Joined: 10 Jan 2008
Posts: 265
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Posted: 08/05/11 17:59
bigguy:
Prawn:
I think establish what the purpose of Jamroom is first and what its future is.. then it can move forward and make changes to join the rest of the social world in the 21st century.
Cause it cant run with the same GOALS it had when starting, thats just not evolutionary...
You'll be seeing an announcement in the near future that directly addresses this.
Thanks!
- Brian
I'm looking forward to hearing what's going to happen. When I first started working with Jamroom, it was Myspace that was a threat, then came Ning.com and now Facebook.
What I am really intimidated by is the comment most people at clubs and concerts say. When I talk about music sites or online radio. I hear back; "Who needs them, I have Pandora now".
I do recognize there will always be the minority who do not follow all the latest trends and are satisfied with what works. Those are the members who sign up with us.
With today's tech it's becoming very clear, we need to be smart mobile ready. I think flash players are cumbersome. Many iPad users and Android tab users have difficulty with it or can't display it at all.
I'm talking to programmers right now about pulling all our data into an App first for Android and then for iPhone. This will be after I finish turning off or editing out all the features people do not care to use anymore.
Blogs= Dead (Went out with mySpace, admin blogs are only used on my site)
Events= Need to be able to be entered via mobile. (Bands say all the time they have them listed on Facebook and that's good enough).
Personal Forums= Not once have I even seen a member or band use them.
Guestbook= Re-title it "Tag Wall" and users start using them.
Vault=Great for the Jamroom owners to assemble compilation download zips. Cumbersome to figure out for Artist or Members.
Songs= I haven't sold one. People buy from Amazon, iTunes, Zune. big names they trust.
Radio Stations= People want to download the streams to their mobile. They don't want to sit in front of a PC much anymore.
Those are some the major blocks I can list off the top of my head.
The ePad and iPad are the future and if we are not ready for it, we are just spinning our wheels.
_________________ Labels are obsolete as we know them...
I agree with you pitrager on what you said. Im hoping for somthing to happen really big with jamroom. It just seems like you can't pay someone to join a site.
_________________ Thanks so Much,
It's all coming back to me now!
www.sgmdigital.com
BJ
I think establish what the purpose of Jamroom is first and what its future is.. then it can move forward and make changes to join the rest of the social world in the 21st century.
Cause it cant run with the same GOALS it had when starting, thats just not evolutionary...
You'll be seeing an announcement in the near future that directly addresses this.
Thanks!
- Brian
Blogs= Dead (Went out with mySpace, admin blogs are only used on my site)
Events= Need to be able to be entered via mobile. (Bands say all the time they have them listed on Facebook and that's good enough).
Personal Forums= Not once have I even seen a member or band use them.
Guestbook= Re-title it "Tag Wall" and users start using them.
Vault=Great for the Jamroom owners to assemble compilation download zips. Cumbersome to figure out for Artist or Members.
Songs= I haven't sold one. People buy from Amazon, iTunes, Zune. big names they trust.
Radio Stations= People want to download the streams to their mobile. They don't want to sit in front of a PC much anymore.
Good points
Clicks
It takes WAY to many clicks to get anywhere in jamroom and achieve anything. Even in the admin you are clicking left right and center sometimes i even get dizzy spells from the white cursor moving around my screen, not to mention the carpal tunnel in the mouse finger. with Ajax and all these nifty other items around, we could cut out 80% of the clicking ,thus making it already a much better user experience.
Remember many people are using mobile phones to access sites, more than 1, 2 clicks is and instant skip site...
Yea your right about that as well prawn! not directed to anybody with there opinions, we all get frustrated.
I must say I want find support anywhere else like here in Jamroom! These guys do a good job,I don't have a lot complaints, but I do get frustrated. It seems you have to go through the act of congress to make something work. I'm ok with some things on Jamroom, but man it would be cool to have some tutorial videos on the site, even though there are docs and forums. I mean a step by step voice over guide to demonstrate things. Yeah a lot of clicking I agree. I'll be with Jamroom until the day of departure. From my eyes it just Bigguy, Greg, Kyle, Sixstring, making all this happen1 Hats off to ya! Doing a great job. Just keep some great things coming!
_________________ Thanks so Much,
It's all coming back to me now!
www.sgmdigital.com
BJ
Well i think because i am doing a lot of moaning of late it seems only fair to list some possible items to work on and help make the whole system run better.
Also before anyone posts JAMROOM ALREADY DOES THIS, i know it more than likely can, but the way in which it handles it and the way in witch it goes about making various features possible is not user friendly etc.
Once again as always these are just my opinions and should not take away from the fact that JR still is the most powerful and only MCMS out there.
Blog
Nice idea but its not that well executed and to be honest lacks tonnes of BLOG capabilities a system like wordpress offers (they specialize in being a blog... i know). Either it needs to get a serious overhaul or should be removed and replaced with integration modules for a system like wordpress or joomla etc I would advise seriously checking out wordpress and if possible get the blog functioning along those lines if it is to stay.
Forum
Same as the blog...lacks so many features and functions to qualify as a real forum, surely a plugin / module for Phpbb / vbulletin would be better. Also the forum culture has died and i wonder if a forum without all the bells and whistles can survive when a full blow forum in todays internet age suffers. Personally its a dead feature and a massive spam collector.
Gallery
Time consuming like no other task on earth. Seriously there is ZERO pleasure derived from using the Gallery system, even with all the upload , mass upload modules.
There has to be a FAST simple way to upload, add captions, tag friends in the gallery. Anything less and it is a rather dead section of the site. It needs t involve the user more and allow interaction, TAGGING a friend / band will be a big help. etc etc People upload pics on facebook cause its EASY fast and fun compared to any site out there. Even the layout and the way the users browses or views the gallery is not well laid out at all.
