

Show HN: My 10 Hour Winter Break Project Mixmatic - dshipper
http://www.mixmatic.co/

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jack-r-abbit
Interesting site. I lost interest in Spotify but I can see the novelty of a
site like this.

But... your example URL makes it pretty easy to guess at other people's
mixes... so not very private. Not that you claim it to be private. But if I
was sending a mix to someone and typed in a special message for them, I would
not really want random people to read it. Some sort of URL hash would at least
make it harder to guess.

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dshipper
Really I'd love to know why you stopped using Spotify (just out of curiosity).

Good point about the mixes, I may change that in the future but this isn't
looking like it's gonna be a long term project so there might be marginal
return on the time invested. Thanks for the feedback!

~~~
jack-r-abbit
Nothing in particular lost me with Spotify... I just went back to playing from
my own library. I didn't really dig the UI and controls so it didn't become my
default player.

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emilyhuang
Seems to be the season for mixtapes, found another one on HN recently
<http://muxx.it>

~~~
tyler_ball
I love this and the parent site, an awesome project for 10 hours. But it all
makes me miss the simplicity of muxtape: <http://muxtape.com/story>

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moustachio
I put together a usablity review of mixmatic.co using moustach.io. I hope you
find this useful.

[http://moustach.io/welcome/e/reviewed/ozH9eZmzRYuRB5bycNJYb-...](http://moustach.io/welcome/e/reviewed/ozH9eZmzRYuRB5bycNJYb-
BBbkBlqizX/9HsKSnpXSbqAtyeIib70Ng)

Good luck.

~~~
dshipper
Thanks I love it!

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CWIZO
I don't use (and never have, but I suspect it's like Grooveshark) Spotify so
this question might be stupid. What advantage does this have over just sending
an email with a URL to a Spotify playlist?

~~~
dshipper
Good question :) you could certainly do that - this is more just a cooler,
more visually appealing way of sharing a playlist with a friend that's made
specifically for that purpose.

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gonade
First question: Why get co and not a com?

Second question: i like the design given the time constraints. What design
tools did you use? Any tips on getting a good design quickly?

~~~
dshipper
1\. The .com was taken and I really liked Mixmatic as the name.

2\. Thanks! I've been really concentrating on my design skills recently.
Biggest tip to get good quickly: copy other designs and do it a lot. The
design for this site leans heavily on the Instagram homepage. You just need to
find another site that captures the feeling you're trying to create with your
product and then put your own spin on it. Also looking up how books are laid
out especially Renaissaincs era layouts that use the Golden Ratio like the Van
der Graaf canon are very helpful. Email me I'd be glad to Skype some time.

There's no magic bullet. Everything's hard at first. But if you do it enough
it gets easier.

~~~
gonade
Awesome answer! Thanks. Next, I literaly code css in notepad, any tips on
tools and things to speed up design work? A quick list of what you use?

~~~
dshipper
No problem! I use Photoshop to mock things up and then code everything in SASS
in TextMate. Pretty basic setup but it works for me.

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MichaelApproved
Why does this have to be locked into spotify? Why not create a playlist with
any other service? It's just a URL anyway.

~~~
dshipper
That's true I guess it's just to make it so that when you click the message it
opens the spotify app but this definitely doesn't need to be specifically tied
to it.

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jacobwg
Neat! Minor suggestion - link to an example playlist. There's also a minor
grammar error in the text ("gives us").

~~~
dshipper
Example added and typo corrected. Thanks for the feedback :)

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jcfrei
I would put the example on the frontpage and make it larger.

~~~
dshipper
Ok thanks for the feedback. Do you think there's too low of an incentive to
click through to the compose page without one?

~~~
MichaelApproved
Yes. I have no idea there's an example on the next page so I'm lost before I
even think about clicking. First thing I thought about when I landed on the
homepage was "What is this for?" "What will the final product look like before
I go through any trouble."

Without the example starting me dead in the face I would've lost interest. I
only clicked around because this was on HN and I wanted to explore so I could
give constructive feedback.

