Music Browser, Not "Music Service Client" | Hacker News Reader

Music Browser, Not "Music Service Client"

zedshaw.com

27 pointsicey20 comments

Zed is having an awfully hard time convincing people about this idea. He really needs to either just build it already or drop it. I mean, we get it. You want to build a music browser. We don't "get" your vision. Yes, ok, fine. Get on with it already. What are you waiting for? Time spent wanking about on your blog is time not spent writing code.

There is absolutely no reason for you to be this negative. If this was Joe Schmoe's random blog, I don't think you'd be making these kinds of statements.

I don't see anything negative about what he said. Build the thing, or don't. Whether you believe Zed's previous outbursts were Andy Kaufman'esque genius or simply the tantrums of a petulant child, he brought this scrutiny on himself.

My opinion, of course; I'm often wrong.

> Zed is having an awfully hard time convincing people about this idea.

I speak only for me here, but he has a hard time convincing me because I don't understand what the heck it /is/. Maybe I'm too daft to 'get it' (totally likely), but I agree with you; build it or don't build it, but stop trying to tell me what it is not.

Seems really damn simple:

A web browser visits host.domain and gets documents

An SFTP client visits host.domain and gets files

A music client visits host.domain and gets music

Ie, like the program you have open now, except it only shows the music produced at news.yc.com, rather than this page.

Interesting. Sounds like a solution looking for a problem to solve. It will be interesting to see where this goes.

How does a Music Browser differ from an Internet Browser then? Because I can open up my Internet Browser, type "http://zedshaw.com/ and listen to music created by Zed. (ok, I do then have to click the "Music" link but that's the website owners choice).

EDIT: Ok, this is a followup to a previous blog post here http://zedshaw.com/blog/2009-12-21.html

What he describes there actual sounds kind of cool :)

I would probably refer to it as a music protocol, rather than a music browser.

It's kind like the difference between URI and URN.

The 'Music Browser' meant to point directly to the true spirit of the original music, nothing else. The browsing process is the exploring of those artistic minds and jumping between derivatives.

iTunes and Last.FM are just pointing to instance of the music class

This might be worth checking out: http://rel.me/2008/09/23/shrub-s3-proxy-service-on-google-ap...

Sounds like oEmbed might come useful here ( http://www.oembed.com/ ) - you could have an oEmbed link for "my music" in zedshaw.com, and a browser extension (or dedicated app etc) that reads these particular oEmbed URLs.

I worked at a startup that did this. It was a cool idea, but there weren't enough users who cared.

> Type zedshaw.com.

> Browse and listen to music I’ve created.

If I type Miley Cyrus (just example, no offence), will it list only the songs she wrote herself or all those she performed? What exactly does 'created' mean?

recording a performance is an act of creation.

Your point is interesting, and made me think about the way people primarily look for classical music - by composer.

If this whole scheme is to be based on some notion of "creator," then the the way this would be organized seems to be pretty dependent on some standard definition of creation, and maybe even of art.

Seems like it could get pretty hairy.

In other words: this is about publishing, specifically who's doing the publishing. In the current world, entities other than the artist publish the artist's music. Zed wants to create a music-only browser that retrieves and renders metadata that is published directly by the artist. Get rid of the publisher/distributor in-between the artist and the listener. This is definitely where the world is headed. I don't think a new browser is the missing bridge to getting there, though.

I have a hard time understanding why someone would make or use this. Music distribution is by no means a solved problem, but what would a music browser accomplish? Why would people publish their music on this instead of the web?

Sounds fairly similar to SoundCloud (http://soundcloud.com/) in that the purpose is to share music that one has created.

'SoundCloud takes the daily hassle out of receiving, sending & distributing music for artists, record labels & other music professionals.'

Zed's primary users are people who listen to music, not music professionals.

I think you misunderstood what Zed's trying to describe. He doesn't want a website to do this. He's basically trying to create a protocol for music distribution. So instead of http://google.com you'd go to mp3://google.com and you could browse the website just like it were an album, etc.

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