Stations & Channels
Creating and maintaining playlists and having reference of what you have played have not played do not exist. They operate very simple and easy for a site thats small, but when u have 1000's of song to browse or videos, its painful, lots of clicks. There needs to be a way to track what you played, have not played, whats hot etc within the admin.
Quotas
The BIGGEST and most important change Jamroom needs is the way the core handles Users / Artists / Members.
There should be ONE user account, this account has a profile, this should be the REAL PERSON.
Then any users should be able to create a PROFILE.
Other users should be able to apply to be an admin of the profile if they are band members etc without loosing their personal profile.
The profile each users can create should be determined by pre defined categories, eg Bands, Comedians, Venues, etc
Also if you LEAVE your profile you should not loose all your info, nor should you loose it when converting. Currently with Jamroom if i have 5 users and they are added / converted from fans to artists who manage that artists profile, the loose their personal profiles.
A users should have his profile...then he should also manage a profile. At no point should they been loosing it the way they are now.
I need to explain this better i know..
Ultimately Jamroom has to improve the experience for the fans, cause the band shave the best features on the net available to them, just the fans are are not being taken care of.
Joined: 09 Jul 2003
Posts: 37583
Location: Seattle, WA
Posted: 08/06/11 17:00
Thanks everyone for the feedback so far - it really is appreciated.
Jamroom wouldn't be over 8 years old now without users like you that take the time to provide feedback on what works/doesn't work. A LOT of features in Jamroom could really be considered "legacy" now (perfect example: the guestbook - in 2003 when Jamroom was first released, having a Guestbook on your band site was needed - not so much anymore), and you're absolutely right - many of these need to be revisited/rethought and ultimately decisions have to be made.
The good news is that this is already well underway, and has been for several months now, so we're well on our way to something new that will be announced in the near future. I'm not ready to preview it yet, since Kyle and I still have some work to do when he gets back from vacation, and some "under the hood" decisions still need to be made, but I can assure you that what's coming along is not just an evolutionary "update" to Jamroom 4.
So thanks again for the feedback - please keep it coming, as it is really appreciated.
Joined: 09 Jul 2003
Posts: 37583
Location: Seattle, WA
Posted: 08/06/11 17:15
BJ Walters:
Thanks for all you do bigguy and tour support team. Keep it coming!
Thank you for this - I really appreciate it. Long time forum members will know that I've been "off my forum game" for most of this year as I have (literally) had my head buried in code for so many months now that I'm not able to be on the forum as much as I used to, which bugs me. the other Jamroom team members have really stepped up and taken over for me in this regards, and that has allowed me to get a bunch of things done over the last 6 months, as well as learn mobile development (which was way more intensive than I initially thought it would be). I'm super excited about the future too - I think everyone is going to really dig what we're working on - hopefully in 2012 I can finally get back to being online more, and finally come out the "development cave"
bigguy - the work and support you guys offer is phenomenal.
I have and still am offering my site to you, to use as a LIVE SITE to test stuff on, i believe using a real LIVE environment instead of the demo will provide some better results.
bigguy - the work and support you guys offer is phenomenal.
I have and still am offering my site to you, to use as a LIVE SITE to test stuff on, i believe using a real LIVE environment instead of the demo will provide some better results.
I look forward to Jamroom Version 5.0
You should never test in a live environment. You are better off building a test directory and using a backup of the database or using a subset of data to mimic the live environment. This way you achieve the same results without putting your production environment at risk.
bigguy - the work and support you guys offer is phenomenal.
I have and still am offering my site to you, to use as a LIVE SITE to test stuff on, i believe using a real LIVE environment instead of the demo will provide some better results.
I look forward to Jamroom Version 5.0
You should never test in a live environment. You are better off building a test directory and using a backup of the database or using a subset of data to mimic the live environment. This way you achieve the same results without putting your production environment at risk.
bigguy - the work and support you guys offer is phenomenal.
I have and still am offering my site to you, to use as a LIVE SITE to test stuff on, i believe using a real LIVE environment instead of the demo will provide some better results.
I look forward to Jamroom Version 5.0
You should never test in a live environment. You are better off building a test directory and using a backup of the database or using a subset of data to mimic the live environment. This way you achieve the same results without putting your production environment at risk.
not that kind of testing
Lost me but ok. I test software for a living so any time someone mentions testing in a production environment I cringe. The results can be catastrophic.
Once something is working and bug free, JR need to monitor it in a REAL enviroment to see how users find it and what the issues of usability are..Not talking about using a live site to debug modules..
More as a place to see how users interact with the software once live..
Once something is working and bug free, JR need to monitor it in a REAL enviroment to see how users find it and what the issues of usability are..Not talking about using a live site to debug modules..
More as a place to see how users interact with the software once live..
I understand what you are saying but it really is already done. A developer works on the new code and will unit test it. Then it will go to an integration test with all new/existing code. Then Brian will usually have people beta test the code. This is typically when everything gets weeded out from defects to user acceptance testing (UAT). Finally once everything is done, my guess is Brian has some automation testing behind the scene that will do regression testing and make sure none of the new code broke the old code. You might want to see if you can get on the beta team.
Joined: 21 Apr 2009
Posts: 1482
Location: San Francisco CA
Posted: 08/09/11 10:53
^ 2nd that. I believe the beta testing (in this community) tests more functionality (ie does it work or not) vs User Interface/Interaction. I feel like there are a lot of Jamroom users that "want" cooler features, but there aren't as many developers on the forefront. I'm hoping Earner.net changes that....I'm on board with the path that's going down!
not directed to anybody with there opinions, we all get frustrated.
