

Rate/Review my startup - mixturtle - louislouis
http://www.mixturtle.com
Hey guys, I've just launched my new site (mixturtle.com). It's a music search engine and player. It uses Ajax for the interface so you can search and play music simulataneously. Playlists are created automatically and you can access it by right click mouse. (thank you jQuery!) Any comments appreciated.<p>Thanks
Louis
======
plaggypig
It's pretty good - one of the better music index services I've used. Others
here have commented on a few small issues but overall it seems well executed.

However, is this really a viable business? I assume you intend it to be, based
upon your description of it being a startup, but please correct me if I'm
mistaken. Otherwise, I'm afraid I'm going to have to piss on your parade a
little bit.

I have considered developing something similar to this in the past, but I've
always stopped myself - simply because if it becomes any sort of success and
is seen to be either (i) taking in revenues or (ii) encouraging others to
develop similar services then the RIAA will give the slightest of gestures.. a
wince of the lip perhaps.. to direct a battalion of lawyers to march upon your
place of business and annihilate it with a bombardment of 4,000lb bombs
stuffed with subpoenas and the internal organs from children and puppies.

Although many (including myself) argue that what you're doing is probably
legal, it is not really open and shut - the RIAA would argue that you're
encouraging and cooperating in the acts of copyright infringement. It's going
to cost you a fortune to defend yourself.. and even if you manage to generate
enough revenue to successfully defend yourself once, they will keep coming
after you time and time again, from many different angles.

If the CoS can sue the IRS into submitting to its demands for tax exemption
then the RIAA can shut down your little operation. The law can be cruel if you
can't afford it.

If anybody else (with legal training) can enlighten me then I'd love to have
my doubts assuaged.

~~~
lacker
You could have made the same case to the founders of Youtube. If everyone
listens to arguments like that, then the RIAA has already won.

~~~
cstejerean
Luckily for the founders of YouTube they were bought by Google. And given the
current fight with Viacom I don't know if I would ever want to be in a similar
situation.

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bhb
While I like the sparse design (and badass logo), a huge problem is that I get
to site and within the first ten seconds I don't know what it does (or even
why I should care). I decide to figure out more by typing an artist and click
'music search' but now it's taking forever. If I was a random visitor, I'd be
gone by now.

While I expect the load time after typing will be better as you work on
scaling (and work out the bugs), I still think you'd be a lot better off with
a little text explaining why I should even type something in and hit 'music
search'. Will I get to play music? Will I get to download music? Will I find
the cheapest prices for buying music? Who knows. Just my 2 cents.

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danielha
Damn that turtle is bad ass.

~~~
ivankirigin
Seriously. Tipsy might have to run and hide to get a redesign again.
<http://tipjoy.com/static/images/logo2.png>

~~~
izaidi
At least Tipsy seems trustworthy. I'd give him my money voluntarily; Angry
Mohawk Turtle would take it from me at gunpoint, then kill me anyway.

------
hugh
I'm confused as to what I'm doing. I search for music, I add songs to my
playlist, and then... what?

~~~
louislouis
I'm guessing you have javascript turned off? Otherwise the songs should just
play instantly.

~~~
Hexstream
Why, oh why does such a site require Javascript?!

edit: I'm not against requiring Javascript for those parts of your website
that absolutely, positively require it, but everything that can work without
JS should gracefully degrade.

~~~
gruseom
I didn't downmod, but I don't agree that everything that can work without JS
should gracefully degrade. That seems like a lot of extra work to support a
miniscule segment of fussy purists.

What am I not getting?

~~~
Hexstream
Well, JS is turing-complete and that's both a blessing and a curse. It's a
blessing because you can do "anything", but it's a curse because unconstrained
code is opaque. It's very hard to do stuff like extracting the semantics (what
you meant to express when you wrote the code) out of JS and doing things like
transformations without an unreasonable amount of work.

I think it's better to express as much as you can in a more "constrained"
language like HTML or CSS because it's more like data than code, so it offers
less opportunities to make a big mess of spaghetti code and having obscure
interactions in the code. It's easier to reason about. HTML and CSS, being
declarative, are much easier and cleaner to deal with than JS (it's more
WYSIWYG).

