So, the radio... Let's face it, it's dead. I've witnessed a few of the livestream events of Tyro and others, and how many people are there usually? I'd say about 5 people max on the times i've been there. The whole radio aspect of the site has grown old, stale, boring and repetitive. And after what i'm guessing are several attempts, it hasn't really been brought back to life as much as anyone had hoped. A few weeks ago, the EP staff launched this precious jewel. Sad to say after a week or so, people stopped coming around, perhaps because it was never advertised properly. But for that one week, i know of a few people who had genuine high hopes for the plug.dj room. So here's my suggestion: Get rid of this entire page and replace it with a link to the EPR Plug.dj room, or if it can be done, embed it on the site like the current radio. Let that be the new radio and assign all the current radio moderators to it. But then there's the issue of livestreaming various things. I've found an equally interesting improvement for that little problem too. As i said before, the turnout for livestream events usually doesn't go much higher than the usual 3 to 5 people watching. I think this is also due to the lack of advertisement and generating interest. Many people might not even notice what little is said of it, or misread/misunderstand the timezones. So with the livestream effectively removed from the site itself, you could post one of these messages on the forum several hours before, and for the entire duration of the livestream to let people know when and what will take place (with a link to the stream of course). I think alot more people may be inclined to give it a look if there's a gigantic message on the forums, which is no doubt the most visited part of the site. Or you could do nothing and let the current radio stay as it is. Considering the radio's current state, i think you'll have little to nothing to lose if this goes badly. In short: Pros: - Flashy new radio system that everyone can enjoy and have fun with. - Livestream events will possibly gain more viewers for the duration of actual events. - Shoutcast can be removed, thus removing the need to pay for/maintain it entirely. Potential issues: - Plug.dj can not play songs automatically like the livestream/shoutcast can. However, if the plug.dj room can be embedded on the site, then perhaps shoutcast could be kept around for this purpose. - Plug.dj will take more effort to moderate if it becomes popular. If plug.dj can not be embedded, I would suggest assigning several trusted members as Resident DJ's to play music when no moderators are online. Thoughts, anyone?
You couldn't be more right about the radio needing a change and some serious TLC, however I'm not convinced Plug DJ is the way to go. It's a good service, and I guess it trumps our current set-up, but it's a free third-party service that just about anyone or any other site can go to and make their own room. It's not new, it's not unique and it's not fresh - it won't give you any sort of edge over competition, which is what you really need. tl;dr: It needs improving and plug.dj looks to be an improvement, but it's not going to be enough of one (imo).
What personally sells the plug.dj room for me as a good replacement is the fact that any user of the site can play songs, not just the assigned staff members. It's a good way of involving the community in what this site has to offer. I do agree that the plug.dj is a bit cheap and overused though.
I like the idea. And I think the plug.dj room should have "music sharing" events, where people can play not only brony music, but also any other type of music that they like listening to. I would definitely visit during those types of events and might be willing to help moderate with it if needed. Also I'm pretty sure plug.dj can't be embedded, but I haven't looked into it. I'm not a site designer type of person. We should set up a list of rules for plug.dj use and see what we need for moderating. I'd take charge but I'm not entirely certain what direction most people want this to go. When I suggested the idea, I was pretty disappointed to see people saying "oh yeah let's make this part of the radio, and only do it as a special thing once in a while and stuff, and still only play brony-created music." I wanted to start something that would add to the site, not add to the radio that I didn't (and don't) use. But yeah, I don't know anything about how radio people do/want to do stuff, so I guess it's up to them...
Lol...I remember once during the karaoke nights we used to do, it got to one of my songs, which was a vocal cover of a progressive symphonic metal band, and one of the people raged SO HARD at having to hear "this crap" when he was there for pony music.
