Mixest
Consumer and social
music discovery
SHOW HN2012
Mixest
Mixest was a project I built this summer because Pandora is too mainstream and Spotify isn't random enough.
mixest.com219points
73comments
#67of 1,677 in 2012
Top 4%of 2012 by points
How HN took it
MixedNo clear lean
29 positive, 18 neutral or asking, 15 mixed, 4 critical, out of 66 comments about the project. Thread score +0.37.
Design: 8 for, 0 againstExecution: 3 for, 2 againstIdea: 2 for, 2 againstDocs: 3 for, 0 againstPricing: 2 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Simple, clean interface with instant playback
From 4 comments
Woah, blew my ears off. I did not expect it to start playing instantly. Awesomeness past that. Simple. Quick. No bullshit. I usually don't use services like this but I find…
bryanh on HNIt's a play button, and when you press it it actually just starts playing cool music? I didn't know that sort of straightforwardness and intuitiveness was even possible. Why…
notatoad on HNThe site is incredible. I love the design and the extraordinary simplicity in functionality. To make a side comment, this seems like an ideal MVP. It gets all the core…
tsurantino on HNGuys/gals in need of ideas to hack together: this is a perfect example of what to aim for. A minimal, easy to use app that draws a passionate niche. Easier said then done, I…
monty_singh on HN
Good music selection and discovery of new artists
From 3 comments
Love this, already found a great new artist I love. Well done. Another vote for a little more info on where the track was found so information on the artist can be chased down.
51Cards on HNMusic selection is good. Simple to use. Good stuff man
chaostheory on HNSuper love to it. Beautiful interface and beautiful songs.
studyro on HN
Good design and colours
From 2 comments
Very good execution and a good choice for the domain name. The design (green/white/red/hearts) reminds me of http://hypem.com/ - you should check it out if you haven't. It's got…
chime on HNLove it. The last.fm scrobble is a nice touch. Makes this site all the more awesome to use. Simple, effective design too.. Love it.
darkdefender on HN
Objections
Wants accounts or persistent saved favourites
From 3 comments
I am absolutely loving this. Any chance of more permanent accounts though? Local storage/cookies are something I go through quite often, plus I'd love to be able to go back to…
selectout on HNI'm loving every single song it's selecting for me. Is there a way I can login and save my loved songs (apart from scrobbling) ? So I liked a song, then I clicked scrobble , it…
hardik988 on HNThis is truly outstanding. Please allow me to create an account so I can come back to my favorites (or make the UI clearer as to what is saved for me and what's not).
johnnyg on HN
Missing artist, song and source-blog info or download/buy links
From 4 comments
Woah, blew my ears off. I did not expect it to start playing instantly. Awesomeness past that. Simple. Quick. No bullshit. I usually don't use services like this but I find…
bryanh on HNGreat execution, no barrier to playing. If I understand what you are doing correctly (scraping mp3 blogs), most of the music is provided to the blogs by artist (or PR) for…
ooobo on HNLove this, already found a great new artist I love. Well done. Another vote for a little more info on where the track was found so information on the artist can be chased down.
51Cards on HNA link to download/buy the music or even Artist's profile would be helpful. Love the colors, and the minimalistic UI.
ealize on HN
Music skews toward indie rock and less electronic
From 2 comments
Love the music so far, but it seems biased toward indie rock. Is that by design? I prefer electronic music, am I out of luck?
msutherl on HNAwesome. I hate indie rock, but I still love Mixest. Kudos.