So I guess what I'm saying is, coding in a style that avoids JS as much as
possible is beneficial, and that style facilitates graceful degradation.
Conversely, keeping an eye on graceful degradation will facilitate a better
style.

~~~
gruseom
Thanks for explaining. Now I'm sure I disagree. :)

I'm partly kidding. I might use that design style under some circumstances. I
disagree that it's the right way to do things. There are many ways to do
things. I think people want a "right" way because they want to feel like
they've got stuff figured out. (This is especially common in our world because
software is complex and there's a lot of uncertainty around how to do it
well.)

As it happens, the app I'm currently working on is as far away from this
design style as you can get. We do almost everything in JS, even things that
could easily be done in HTML and CSS. Our way of carving things up relies
heavily on expressing everything in a single language, and the Turing-
completeness of said language is an advantage not a disadvantage. It's a
solution I'm fond of because it neatly combines high-level abstraction at the
source level with some stringent performance requirements in the browser. It
will also be fun to watch the purists turn green when they see it.

Edit: we do almost everything in _generated_ JS. Might be relevant.

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demandred
are you using the songza api? i tried a few searches, and its clear, while
your search is good, theirs is much better.

great execution, but where's the differentiation with Songza, Seeqpod,
Streamzy, et. al?

~~~
nickb
And don't forget this app: <http://listen.grooveshark.com/> It was posted here
by someone (author I guess) and I ended up using it for some time because it
has playlists. I now check it when I'm looking for something specific. But
most of the time, I just use last.fm or Pandora.

Most of these apps just do a search on Youtube and play the audio portion of
videos. Only prob is that audio quality is not so great but on my laptop
speakers I can't even tell the difference so all is good.

I like MixTurtle. It's a nice app! Good job louislouis! Add a queue/playlist
and I'll use it as a default music search app.

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ambition
Why hide the search request with Javascript? Since the URL is always
<http://mixturtle.com/>, I can't easily send a link to a search to a friend.

It's great instant gratification to play songs on the search results page, but
I can't then access the source. You don't give anything back to the music
sources, so if you they find about you (like when you get big), they'll fight
you.

Is this legal? Great application, but I can't help but feel that the RIAA will
crush you if they find you.

------
paulgb
Looks good. I'm confused about how playlists work though - I can add songs to
it, but how do I play it or view it? A killer feature that songza is missing
is the ability to create and share a playlist without logging in.

edit: Another problem: since you are getting the music from remote sources,
they can stick in HTTP authentication headers. I got hit with a few of those.
Not sure if there is a practical technical solution to this though.

The auto source-finding works way better than songza's trial-and-error
approach.

~~~
louislouis
The playlist can be viewed with right-click mouse button. Just added that to
the site text :)

~~~
lacker
Would be nice if this worked on macs with no right click.

~~~
thomasswift
control click will act as right click

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breck
Great design and UI. The logo is awesome. The auto complete works very
well(except just for artists, eh, not for song titles?).

It's a lot like Songza, except I like yours better. The white background is
much superior to red, also your fonts are easier to read.

It also works very fast and have had good luck with finding good songs.

I like the ability to create playlists.

Occasionally the search would slow down on me.

Great job.

EDIT: Oh wow, just figured out you can save playlists. Very cool.

~~~
breck
Suggestion: Create a favicon.ico

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boucher
You should autofocus your search bar onload.

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thorax
I like it-- just a few more bugs to work out. I did a search (for my wife) of
"Tori Amos honey" and it took a solid minute to return anything.

Created an account and the playlist I saved there. Cool stuff.

Heh, nice touch with it saying "Welcome" in the search box when I login.

I would be a bit sad using your site a lot because I use right-click
frequently to go back/open-in-new-tab, etc. But your service is cool enough
that I'd live with it, surely.

Be careful with the music industry-- you may want to make it clearer where the
source is coming from somehow so you don't land yourself in hot water.

The few songs I tried don't work on the iPhone, but I wouldn't have expected
them to. If you made an iPhone app like this, I'd definitely buy it, but I
imagine a lot are youtube/flash/etc.

------
lux
Search is a bit slow ATM, but selection seems good already. I didn't think I
had to click 'Save Playlist' after clicking the pluses, maybe it would be
better to auto-save the first one or create a default 'Untitled' and ask you
to name it.

That was also totally not self-explanatory to a non-registered user, but it
did keep the playlist selection after signing up which is good.

For the results, it would be cool to see the album and year, or if it's live a
'Live @ Foo Stadium' in the album spot and the year still shown.

Also wasn't 100% clear on how to play the track, and the 'Try next source'
should look like a link, not like any other text.

