop and rappers - another. country ... the list already exists on PO anyway and the means and the places. but, it will take work.

as with the cities - the same with genre:
1) identify a presence
a. by number on PO
b. by activity on PO
c. by quality on PO

2) boil it down to the smallest subset possible:
a. rock, classic rock, pop rock,
b. punk, hardcore, slam,
c. folk,
d. punk
e. dj's

did i mention dj's?
http://www.thedjlist.com
look out there at genre's and groups that are really huge online ... active and really huge too. i care nothing to little about dj's - it's not my cup of tea - but it doesn't take much searching to find out which genre's are hungry and munching away at the net. draw them into the main pages as you have now and no one other than dj's will come here ... court some of them - draw them in - and build them a space and you'll find more coming along.

niche groups
i'm not going fully into this one ... this is already too long ... but there are recording studio people, instrument players, and on and on we go - who are looking for connection and representation online among indie music ... they're as much indie as anyone else ... often musicians themselves.

bands and fans are the biggest doorways

this is simple math ... bands are out there working to build fan bases and they build websites, work their myspaces, live.spaces, whatever spaces, blogs, etc., all the time ... building up more and more people for each band, artist, group, performer, what-have-you...

just to play out this idea ... if we just looked at myspace pages - and the number of friends on those pages ... let's say it's an average of 250 per each band on PO (i think it's more ... but i don't know).

let's say there are 100 bands on PO.

let's say PO could draw in 100% of those people from myspaces to PO.

there you got 25000 people becoming a part of PO.

i don't know the real numbers ... how many bands, how many sites, how many contacts ... but i do know that PO should be aiming to draw people through these premarketed doorways (band sites, band spaces, band blogs, etc.) into the PO experience.

how?

many ways ... but i'll simply repaste some from the above mentioned post:

i will add that the widget for fans should be something which works both ways ... so that a band could easily paste some code into their webpage and have the avatars of their fans show up on their pages (it's all the rage these days )

there are more ideas on doorway experiences to offer people - but this is already long.

i will simply refer to my earlier post on two more ideas - fixing the lurker space so that it's lurker friendly and fix the front door experience as well. both are here.

PO is poised to do some great things ... i am bummed that the events mode is delayed ... when will it be (possibly) coming off the shelf?

i don't mind alpha, beta, gamma, or whatever changes need to be made ... and i will write some more feedback ... and not mention the buzz kill again - because there is so much which can be done here ... very much.

i hope this did not come off "know it all-ish" or "rude" it was not my intent - the typed word doesn't carry the visual cues nor vocal inflections which would have made my words in this post sound as soft and kind and as big hearted as a fan of PO could be.

peac4d.
amos

display my signature publically at the end of all my comments please...

Amos,

Thanks for the post and your thoughtful comments. I am going to break down my replies in chunks as this may provoke more threads and well I have needed things broken into bite size pieces since the age of 2.

Your quote:
Sorry to say this ... i just consider the way this post was worded to be a buzz killer ... dude. certainly, it has all 3 essential elements of vision casting in it:

1. This is who we are.
2. This is where we're going.
3. This is how you can be a part.

however, it doesn't sound like a vision being cast from a position of strenght IMHO - but rather:

1. We're lost.
2. It's not working.
3. Help us revamp the whole thing.

because it sounds as if you're saying, "whatever we are now, and we don't know, we probably won't be that in the future ... whenever that is?" who's gonna invest in that?

Well, we certainly did not intend for the post to be a downer. In fact our spirit was quite the opposite. Really good things have been happening for Project Opus - the company!

Project Opus has received financing for our DYLAN project, and we are working very hard and we will have some impressive announcements this summer on that initiative.

Project Opus has licensed technologies developed for this site to MTV who is engaged in a number of very cool and (if they stick to their vision) important projects to connect fans with bands and new music. We are continuing to work with them. When and if anything is announced will be on an MTV timeline.

We have some amazing technologies present in this site, some that have yet to be deployed (but are developed), and some that are in our heads that have yet to be built.

So overall we "The Company" are in great shape. However, our stated goal for this community site remains:
To support fans, bands, and local music everywhere.

