

Rate/Review my start-up - HearWhere.com - pedalpete
http://HearWhere.com

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Maro
Wow! It actually found events in Budapest. The idea and functional execution
are great.

The layout sucks. The positioning of the elements seems accidental. Your logo
is pixelated, it looks like something from the CGA days.

The search results box is way too small. That should be the main area. You're
probably thinking that the map is cool, but as someone who has written GMaps
mashups, I can tell you it's not that cool. You could even get away with not
showing it at all, and only popping it up onClick. Yeah, it seems cool to show
Budapest when I type "Budapest", but frankly, I know where I live. Also, at
this point you're not putting down markers anyway!

So, I'd rethink the layout a little.

~~~
pedalpete
Thanks Maro,

I had the map smaller originally, but the bigger map just seems more engaging.
I do put markers on the map after you click on a result. I thought it would be
useless to have a bunch of markers on the map first, as you aren't going to
decide on a show based on the location, but it's good to see the location
after.

Thanks for the input.

~~~
Maro
I meant: you don't show markers after search. (Only after click.) But I think
that clicking is rare. Users tend to think that clicking moves them off the
page, so they avoid it. In any case, after clicking a result, you only show
that one marker right? But then, why is the map so big? It could be much
smaller if you're only showing one thing on it, IMO.

~~~
pedalpete
I'm going to have to do some playing with this Maro - you could be right about
clicking meaning you go to another page. I'm not sure.

I changed the layout yesterday to a smaller map. it definately cleans things
up, that's for sure.

I have no idea why my logo is pixelated, but thanks for pointing that out.
Web-searches aren't getting me anywhere in resolving that yet. In photoshop
I'm doing the 'save for web' at 72 dpi, so I thought that was supposed to take
care of that. Any ideas?

~~~
Maro
If you're using the Text Tool in Photoshop there's an anti-aliasing option,
that's what you want.

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paulsb
Works well enough but looks bad. I would:

1) Get rid of the brown and orange combo - too 70's, and the orange doesn't
work well with the orange lines of the map;

2) Move the map to the middle and have your results in a column on the right;

3) On the left, have a column for inputting the location data, have a
clickable calendar to select a date, and have a slider bar so you can increase
or decrease the "within" search area (or perhaps something like a target board
where the middle is the location you put in and you click on an outer ring to
widen your "within" area);

My personnel design philosophy is: reduce the number of clicks - that is,
always try to reduce the number of clicks a user has to do to get the
information they want. E.g. for the "within" drop down menu: one click to get
to to drop down and another to select the option; a slider is one click to
zoom in or out. Having a calendar already on screen removes the need to try
and use the pop-up one, which again reduces the number clicks from a hover and
click to just one. However, where you have lots of options, such as the
genres, I think you still need a drop down menu because there are two many
options to list....unless you put them all in some sort of bar. Don't know.
Try it.

Anyway, I hope that made sense and helps. Good luck.

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shawndrost
Congratulations! I love the idea of skimming myspace's events so that I don't
have to look at their site and use the doubtlessly terrible search function
they have.

Cut the adwords and the digg/share widgets. They're not going to get you money
or traffic, respectively, and they look trashy.

The list of upcoming shows looks terrible: the left edge doesn't line up with
the left edge of the div above it, and the inset scroll doesn't match the rest
of the look/feel, and I'm seeing a pixel's worth of one element and it looks
like a glitch. This needs a lot of work.

Use a normal dropdown for the 'playing' menu: inconsistent UI elements are
bad, and that one would be bad even if it weren't inconsistent.

Populate the map with markers immediately rather than waiting till someone
clicks on an artist.

The music player isn't working for me: standard ff3/windows.

Your fonts feel inconsistent: pick a bold typeface for titles/buttons/logo,
and a plain typeface for standard text.

Most of what I'm saying is really basic stuff, so honestly, I suspect you're
doing something basic wrong. If you've heard it a bunch of times before,
you're either being lazy or stubborn. If not, you're not asking for enough
feedback from friends, family, at tech meetups, etc.

~~~
pedalpete
That's AWESOME feedback sawndrost. I'm not being lazy, but just haven't been
getting that kind of feedback - tech meetups are not de rigueur in my hometown
of Whistler BC.

I'm not a huge fan of the look, and i've been tweaking and tweaking it. Even
hired a designer, but we conflicted on a bunch of elements and this is what I
ended up with.

It's a shame the player isn't working. I haven't heard that yet, and that is
the best part - listen so you can discover the artists.

I specifically didn't want to populate the map with markers as it would just
be full of markers, and you won't really decide to go to a show based on where
it is, rather than who is playing, so I think the site would get just too busy
with that.

But I'll definately be working on everything else you mentioned. Kinda makes
me wish I could take down this post for now and repost later. ;)

~~~
ricree
Except for areas with a particularly high number of venues, (downtown, college
campus, etc), the shows should turn up in groups based on where they're
playing.