MaxwellM on HN
Flash dependency breaks on some browsers
From 2 comments
In both Firefox(ESR) and Chrome(v22) I am getting a message that I don't have the latest Flash installed. When I click on the message, adobe says I already have it. (no flash…
ojiikun on HNOkay, fought this for 10-15 minutes and discovered that it was my security settings in Firefox and my c-t-p settings in Chrome that were breaking things. Please switch to HTML5…
ojiikun on HN
Requests
Add user accounts or saved favourites
From 3 comments
I am absolutely loving this. Any chance of more permanent accounts though? Local storage/cookies are something I go through quite often, plus I'd love to be able to go back to…
selectout on HNThe site is incredible. I love the design and the extraordinary simplicity in functionality. To make a side comment, this seems like an ideal MVP. It gets all the core…
tsurantino on HNThis is truly outstanding. Please allow me to create an account so I can come back to my favorites (or make the UI clearer as to what is saved for me and what's not).
johnnyg on HN
Link to source blog, artist and purchase pages
From 3 comments
Woah, blew my ears off. I did not expect it to start playing instantly. Awesomeness past that. Simple. Quick. No bullshit. I usually don't use services like this but I find…
bryanh on HNGreat execution, no barrier to playing. If I understand what you are doing correctly (scraping mp3 blogs), most of the music is provided to the blogs by artist (or PR) for…
ooobo on HNGreat stuff! I've really been enjoying this--the interface is clean and it's a great experience. If you write up more about how you find the songs or the tech under the hood, I'd…
Matt_Cutts on HN
Volume control
From 2 comments
Is there any way to change the volume?
Dilan on HNAwesome stuff ! Would be nice to have volume control though..
_void on HN
Mobile-friendly version
From 2 comments
mobile version is needed!
PhilipDaineko on HNgreat execution for all the reasons already mentioned. since it's layout is already simple and modular, a couple of meta tags and @media styles in your CSS would be good to make…
flexxaeon on HN
Blog post about the tech
From 2 comments
Congrats on re-launching! Could you tell us a little about the tech? I think some folks would be interested in hearing about the node crawler and maybe a little about how it…
agotterer on HNThis is awesome, I've been using it for the last couple of hours now really nicely done. Would love a blog post explaining the development process and the choices you made.
DigitalSea on HN
Questions
How is the music legally sourced?
From 2 comments
Great execution, no barrier to playing. If I understand what you are doing correctly (scraping mp3 blogs), most of the music is provided to the blogs by artist (or PR) for…
ooobo on HNI love it. I really wish there was a link to more information about the artist or at least to where the crawler found the audio. I'm sure the artists would appreciate it also. On…
mbell on HN
How does the crawler determine indie and pick blogs?
From 3 comments
Can you give any details on how you determine the music found is Indie? Are you looking for just Indie keywords or cross referencing a database?
squiggy22 on HNAwesome site. Im curious as to how you defined your heuristics? Finding good obscure music seems like a hard thing to do programmatically. It seems like you would want to find…
bbarrows on HNawesome, i love the simplicity! i'm curious, how are you seeding your crawler and determining attributes for the next song recommendation? from my understanding, pandora has a…
ammmir on HN
Will the code be released?
From 1 comment
Do you plan on releasing the code?
mrnil on HN
What happened with the PHP virus?
From 1 comment
love it. can you give some insight regarding the "php virus"?
xsc on HN
Alternatives named
Hype Machine
From 3 comments
Very good execution and a good choice for the domain name. The design (green/white/red/hearts) reminds me of http://hypem.com/ - you should check it out if you haven't. It's got…
chime on HNHypeM.com actually has a fixed set of blogs that it gets music from. I mean, I guess you could say it crawls those posts on those blogs, but it just doesnt crawl 'the web' per…
justindocanto on HNThis looks really great. The big problem with hypem I've found is that the popular tracks is completely under crowd control and wheres I used to use the service to find music…
jordn on HN
Songza
From 1 comment
this is great. I've discovered songza earlier this year and have been using that. well done man!
circa on HN
Grooveshark radio
From 1 comment
I definitely prefer it to Grooveshark radio. Nice and simple. The interface is a bit confusing, I pressed the music button thinking it was broken. Maybe add tooltips? Also, using…
SquareWheel on HN
Indy
From 1 comment
I have fond memories of discovering nice indie music with something called Indy, which was released in 2005 by Ian Clarke (of Freenet fame)…
a3_nm on HN