

Review my startup: Mixlr - transmit101
http://rfw.posterous.com/mixlr-on-hacker-news

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bdickason
One advantage I'd add to your Posterous is that the two main 'live' streaming
sites (Ustream/JustinTv) don't accomodate audio very well. They're optimized
for better video quality and as a DJ, I find that they mangle my music.

Now for some feedback! 1) The 'Create My account' button is dimmed out, even
after I've completed the form!

2) The 'Password' tooltips aren't really that helpful because they don't give
me any guidance as to how long my password should be. They're cute, but I had
to hit 'submit' to find out that it had to be a minimum 6 characters.

3) The 'About' box on the signup page says something along the lines of 'If
you're a DJ or a live act, Mixlr is for you!' I didn't find this very
compelling compared to this line on your posterous: "If you are a DJ or part
of a live act, you may have already found that it can be surprisingly hard to
broadcast yourself live on the web." I would suggest swapping them :) I
couldn't get back to the original signup page to get an exact quote.

4) Signup process is nice and easy! I didn't try the Fbook/Soundcloud
integration but a brief blurb on why I would want to tie them together would
be great. For example a cool picture of how the facebook integration would
look (sharing your live stream with your friends!) would be ideal. Bonus
points if you get a celebrity DJ to take the screenshot of his/her account :)

5) I liked being able to set my location on a map. Felt much more personal
than just typing in my City/State into some text box (even though thats what I
was really doing!)

6) I haven't received my e-mail yet but i'll try to post more feedback when I
get in! :)

Thanks for posting your app here. Makes me super anxious to complete my app so
I can post for some feedback :D

~~~
dolinsky
I did receive my email, and here are some of my thoughts from that point on (I
agree with most of the points above).

1) After completing the registration form, I was not immediately signed in.
Before I got my email, I tried to log in and was told that my combination
wasn't valid (it was). I then received the email, clicked on the link, and the
resulting page told me 'link has expired'. I then closed both mixlr.com
browser tabs that were open, clicked the link again and it took me to a page
that said 'you are already logged in'. Weird session-y experience. I would
expect to be logged in immediately and use the link to verify my email
address.

2) I understand this is just getting off the ground, but do you plan on
displaying a list of previously uploaded / currently playing streams?

3) Do you plan on establishing a 'public / private' capability so that certain
streams would only be known by the passing around of the link?

Best of luck w/ the site.

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jasonkester
All your buttons and links look disabled until you mouse over them. I kept
finding myself stuck during signup, trying to figure out what information I
was missing that would enable the Continue button.

I expected, once finally in, to find a site where I could listen to the
aforementioned live/saved music. Since the page I saw was empty, I tried
clicking on my username, which brought me to a page containing absolutely
nothing except my username in a bigger font.

No links to anything at all.

Now what???

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illumin8
Cool business model! A couple suggestions:

1\. I'd like to be able to see pricing information before I sign up. This
would be convenient because I don't want to sign up for something without
knowing how much it will cost me.

2\. An ad supported pricing option would be nice for those of us that don't
want to pay anything. Bonus points if it doesn't insert audio ads, but instead
uses Adwords in the listening interface or something similar.

3\. The licensing agreement seems a little onerous. It sounds almost like I'm
giving you complete royalty free ability to sell my music wherever you want.
You should specify that I am only giving Mixlr.com the right to perform my
music for the purpose of streaming to users of the Mixlr.com service, and for
no other purposes. Serious musicians aren't going to use this service if it
involves signing away in perpetuity their copyrights.

USER hereby grants Mixlr.com and its successors and assigns a worldwide,
perpetual, non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free, fully paid up, license to
use, copy, transmit or otherwise distribute, publicly perform, digitally
perform, publicly display, distribute, stream, download and/or otherwise make
USER’s Content available to other users of Mixlr.com’s Website and Services.
USER also grants each and every other registered user of Mixlr.com’s Website a
worldwide, perpetual, non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free, fully paid up,
license to use, copy, transmit or otherwise distribute, publicly perform,
digitally perform, publicly display, distribute, stream, download USER's
content and/or otherwise to make USER’s Content available to other users of
Mixlr.com’s Website and Services as set forth herein.

~~~
transmit101
Thanks. I take your point about the license: it's a pretty generic one. I will
look into that.

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jessor
Great idea. You're solving a problem for quite a bunch of people. It looks
pretty cool, too.

> Sorry, Windows and Linux users: we definitely have you in mind, but we want
> to get our Mac application perfect before we release for other platforms.

Only theoretically yet, though, since linux users probably feel the greatest
pain there.

Anyways, best of luck! I'll be testing when a linux client is available :-)

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snsr
Tthe simplicity is beautiful.

A native mobile client (even if wifi-only) and a Flash desktop client would
make this an absolute slam dunk. A discovery or "now playing" feature would of
course be cool. The grayed-out color scheme (text:bg) can be a bit straining.

I would have killed for an app like this back in the day. It's actually kind
of inspiring - makes me want to set up my decks again. Can't wait to give it a
shot.

------
jot
If you're wondering what it does, it's like Justin.tv for sound - a super
simple way to share live music.

... and it's awesome!

------
NathanKP
Here are my questions about Mixlr (cross posted from the posterous blog):

Mixlr sounds like a great service. I have a few other questions though:

What is the quality of music stored by Mixlr? CD quality? MP3 quality? This is
something audiophiles will be interested in.