Actually, once you get going and have time to start adding features, I'd
recommend trying to run some analysis on venues within the search range, and
have places that typically fit the search pattern show up on the initial
search. Searching for particular shows is certainly useful, but there would
also be a lot of times when I'd like to just check out what type of music a
place regularly plays. At any rate, it's just something to think about when
you get a chance.

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fauigerzigerk
Great service, I love it! I'm surely going to use it next time I'm looking for
a show. I don't know all the places where I live so the map is important.

I agree the UI needs some work to make it look more calm generally. I guess
colours are a matter of taste but the alignment of UI widgets is terrible
right now (Firefox on Mac).

What I'd like to see changed is the genre list. It's much too detailed.
Particularly because I can make only one choice at a time. Most people will
want all rock and pop or all latin music, etc. It doesn't make sense to have
more than, say, 5 genres. If you don't want to cut them down that much you
should allow users to make multiple selections at a time.

The date filter should read "today", "tomorrow", "select from calendar".

I know that's going to be controversial, but I really like layouts that use
the entire screen real estate and don't make me scroll. Can you put the ads
vertically along the right or left border?

When I search for shows at a different location, the previously selected show
(the one at the top) isn't removed as it should be.

As I said, I really like that service and I wish you a lot of success with it!

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smanek
Pretty cool in principle. The IP geodetection thing is really great.

I agree that the layout could use a lot of work. It's rather difficult to use
on my X60 (1024x768 resolution).

Also, the filtering is very nice, but there's still a bit of information
overload for me since there are over a hundred shows playing near where I
live, in the genres I'm interested in, on a random saturday.

An extra feature that may be help alleviate that problem could be integration
with some other site/service/application that already knows my musical tastes.
For example, I've already spent a fair amount of time telling iTunes, Last.fm,
pandora, and facebook what I like. It would be great if you could leverage
that to provide me with a better filter.

~~~
shawndrost
Actually, the ip geolocation got me wrong, which is odd, considering eg
ip2location.com got it right. Switch providers?

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deathbyzen
As for functionality, I think you're A+. Presentation... probably a solid C.
I'm not crazy about the color scheme and your results are a bit cluttered and
hard to read. Cool concept though, definitely.

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truebosko
The layout is horrid. Sorry to say. The controls seem awkward and kind of
broken, and the event listing is small and hard to browse through. I got many
of the same results (As in same band, different date) but the way it was
presented didn't flow too well

APART from that, it worked great. Normally hard to find services that can
actually find stuff in my smallish town but it did a good job.

Also I would definitely add a date range to the calendar and not just a single
date (or all dates) .. that'd be neat :)

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jkent
This is a great service, although IP autodetect didn't work for me. It wasn't
a problem to search for London (it didn't go to Canada, at least!).

The map could be sized differently depending on resolution, so you don't have
to scroll.

The genre list needs an overhaul. If you search for Ambient, it returns bands
that claim to be Metal / Ambient, which is not the same! I like to find things
by genre.

Is this primarily a nicer interface to myspace music?

~~~
pedalpete
Hey JKent,

At the moment this is an actual working interface for MySpace music. But I'll
be adding more features in the near future which extend beyond that.

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louislouis
The layout sucks and colour scheme isn't great either. I think you've tried to
cram everything before the fold which gives it the visual headache that it
does. Sparse it all out, seperate the map from the controls.

Would be cool if the map geo-located my ip and displayed my local results on
first visit. -edit- Ahh it looks like you're already doing that but didn't
work for me (showed london).

Overall nice idea and it works quite well.

~~~
pedalpete
Hey Louisloius, Apprently your comment points to our opposing attitudes, as I
commented on mixturtle that you had too much below the fold. ;)

I don't think users should have to scroll to see content, particularly when
there is a sub-scroll and a map. I think it would suck if you scolled down,
selected an address, had to scroll back up to get to see the location, or the
player(I originally had my player inline like you have on mixturtle, but
wasn't a huge fan of it that way, preferring the consistent location for the
control).

Having said all that, your site looks way better than mine, so I definately
take your critique seriously. I've already started piecing together a new
layout, but with the additional features I have coming, it is only getting
heavier. :(

My original had the map seperate form the controls, and I may return to that.
Thanks - hope all is going well with mixturtle.

~~~
louislouis
lol I wasn't sure if you would pick up on that, I tried to keep it subtle
hehe.