Otherwise, pretty cool. Got it playin' in the background as I type :)

~~~
lux
One more thing (minor bug report): I selected a song in a 2nd search but it
added one from my first search instead when I saved the playlist (I clicked
songs from 2 searches for my first playlist).

~~~
louislouis
Thanks for the comments and suggestions. I'll have to look into those bugs you
found. I do admit though it's far from perfect atm and there were lots more
features I wanted add before launching, but hacker news has taught me to just
throw it out there and get a response, so my server is taking a pounding for
it I type.

------
noonespecial
A good implementation of an idea I've seen before.

The really impressive part of this is "mixturtle". I remember it and its easy
to type. You've got time to improve the interface. The name is very clever:
WIN on branding.

------
hibri
dude you're smoking crack if you think you can run a biz by export your itunes
library, parse the meta data, and stick it online with a google-like search
interface. I say this while I'm listening to some Ozzy from your site (works
great, but taking over right-mouse button is rude). This is cool as your
personal web front-end to your library, but if it gets any traction (free
music tends to get traction) you're in for a smack-down. Good luck , rock on
:)

------
arthurk
First off, I probably wouldn't have tried the service without such a badass
turtle on the frontpage. Good artwork.

1\. There's no indication of what the service does — "The Music Search Engine"
is written too small and in a horrible font.

2\. After entering my favourite artist and waiting nearly 1 minute there's
still nothing happening. MAKE IT FASTER.

3\. The font in the footer also looks horrible (Mac user).

4\. I _hate_ it when someone changes the default right-click menu.

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dkordik
I just lost my music hard drive to the click of death, so this is really
hitting the spot right now.

Two things that would have made my first 5 minutes better: 1\. Giant play
button 2\. Giant playlist link, or playlist always visible in a column, or
something.

Have you considered hooking into a service to pull more thorough album
information so stuff could be organized a bit better than just a list of
songs?

I'm really enjoying this. Thanks.

------
jonnytran
If you're going to do something that is as jolting to the user as hijacking
the right-click menu, you'd better get it right. As in, get it _perfect_.

When I right-click near the right edge of the browser window, the playlist
pops up off-screen and hidden, creating scrollbars. Novices won't get this at
all, esp. since it's not the interface people are used to.

------
eznet
Good job - I like. Functionally streamlined, clean design and creative
branding hook - I'll be checking back in the future.

------
jacobbijani
I'll be honest, my first reaction was to talk shit but it is actually pretty
solid. The only thing I was a little confused of was how to start the
playlist. I right clicked and then played it inside the playlist, but is it
possible to play it in the main view? Maybe you could just have a big play
button in the corner of the page.

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whatusername
search works well. Found 3 tracks for Sounds Like Chicken - my reference
Obscure band.

but major FAIL in usage terms.. * I start saving out a playlist - then realise
there's nowhere to play it. * Normally I'd leave, but I figured I'd sign up. *
Signup worked fine - and then I clicked on My Playlists * And I'd lost my
playlist!

Love the design though.

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stanley
I like the idea.

When you click [+] it would make sense for it to change to a [-] in case I
want to remove it (right-clicking is not obvious). The ability to pause a song
and change the volume would also be nice.

You should add some kind of visual tutorial (but keep it simple) at the top of
the page so new visitors know what to do.

------
j2d2
Sometimes I get annoyed when my cat is particularly vocal and won't respond
to, the usually effective, shhhhhh. I can only imagine the frustration the
people at the RIAA feel with so many smart people trying to figure out how to
take them out of the picture. Including many musicians!

------
tss
Great visual design. Throw together a "getting started" or a "features" page
with screen shots of the functionality that the website offers.

In my opinion this is something that Wordpress does especially well:
<http://wordpress.com/features/>

------
curiousgeorge
I really, really like the simplicity of the interface. The slow-typing/auto-
complete was irritating until I realized why it was taking so long, and then I
liked it for finding new music.

This is much better than Baidu's MP3 search. You should run this in China and
make some serious cash.

------
yago
looks awesome. two questions: 1) which technologies was used? 2) how do you
handle high loads?

~~~
louislouis
1) php,mysql,js,flash 2) Not very well. My server is dying. I'm about to
upgrade but I'll have to take the site down for the nameservers to propogate
to the new ips. Anyone know how long this takes?

I considered using amazon for scaling but the article below this one says
amazon is down, hehe.