Because of our recent success in the areas of technology and financing, we feel that we are now in a position to actually take a breather and look at the forest through the trees. We have a lot of questions about how we should be servicing our community.

Are we doing what we should be doing for our community? What are we doing well? What are we doing poorly? What should we be doing? What should we not be doing?

You, the local music community, have at your disposal a group of people (Project Opus) dedicated to building technologies and services to support YOU. There are no ulterior motives here. What do you want us to build? We have done a great deal of research on our own, but what I was hoping to get was a dialog of needs and wants. Clearly I have not done a good job of that, but this was meant to illustrate a golden opportunity: you have at your disposal and discretion, a talented group of developers and designers. Let's build something great together.

Above I mentioned the city hub idea, are there cities which could be developed into their own "local communities" and thus a doorway into PO?

I agree that the city hub idea, which is built into our platform from the start is important. However, they do require a window on the scene. It is no surprise that the Vancouver Scene is dominant on PO. Our team have met most of the bands, venues and promoters. We have gotten over 50 people contacting us to provide them with the Project Opus code base so that they could start up a Project Opus for London, Melbourn, Ankara, St. Kitts, LA, New York, Capetown, Paris etc.

I mention that they do not need the code base, all they need to do is partner with us and we will set up the city portal for them. This immediately gets a cold shoulder from the would be partner. From their point of view and I agree with them - how do they remain independent within the PO community? How do they make money? How can they control their business? How can they manage features for their local community?

We have no axe to grind here and we are keen to helping these communities. There is no way we in Vancouver can help build and support the London music scene like someone living in London. How can we make this happen? I feel the answers will affect how we build the next iteration of Project Opus. Ideas welcome.

So, is there a city that's ready to "seed" to begin working? bulletin boards have long known that it takes some recruitment to get moderators on board for different sections of an online community - is there a city with enough artists to begin "pumping" that community and working it into a living beast of its own life force and energy?

This is what we have found. Artists will pump their band. They will not pump a technology or Website unless it has critical mass. Bands are already managing too many website: MySpace, Their Own Site, Pure Volume, Facebook, Last.FM, etc.

There are some cities that have a good mass of bands, but before they will work at building their City within Project Opus, there needs to be a clear advantage as to why they should bother? What is Project Opus offering that the other sites do not?

Personally, I think the city link is critical. It was in our original thinking for Project Opus, and we have some unique city centric service ideas that I will share in a later post. However, I think we will be challenged rolling these services out to non-Vancouver cities without a proper strategy that addresses the issue I mentioned above.

I feel that the strategy needs to be based upon building out PO as a platforms for others to "build their own" local music community.

login or register to post comments

Can Opus do this?

An artist builds a web site within Opus that contains audio and visual components and Opus provides a 'free level' of participation and also an optional, deluxe, all entertaining, second level that cost the audience Opus buck to get inside.???

Sort of like a walk-in record album.

i missed that 5.0 was out ... i left the conversation at 4.7 when it seemed that 4.7 wasn't as useful as all the stuff you were doing at project opus with 4.6. you kinda got me drawn into a cursory reading of the drupal world for a while.

that is great news! i look fwd to seeing that roll out!

casting a clear vision isn't always the easiest thing to do. in my training we were taught to recast the vision every 28 days and to re-cast or highlight one aspect of the vision at least once every week.

people do not care about the vision - they care about the benefits or features. yet, it is the vision which drives those features and benefits - and only a reminder presented in a commanding and well crafted manner on a regular basis will keep the vision and the purpose and the goals in the minds of people other than the team.

that has been my training and my experience as well ... people sometimes forget as soon as they walk out the door ... they only remember whatever benefit or feature appealed to them.

when it comes to vision casting - redundancy with creativity in communication is required.

the old story is about coke during the days when they were doing film and had diversified into just about everything under the sun ... until a new president, i cannot recall the name at this moment, said, "we're going to stop doing everything else and go back to what we do best ... make the best soft drink on the planet." i do believe they have not fallen down as low as they were at that point once since that choice was made.

of course, a vision statement and a slogan can be two different sets of words. when i mention coke today ... all i can think about is a soft drink - nothing else. their slogans work that idea out everyday in their marketing.

what is the slogan of project opus?