Like Grey said, what is needed is uniqueness and competing quality to other popular services. The problem I see is that the radio simply cannot survive as a single page on a forum...not anymore at least. You can have all the content you want but I just don't think it can be enough with the limited amount of space you have to present it and vBulletin is not super attractive, and does not fare well as a platform for anything other than a discussion board. Yes, people should just stay for the music and streams who cares if it's flashy, but that's not how people work. The web is an extremely fast moving tech, and EPR is stuck far in the past. That is why I can't see it surviving any longer aside from the members here who really like it because they know the people who operate it. And it's nobody's fault in that regard, you need to be damn talented to really grab hold of the latest and most modern web design technologies and skills to really sell your service. You need teams of artists and devs that really know how to code dynamically and make it beautiful and functional for your userbase. That's the only way to really survive in today's WWW. There is no other way to cut it I'm afraid. Is plug.dj the answer? No. It looks nice and is fun every so often, but it's really a novelty thing...You can't thrive off of free 3rd party platforms.
False, look at GNU and BSD licensed software and nonsense; some major corporations work with almost exclusively GNU licensed software and it works well for them. This doesn't only apply to software, there are hundreds of free services available for use online that work, although many of them do have a limit unto what extent they are free. Usually, issues like this stem neither from something being free or 3rd party, but rather the fact that the software in use doesn't provide the desired functionality. There's always 2 options before you move onto something that needs to dip into your wallet: 1. Change your software or service to fit your requirements. 2. Change your requirements to fit your software or service.
I'm quite aware. But GNU's on quite a bit of a different scope than what I was referring to simply with regards to plug.dj and similar limited services. I worded that statement very vaguely so I apologize for the unintended fallacy. I should have specified.
Yo dawgs, where the staff at on this Holmes? In all seriousness, the radio has had a terminal illness for the past year or so, possibly more. It's either time to put it on life support to help it recover or just cut it off entirely... which I'm sure nobody wants to do. There are plenty of suggestions being given, one of which I think should honestly be to just simply advertise the radio more. The thing is never advertised save for a few CP mentions and a thingie on the top of the page to go to said radio. It just takes a bit of effort on both sides to get the ball rolling.
Only way to drag them here; make a comment that's either insulting or makes them look bad and they appear, like always, and then suddenly everyone either argues with the staff, or the staff warn the user and a whole thing happens...Anyway, let's spark some attention @Staff; YOUR MOTHERS WERE HAMSTERS, AND YOUR FATHERS SMELT OF ELDERBERRIES!
[MENTION=1543]mike406[/MENTION] I noticed that plug.dj has an API, but it requires an account to view it (I'm not going to make one). If anyone has one, would they mind checking that out and reporting back? If there's enough freedom to code some customization into it, it'll become a much more attractive prospect.
Oh just behave you two! XD You could just, you know: @Tyro The Fox @Eight Star They'll reply when they're ready to reply i guess. (i hope)
Looks like it's just a bunch of event listeners. Could be used for something I suppose if you're imaginative enough. Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk
[MENTION=1543]mike406[/MENTION] Ok, I cracked and signed up, bad company... Tempting with those three letters. Anyway it doesn't look too shabby actually. I still don't know exactly what we could do with it, not without some thought, but if anyone gets any cool ideas... Please post em'! EDIT: Actually, call me stupid, but I can't see any way to actually 'implement' the API without using the browser console manually, which means a customized/automated room won't be doable, no matter how comprehensive they make the API. -_- People seem to have managed it, but I don't see an SDK or source file download or anything like that. Also, I stumbled across this whilst searching: http://blog.plugpony.net
I caved too, I didn't have an account till you mentioned API. (I suppose that's probably intentional. Bastards :derpe But yea, seems to be intended for extensions or bookmarklets or whatever, at least for now anyway...Ah well. Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk
Well, it's been about a week since i brought this up. I'm curious to know if the staff actually has some opinions on this.
while I do agree we need to advertise the radio more, we hope to also deliver more content, beginning with the febuary events.
Well, this shows how interested the staff is. :v I was at least expecting the radio staff to come in and give their two cents...
Maybe some of us should start the plug.dj thing on our own and try to advertise it ourselves and then see if people start paying attention. :n