~~~
izaidi
I'm not an expert on this stuff but if you're just changing the IPs and not
the actual NS records for the domain, the changes will be pretty much
instantaneous, depending on how quickly your DNS service registers updates. I
use DNS Made Easy and they usually take about ten or twenty minutes to accept
a changed IP; once it goes into their records it's reflected everywhere
immediately.

------
Hexstream
The Login and Signup... "links" don't even feel like they're clickable because
they're not underlined, the cursor changes to text editing instead of a hand,
and there's no hover effect at all. Same for the X's to close the login and
register popups.

------
sallywu
A bit slow, but steadily I find I can find what songs I want and build up
those playlists. Feels good - <http://webpoet.wordpress.com/2008/07/21/mean-
green/>

------
rmason
I liked it. For my search it brought back some very obscure artists so I am
not sure where you're getting your data. But I discovered some music I liked
by some new artists so that was great. Memorable URL.

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mpc
This is great but with the RIAA suing 12 year olds and all, I'm pretty sure
they'll shut you down for allowing me to listen to the beatles and metallica
for free.

Awesome app though. It looks like a great starting point.

------
nickmolnar
It would be pretty cool to export finished playlists to Muxtape. I mean, you
can create your own playlist sharing system, but might as well play along with
the marginally bigger dogs.

------
volida
I tried it from explorer first it didn't work (search for avril lavigne), and
it just showed the picture for loading. the same with firefox and then
returned can't open file

am I doing something wrong?

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senthil_rajasek
this is sick... mainly because I was able to find what I wanted right there...

wondering how long before someone else copies this idea and takes it
mainstream... also the elephant in the room, DRM.

------
pchristensen
Please change the blog so I can subscribe to it. I'd love to see how this
develops over time. Plus, if I'm ever feeling timid, I can just go check out
that turtle :)

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axod
Slow enough to be useless here. A search took a few minutes :/

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boucher
Several times the song has started, but then whatever method is used to
determine if its working caused it to stop and keep looking for another
source.

------
gscott
Now on cNet WebWare <http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-9995938-2.html>

------
dandelany
I'm not sure what possessed you to design a music player UI without a
Play/Pause button! Other than that, looks great.

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mds
Needs controls to play/stop/pause, and a volume slider please!

I also hate having my right-click menu hijacked. Please re-think that...

------
tptacek
That turtle scares me. Otherwise, awesome.

~~~
mpc
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMNry4PE93Y>

~~~
tptacek
<http://www.gaianation.net/org/animalia.html>

------
run4yourlives
Where are you grabbing the tunes from? Isn't RIAA going to go ballistic and
shut off your supply?

------
jayjay69
don't understand what the fuss is about, there are plenty of website like that
around, in particular i use www.melodyshot.com, its the same concept, only
difference is you can download and there a way way more results.

------
t0pj
Instant access to Barry Manilow; Mix Turtle Rox!

...i write the songs...i write the songs.

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boucher
having three different X's in the playlist view gets pretty confusing. perhaps
use "clear" for the clear playlist feature and a trash can for the remove item
feature.

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lakeeffect
Need a visual for pausing and playing. Looks and works well.

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geuis
need audio controls. Pause, play, stop, next, back, etc. Ability to build a
playlist and then just have it loop through your playlist, or shuffle through
it.

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greendestiny
Needs a volume slider. Hate the turtle but thats just me.

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justInTime
Amazing!! 5 stars!! Will definitely buy again :-)

------
randome
great design, so far it is still searching and its been like 3 minutes ... so
I don't know what to say

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brandonkm
by far, the most badass turtle i've seen.

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mstefff
still searching after 2 minutes...

------
wenbert
this is awesome! ^_^

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agentbleu
louislouis great start.

I'm some competition...lol

<http://www.myplaylist.biz/>

I would recommend Linode for hosting/scaling. you need controls, SEO advice,
legal statement - have a read of this: [http://thenextweb.org/2008/01/30/the-
music-wars-continue-war...](http://thenextweb.org/2008/01/30/the-music-wars-
continue-warner-bros-records-vs-seeqpod/)

Good luck with the app, it looks great.

~~~
mediageek
The site is pretty slick. Though, I have to admit that there are many sites
that do pretty much what you have done. Nevertheless, I guess it’s a huge
market and there is room for many players. Question to agentbleu( I have used
myplaylist.biz, interesting!) • How do u monetize such service- Google ads? •
How do handle the legal issues with music companies. This scares the shit out
of me. I was reading about Michael legal issues with music comp and how they
were targeting his car, house and everything. • Though u don’t store any music
files, why would legal folks come after you