"Supporting Bands, Fans, and Local Music Everywhere" - is that the slogan of the moment? what does it mean when you hear it?

iTunes began with "Burn, Rip, Mix" - a slogan focuses on features and benefits - as in "what can we do for you - the consumer."

i found the slogans on wikipedia:

not sure that was helpful ... still when i think iTunes ... i think "download any music" and "music player app" i am not too confused even though they have podcasts, tv, etc., in the iTunes Store. i still think ... this is where i can get a download of "such and such" song.

earlier i praised the simplicity of the PO vision statement as i know it:

i like it, but is it a slogan which communicates and as a vision statement is there too much ambiguity still left in the version that i know. you could easily have a much fuller version for your office ... i understand that i might just not know it.

i found a fairly good and useful blog post on this when looking for the iTunes Vision Statement:

now, surely that vision statement has morphed and been massaged into place - maybe? i don't really know. but, it doesn't have any ambiguity about the mission which it sets out for the programmers to accomplish.

i like what the blog post said:

so, i think i'll ask a question:

does the statement "supporting artists, fans and local music everywhere" have too much ambiguity in it?

as i have stated and will again.
1) the band webpages are doorways into project opus and the PO experience.
2) the mailing list (with a subscribe box code for artist sites, etc.,) is probably one of the clearest doorways of getting new people into the PO experience.
3) signing up for a mailing list should include the option of becoming a fan and being featured on the fan list of a band on project opus.
4) or *instead of 3* the mailing list would be a feature of signing up as a fan.
5) the fan list could even have an avatar look (like mybloglog) and a widget (like mybloglog) which artists can paste into their pages.

it's an auto generated fan list - which will work for the musician while they sleep. it would also bring more people into project opus.

it seems simple from my perspective - give the bands the opportunity to bring their fans into project opus as easily as possible. signing up would automatically list the new person on the fan list (and like many wise sign ups - the process will lead them through the basic sign up - no building your profile, etc., ... those things will be suggested later via email and on sign in and maybe on some rotating text on fan or band pages "update your profile now" - or - "upload your picture now" - etc.).

to continue the list above with some possibles:
6) provide a "send to subscribers only" feature for the mailing list.
7) provide a way for bands to offer a free song or discount only to those who sign up for the list.

basically this is one of those "make it incredibly easy" things.

my mind thinks marketing and sales (communication) most of the time. i see functionality in almost everything you have on PO - almost everything you have in the kit - has some manner of powerful marketing potential behind it.

peac4d.
amos

display my signature publically at the end of all my comments please...

A music concept album that is based on a bigger story that is available as episodes each containing music compositions and visual enhancement. Like a comic book with characters.
Sign up for member access and enter whenever you want to download the latest music and experience the visual and story enhancement on-line.
There would be a synopsis and entranceway that is free up to a certain point and if you like where it's going you gotta sign-up for a reasonable fee.
I just logged in to DYLAN and realized that conversations are starting up, over there.

there's a "listen to new music now" button? where?

peac4d.
amos

next comes fire!

Thanks uberbelly for pointing out the existence of the link
Thanks Senor Abbott for showing the way.

i never could have made it without the little people ...

http://www.projectopus.com/music/recent

or to the "listen to new music button"

1. yep, need to filter out those imports asap
2. probably should be a prominate image link on the front page

this would definately be a big boost to newbies ... some instant plays and listens.

now, a question about the rss feed / podcasts. it seems to me that when i use a PO feed from a multipaged list - top songs, new music, a genre, that not all the songs feed and i cannot make sense of the order the feeds gives the songs.

example: http://www.projectopus.com/podcast/latestmusic

it begins with Wake Up! Wake Up! - myxllamatosis and ends with bad to the bone

i don't fully understand this when i try to match it up to what i am seeing on the source page: http://www.projectopus.com/music/recent - it should be one of the rich features which has so many outlets on the net?

i have tried to use it ... to show support and help PO ... but i find it doesn't seem to include the full feed.

and again ... filter those imports out ... i fully agree!

peac4d.
amos

next comes fire!