Do you plan to convert to a paid service in the future to support yourself
financially? If so what will happen to current members?

Will there be copyright problems if a DJ is playing songs, for instance, and
then saves his performance on Mixlr? If the performance afterward gives public
access to download copyright material you might run into some trouble with
record companies.

~~~
transmit101
> What is the quality of music stored by Mixlr? CD quality? MP3 quality?

At present: 128kbps MP3 (near-CD quality), both streaming and stored. This is
much higher than most streaming services but lower than SoundCloud. Both
numbers may change in future depending on a number of factors.

> Do you plan to convert to a paid service in the future to support yourself
> financially

It is already a paid service, with free credit for new users. I haven't
settled on the exact business plan however. A lot of people have suggested a
free option at low bit-rate, which is an idea I find interesting.

------
edkennedy
A startup that feels completely relevant to me! I can get back to you after I
try my first live broadcast. I truly enjoy the integration with soundcloud,
facebook and twitter. I think this is going to really be a key selling point,
because of the ability to promote your streams right away. Is there a way to
integrate the comments into your twitter/fb feeds? I hope so.

As someone who started out with shoutcast long ago sharing my dj mixes on two
turntables and a microphone, I am extremely interested in the development of
this project. Thanks for your innovation.

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lyime
Mixlr looks great, seems like someone is finally taking live set broadcasting
seriously. I co-founded Mugasha (<http://mugasha.com>) and we currently work
with quite a few venues and DJs to broadcast their live events. Mostly video,
sometimes audio only. We setup our own streaming infrastructure to handle
stream but it's not our focus. Seems like we could definitely work together.
Drop me a line at akshay at mugasha.com.

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flat_20
How do I remove my account? It sounds like a nice idea but I'm on Windows and
without the live upload feature I have to stick to recording to another
laptop.

~~~
grk
That's the single most annoying thing on most new webapps.

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mikerhoads
I'm at work right now so I can't get in and play around too much but I'm
wondering why your front page makes zero effort to explain what the site
actually does. Sure most HN users would see the record logo and see the word
mix in the site name and put 2 and 2 together but you have to assume less of
the average person. Just a sentence describing the product would do wonders.

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fizzfur
looks interesting, I'm not sure the signup/intro page quite put across _why_ I
should use the service enough, I only 'got it' a bit later. But as a set
hosting service I would probably use it anyway.

few thoughts (some already covered):

    
    
      * buttons look disabled, I was waiting for them to un-ghost
      * the "skip" links should be more prominent during signup since at the time it slowed me down.
      * signup/design was generally very friendly
      * please don't alert me to sign-out, I know what I'm doing, and it's not that bad if I made the mistake
    

PS: enjoy my set <http://mixlr.com/chrisfarms/euromuxer>

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hassy
I will use this.

One suggestion: give me a list of mixes to listen to right after I sign up. I
had to go to your twitter page to find something.

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patrickryan
I get an error message when uploading an .mp3:

 _"If you're sure your internet connection works, then we recommend you either
use Google Chrome (this is the recommended option - you don't actually need
Flash if you're using Chrome), or install Flash."_

This statement confuses me since I am using Chrome, my connection is good, and
I do have Flash installed.

~~~
transmit101
Hmmm. Thanks for reporting. Mixlr uses WebSockets when available (i.e.,
Chrome) and falls back to Flash, so this error probably means the WebSocket
port was blocked for some reason, maybe a firewall. I agree the error message
is a bit skewed in this case. I am going to do some more work to minimize this
kind of problem, it's not perfect yet.

------
fretlessjazz
The recording geek in me absolutely loves that you've managed to insert XLR
into a company name. Well done!

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edkennedy
I think a twitter hashtag is essential here. The quality is great, and the
dj's talented. The mixes I listened to I found on the mixlr twitter feed. I
hope you plan on eventually having some way to search these mixes or some kind
of directory.

------
kcbanner
No Linux/Windows client? Fairly big turn off for those of us who can't afford
turtlenecks.

~~~
transmit101
Bear with us, Windows and Linux support is in the pipeline.

------
quizbiz
Top notch design. The posterous doesn't do you justice. Great step by step
sign up process. I just didn't like how it automatically opens up finder to
browse for a pic (unless I accidentally clicked).

------
grrrr
Firstly, how is this different to or better than SoundCloud?

Secondly, I don't appear to be able to search for or find existing uploaded
mixes, is this intentional or have I missed something?

~~~
transmit101
It's really quite different from SoundCloud. Mixlr is about sharing live
(streaming) music, while SoundCloud is about moving MP3 and WAV files about
the internet. There is some crossover of course but a completely different
focus.

I will be building a search/discovery mechanism when there is more music to
search for and discover :-)

~~~
p3ll0n
I think search/discovery is going to be what really makes this service
special. I imagine one day being able to see all live music being streamed
from venues in my area at the moment, maybe even a link to the venue, the
band's homepage, similar acts, etc.

Right now you have a great tool that helps artists connect with their existing
fan base in a way that removes previous technological barriers and streamlines
the process, but what about new potential fans?

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igorgue
When I learn to do this: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaoLbKWMwoU>

I'll definitely use Mixlr.

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Johngibb
I think that the white outline with such a light background has the effect of
making the text appear blurry and hard to read.

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stef25
Cool idea! Would love to hear a bit more about the technology & platform
behind it.

------
jaxn
Not enough vowels ;)