Anyway I think if you really wona keep everything before the fold, I'd suggest
giving the bands-box more weight than the map. If you swapped it round that
would work quite well. So the map would be 30% of space and bands get 70%
rest. But if you're thinking of adding lots of markers to the map, I'd suggest
50/50 split.

Check out <http://kuler.adobe.com/> for color scheming.

Good luck.

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pedalpete
After the absolute DESTRUCTION i've taken over the design here - which is
GREAT, i don't want design holding this back. I've updated the look - actually
reverted to an old look with some of the input changes made from
recommendations here.

I hope this one is better recieved :) Still has some tweaking to be done, but
a few simple changes give it a whole new look. Hope you like this one better.

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pchristensen
I disagree with all the people that criticized the colors and layout (unless
you've made a lot of changes in the last 14 hours). I like the way it looks, I
found it easy to use, loved the big map, etc. Not everything has to have the
spare white rounded corner Web 2.0 look, and if you're pulling events from
MySpace, you're better off not looking like FaceBook.

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pdrummond
This seems like a great idea - I am going to see Kylie at the Newcastle Arena
(UK) tomorrow night and the site showed Kylie as the first result! Cool!

One problem - the map is showing Newcastle somewhere in America! Oops! If I
type in "Newcastle, Uk", the map jumps to the right place but the music
results change and Kylie is no longer there...

~~~
pedalpete
Yeah, this is the unfortunate effect of how the artists have entered there
data into MySpace - not sure who I can fix that.

When artists supply good data (which seems to be the majority), things work
well. Google maps seems to default to the US when searching for locations, so
I'm guessing that entering UK into a geo-search isn't a rarity for you.. is
that right. I'll see if I can get some sort of filter that tries to pick the
name with the greatest population or something. That makes much more sense.
Have a good time at the show.

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dkasper
I was surprised when I opened up the page and it was showing the map for
Bellingham (where I live). I was instantly intrigued to see what was going on
because I connected with seeing the familiarity of the map despite the
unfamiliarity of the site. I think with a little work on the layout it could
be very cool.

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babo
It's far from foolproof, doesn't work for Copenhagen.

~~~
pedalpete
The site works for Copenhagen 1081 shows listed. I assume you mean the
geocoding couldn't find you?

If it didn't find you on the first visit, i set a cookie for future visits so
you don't have to type the address again.

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TimothyFitz
The functionality is already a jump over everyone else in this space.

Forget graphical issues; do a real usability study. Then start funneling ad
traffic to the site and start A/B testing more usable interfaces (aka don't
take my word for it, use data!)

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o_sam_o
The site appears to be aimed at a world wide audience and therefore it would
be nice if it handled metric units a little better.

e.g. "2234 live shows on all dates within 25 miles of Sydney"

Maybe the units could be set based on ip range?

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kp212
I think it would be nice to have a date range, and perhaps the option to
search by genre or band. I would like to be able to see whats going on in the
month of August, or see if any of my bands are coming into the area.

~~~
pedalpete
Hey Kp, date range is on the way, working out some bugs, but hopefully by the
end of next week. There is a genre filter, but i need to pair it down, there
are WAY too many options. Lots of other sites do the band search, not sure if
I'll add that in, though you aren't the first to mention it.

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Deadsunrise
Make a small message for the people using NoScript so they allow javascript
from your page. With javascript off it looks like shit and the search is
broken (shows "exiting" on a white page)

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acangiano
Pro: Works surprisingly well. Cons: The site has little visual appeal and it
wouldn't be bad to have a bit more in the way of "social" features, like the
ability to add comments on events.

~~~
pedalpete
I've been working on adding some social features beyond just sharing links on
Facebook and Friendfeed - hopefully in the next few weeks.

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utnick
great! Very impressive work.

I was just looking for something like this the other day, citysearch is so
cumbersome.

Playing songs isnt working for me though. When I click through to the myspace
page I can listen fine, but on your site it just stays at 0% ( vista, firefox
3.0.1, flash 9 )

~~~
pedalpete
utnick! I'm so disappointed the songs don't work for you. You're the second
person to report that. I'm also on FF 3.0.1 & flash 9, but on XP - I'm
probably going to make a big change so that this isn't an issue anymore, but
it might take a week or so - hopefully not more.

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ia
great idea. the functionality is good, but i think an investment in a UI
redesign would be a good one. also, i searched for "rock" within 25 miles of
boston on 7/27 and got a result from washington and one from nc.

~~~
pedalpete
Lots of great UI ideas coming from this post. I'll be playing with LOTS of
different ideas over the next little bit.

I've noticed a few odd results creep in myself. I'll work on that. Thanks

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morbidkk
how it is working? any clues?

