How do YOU want to share music?
The web is a fragmented place. Although there’s plenty of common practises, there isn’t a strict set of rules that everyone abides to. This can make sharing content between different ecosystems somewhat difficult. I’m building an app that aims to break down some of these barriers around sharing music, but I need some help. I know how I would like things to work, but I’m curious to know how you would share music in an ideal world. The problem can be broken down into a few categories:
Public vs Private
If you wanted to share a song with someone, would you prefer to make an open recommendation, such as posting on their Facebook Wall, or would you rather send them a private message and discuss it between yourselves? The great thing about public sharing is that other people can chime in and it can often create unexpected music discoveries between friends. But at the same time, there’s something special about sharing music back and forth between two people.
Push vs Pull
Do you prefer to broadcast music discoveries and send tracks to specific people (Push), or would you rather build a music profile that collected everything you liked and let people make discoveries through exploring it (Pull)? You see music being ‘pushed’ everywhere, on Facebook, in Blogs and on various services, but I see any great examples of ‘Pull’. Is this because people don’t want it or no one has nailed it yet?
Dedicated vs Distributed
Do you want a destination that is devoted to music and sharing or would you rather have the tools to share music through the communication channels you already use (Facebook, Twitter, Email)?
Scavenging vs Selection
Are you the sort who scours music blogs and websites in search of new sounds or do you prefer your music served on a platter, for easing picking from a selection that is targeted to your tastes?
There’s plenty more ways to think about it, but these are four areas that I’ve been giving plenty of consideration to.
Have your say!
I’d love to hear what your thoughts are. And don’t feel the need to restrict yourself to these categories either. If there’s anything you’ve ever wanted from a music service, make it known! I’m building a browser extension, so all sorts of crazy things are possible. All comments and suggestions will be considered for the app! 
Public AND Private. Push AND Pull. Dedicated AND Distributed. Scavenge and Select. Does that help?
(from Google+)
These are all great questions Pete, but I don’t think there’s one perfect system as different people would want to share things in different ways. So the key to a perfect app might be by the way you can easily change the way you share. For some reason, I think G+ plays a role in this. From using the service for the past month, I’m finding that audience targeting is hugely beneficial to get a particular message out. And it shouldn’t be any different when it comes to sharing music.
Conversely, when it comes to discovering music, I’d like to be able to ‘follow’ someone or a circle who I already know and trust that they have good taste in music, and recommendations coming from that channel would be awesome. Services like last.fm are great for discovery, but it hasn’t nailed that social aspect of it. I want to know what my friends are listening to, but what about the influencers (like rag writers, bloggers, artists themselves).
Just another quick thought, maybe there needs to be some sort of ’Klout’ measure when it comes to music influence. So it’s easier to know who is influencing more people with their listening habits.
Ok, that’s enough for now. Will write more if I think of anything else.
Cheers.
Do you mean to say that you want to see music sharing inside of Google+ or that you would like to see the same audience targeting applied to music? In general, would you prefer music sharing do be mixed in with everything else or in a separate stream (either inside G+ / Facebook or on a dedicated website)?
I think ex.fm are doing a great job with ‘following’ and creating a channel of recommendations. The problem is that it is focused on the bleeding edge of new music. What about all the music that person recommended in the past? If you only get their latest recommendations, you’re getting the tip of the iceberg of what they like. I want to be able to browse the rest of the iceberg and find music they’re been loving for years in addition to the music they’re currently loving.
In order to implement something like Klout, you need tons of data about who is following who and the ability to see where recommendations originated and give due credit. It’s something I’ve thought a lot about, but not really suitable for a first version!