

Ask YC: feedback on my music recommendation app (round 2) - maryrosecook

http://theperceptron.com/<p>So, I submitted this about six weeks ago and it got a well-deserved trashing (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=293699).<p>I've spent a bunch of time on the site's algorithm, plus there is a load of new stuff: playlists, automatic recommendations, links to get more information about artists.<p>I'd love to get some more feedback from the HN community.
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tptacek
The Postal Service:

    
    
      Amazon: Death Cab, The Shins
      iTunes: Imogen Heap, Feist, M.I.A.
      Perceptron: The Knife, Dntel, Bright Eyes
    

Eric B and Rakim:

    
    
      Amazon: EPMD, Big Daddy Kane, Public Enemy
      iTunes: EPMD, Boogie Down Productions, KRS-One
      Perceptron: No recommendations
    

Fleetwood Mac:

    
    
      Amazon: Journey, Bob Seger, Steve Miller
      iTunes: Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton, The Doobie Brothers
      Perceptron: Vetiver, The Beach Boys, The Everly Brothers
    

Sepultura:

    
    
      Amazon: Pantera, Slayer, Metallica
      iTunes: Soulfly, Machine Head, Fear Factory
      Perceptron: Moonspell, Soulfly (x3), Fear Factory
    

In none of these head-to-heads does Perceptron do the best job (the Dntel pick
ties it with Amazon's Death Cab pick). I can intuitively guess that iTunes
will do a better job of recommending for me than your website, because
millions of people's buying habits make iTunes smarter every day.

It's not just that this space is crowded; it's that it structurally resists
your entrance. You need features, lots of them, compelling features, or this
isn't going anywhere.

Also, you're trivially XSS-able:

[http://theperceptron.com/recommendation/artist/h%3Cscript%3E...](http://theperceptron.com/recommendation/artist/h%3Cscript%3Ealert)('hi');%3C%2fscript%3E?h=true

Finally: "astute music recommendations" is a terrible tagline. It doesn't
convey value. It tells me why _you_ like your code, but not why your code
matters to me.

~~~
maryrosecook
I see what you mean about the tagline.

Thanks very much for doing those side-by-side comparisons. I am not a fan of
any of the bands you entered, but, to my ill-informed eye, the recommendations
don't seem too bad. Which ones were off the mark?

And thanks for the heads-up on the XSS exploit. Will need to sanitise my URLs
more thoroughly.

Thanks very much for your feedback.

~~~
tptacek
Postal Service: Indie pop; you did fine, but not better than the majors.

Eric B and Rakim: seminal NYC hip hop; guessing classic hip hop is a blind
spot in your data set.

Fleetwood Mac: mainstream classic AOR; Vetiver? An indie folk band? The Beach
Boys are similar only as contemporaries --- also, not a very useful
recommendation, since there are 3 different Beach Boys your recommendation
could be keying on, two of them execrable.

Sepultura: insider-y mainstream metal; you did fine, I guess, but not better
than the majors.

In two cases your recommendations are bad, and in two cases they're just not
excellent. But if any online music retailer will do this for me, why would I
use your service? To listen to some of the music online?

You should consider:

* Allowing people to upload their entire iTunes library files so you can analyze them and make targeted recommendations to stuff they already own.

* Allowing people to vote on the recommendations, or doing something "social" (gag) to let people adopt recommendations or biases from tastemakers who care about this stuff.

* Link to or repurpose content from Wikipedia to give more background for the artists you're displaying.

It still seems like this app is really just 10% of what Last.fm or Pandora
already does.

~~~
maryrosecook
Thank for you the clarification on where the recommendations fell down.

I have resisted letting people upload their record collection because I want
to focus on making the site work well when I don't know anything about the
user.

Letting users spy on the recommendations of people they admire or feel they
are similar to is in the works. Once I get enough users, I plan to have a
thing that says, "Hi Jill, your taste is similar to Bill. Would you like to be
updated on his recommendations?"

I already pull in the band descriptions from Wikipedia.

Thanks again for the detailed feedback - it's really useful.

------
rksprst
I don't like the simple, all text interface. I think an app like this needs a
clean but graphical interface. Take a look at this screenshot:
[http://skitch.com/rksprst/3t9q/the-perceptron-astute-
music-r...](http://skitch.com/rksprst/3t9q/the-perceptron-astute-music-
recommendations)

Am I supposed to understand any of the text there? It looks like a bunch of
random works thrown together. No human will ever read that. No offense but
this display reminds me of those "crack/serial" search engines that just list
a bunch of random programs in alphabetical order just for seo.

I think you have a neat idea. But please get a designer.

~~~
maryrosecook
Yep, I do need a designer.

The band descriptions are taken from Wikipedia. My parsing code needs work.

Thanks very much for the feedback.

------
pedalpete
well, as somebody who has been in this space before and left it to pursue
other music opportunities, I think you're off to a great start mary.

I wasn't able to get music to play on quite a few tracks (the majority
actually), but without any sort of progress bar on the download, it wouldn't
be apparent to most people what is happening, so I think that would be one of
the first things to do.

I didn't go through your code, but have you hidden the flash player somewhere?
or are you using a javascript player?

Whatever, I think showing a player inline (kinda like you are now, but with
more controls) would benefit you. At the least, you need a 'progress bar', and
the 'hear' should be linked to start the track too, as that is what I tried
clicking on, not the play button.

I'll be keeping an eye on your progress mary. Best of luck to you.

~~~
maryrosecook
Yes, I agree with you. The player does need a loading progress indicator. I
also need to be more aggressive about culling tracks that are hosted on slow
servers, or have been removed.

I use JavaScript to control a little offscreen flash player.

Thanks so much for your feedback.

------
rockstar9
I like your site. It has potential. How bout include some album art next to
the artist descriptions?

I think you can also UI redesign. Starting having some buttons and graphics.

good luck!

~~~
maryrosecook
Yep, album art is a real nice idea.

The UI is something I am thinking really hard about. My skills are in coding,
not UI/design, so I'm learning as I go.

Thanks for the feedback.

------
Dilpil
What it really needs is more data, anything obscure and you get no
recommendations.

~~~
maryrosecook
Niche music is one of my main focuses. For obvious reasons, the site is is
good for the sections of music I like. Could you tell me what
genres/niches/bands you were trying? I'd love to expand the index to include
them if I can.

Thanks very much for the feedback.

~~~
STHayden
I couldn't get results for Mike Viola, Candy Butchers, Fountains of Wayne,
Julia Nunes, Ghosts & Liars and The Salteens

cheers!

~~~
maryrosecook
I'll look into these guys. Thanks!

------
rsheridan6
There ought to be a way to just upload a list of the music on your computer.

~~~
maryrosecook
Yep, I have investigated this. It's lower on the list of priorities because my
focus is to make the site work when it knows nothing about the user.

------
yesimahuman
It's really cool. I don't love the colors though, I'm not a big red fan (while
I wear a Man U jersey...oh well:))

------
mstefff
got 2 (way off) recommendations for my favorite band.

my opinion is that this space is wayyyy too crowded (huge players involved)
and to take any market share seems impossible.

~~~
maryrosecook
Which band was that?

~~~
mstefff
dream theater

~~~
mstefff
it's a rare genre but i've used several music sites and recommendation engines
that had spot-on choices. (last.fm, itunes, pandora, amazon, and that
spiderweb-like thing i can never remember the name of, etc)

~~~
maryrosecook
Yep, only two recommendations for a quite famous band is not great. I'll put
cock/prog-rock on the list of missing under-represented genres.

Thanks.

