MySwar is now available to everyone. This is just the beginning. We have plans to implement many improvements over the next few months. We got many ideas and suggestions came from our alpha/beta testers and we’re thankful to them.
Please give it a spin and let us know what you think.
So we finally got to the gut-wrenching, fearsome moment of releasing MySwar.in to Beta testers (please register on MySwar.Com if you want invites).
We had a few Alpha testers (friends and family) check out the website over the last few weeks and got some good, solid feedback from them. I was happy that we anticipated most of them and already had plans to address them. Most of them had kind words about the website but hey, that’s what we have friends and family for!
So, why “gut-wrenching, fearsome”? We see the Beta launch as the real test. It includes people who I consider music geeks. I am in awe of many of them and feel a little intimidated by the prospect of them checking out the work we’ve done. That said I welcome feedback – it is deafening silence that I really dread.
MySwar.Com has warts and kinks (and we’re working on them) but it also has some very cool features:
Beta testers – The invitation code is in your mail. Please check out MySwar.Com and let us know how we can improve it. And if you like what we’ve built, please spread the word!
After days of testing and a lot of hard work from many people, we finally got MySwar to the point of an Alpha launch. The application is still a little buggy and it doesn’t have a few features we want to go public with, but it’s still a pretty good view of what the final app will look like.
The alpha invitation codes have been sent to “friends and family” – people, who will hopefully not get turned off by the bugs! If you think you’re “family” or “friend” of anyone at Mavrix, please let us know what you’re email id is (and how you qualify!) and we’ll send you the invitation code.
Other folks who haven’t gotten invites – we respect your time and to make it worthwhile for you, we wanted to spend a couple more weeks improving what we have built before inviting you. I really appreciate your patience so far and request you to hang in there for a few more days.
We completed of one year of our blog on November 3 and I thought this would be a good time to do the customary round-up of our most popular posts and the posts that we, at Mavrix, like the most. Here goes:
Most Popular
Coke Studio India Must Be Cheered
People – Please Get Off A.R. Rahman’s Back
R.D. Burman’s Top 10 Lesser Known Songs
Found! The Missing Piece Of The Puzzle! (Meet Our Tech Wiz)
Coming Soon! The Complete Guide To Hindi Film Music
Our Favorite
Indian music needs a kick in the butt
Is Bollywood Overdose killing Indian music?
The first post on our blog was published last Diwali, on November 3, 2010. Today we complete 1 year of the Mavrix blog and we are extremely kicked that we have published 200 posts as of today. That’s one post every other day for 1 year!
We stepped up our posting frequency in the last few days deliberately to meet the 200 post milestone because a round number sounds a lot nicer! I must also admit that about 50 of these are auto-generated weekly Twitter digests, i.e. a weekly summary of all tweets going out from the @mavrixin account. Still a big deal, won’t you say?
My original intent to start the blog was to give some sense of assurance to potential employees that I was not a fly-by-night operator. Over the last year, I’ve realized that a blog does a lot more than that:
I could go on and on.
Many people have said it before but given that I still see many small businesses without blogs, I don’t mind repeating – If you’re starting a company, specially one that targets the consumer internet, one of the first things you should do is start a blog and post actively.
[This is the concluding part of a three-part post on the Digital Music Landscape. You can read the first post and the second post to get up to speed]
Let’s look at the services that exist in the West against the services for Indian music in an attempt to look at how music recommendations serve people’s needs. In the previous posts, we’ve discussed a few approaches for recommendation. Let’s pair that up against the following music consumption models:
Download services limit the number of songs people can listen to (only purchased songs) while streaming offers potentially unlimited number of songs for listening. On the other hand, downloaded songs can be listened to anytime, anywhere. Whereas, streaming services typically require an internet connection. The line between download and stream services is blurring though, as the download services are providing cloud-based features in addition to song previews; and streaming services are allowing downloads either directly or through other download services.
Music Consumption – Mature Markets
| Service | Consumption model | Recommendation approach based on | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Download | On-demand | Non-interactive | Musical attributes | Wisdom of the Crowds | Expert curation | |
| iTunes |  | | ||||
| Amazon | | | ||||
| Napster | | | ||||
| Emusic | | | ||||
| Rhapsody | | | | |||
| Last.fm | | | ||||
| Grooveshark | | | ||||
| Spotify | | | ||||
| Pandora | | | | |||
| Live365 | | |
||||
| Thesixtyone | | | |
|||
| Wearehunted | | | |
|||
Music Consumption – India
| Service | Consumption model | Recommendation approach based on | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dowload | On-Demand | Non-Interactive | Musical attributes | Wisdom of the Crowds | Expert curation | |
| Gaana | | | ||||
| Saavn | | | ||||
| Dhingana | | | ||||
| Musicindiaonline | | | ||||
| Smashits | | | ||||
| Raaga | | | ||||
| NH7 | | |
||||
| Hungama | | | | |||
A more detailed look at the Indian music services show that:
Given all these challenges, the quest is still on for a good, Indian music service that is comparable to an iTunes or a Spotify. While we’re not launching a music consumption service (not yet at least!), we at Mavrix keenly watch this space because we’re trying to solve one of the challenges listed above – that of serving good recommendations. We will be launching MySwar in a few days as a first step in this journey.
I announced the MySwar beta a few days ago on this blog, on our Twitter account, our Facebook page, directly to a few people who I view as early adopters and music geeks and also a forum called RMIM. All of us at Mavrix also shared the announcement with friends and family.
While I haven’t actively promoted MySwar yet, the responses I have received so far have given me some inkling of how MySwar will be received at launch. I also feel that the initial response has helped me prepare better for the launch.
Here’s a summary of the initial reaction and my assessment of how I should address them at launch.
We hate the idea. This response completely blind-sided me. Music is one of those things that evoke extreme reactions and I should have anticipated some of these responses. But it’s one thing to watch people flame others and completely another to be at the receiving end. You can read the gory details in this thread but to summarize – I was called stupid, a liar and also a “pig” among other things. After my initial attempts to reason with these people, I realize that I was engaging in a pointless exercise.
Ignore. While this constituency is very vocal, it’s also fringe. They’re best ignored because they’re not the kind of customers I want anyway. To take these reactions in stride, it’s essential to develop a thick skin.
Sounds interesting but can you deliver? Many people were skeptical because they felt that the scope of MySwar was very big/complex/difficult. I am sure my ambitious analogy – “digitized Geet Kosh on steroids” – also contributed to the skepticism. Some people wondered if I should have avoided the Geet Kosh reference. [For people who haven’t heard of the Hindi Film Geet Kosh – it’s like the Bible for Hindi film music geeks. Uh oh, will the people who revere the Bible come after me now?!] I stand behind my decision to use the Geet Kosh reference – I view the analogy as a tribute and I see nothing wrong in setting a high bar for MySwar. In fact, I take the skepticism positively. It tells me that people appreciate that the effort behind MySwar is not trivial.
Deliver. Delivering what we’re promising is the only response. We’re putting our heads down and focusing on wrapping up the work we’ve done in the past few months. Sure, we’ll make mistakes but I believe our passion and effort will shine through in what we deliver.
Sounds great! Can’t wait to get our hands on it. This response obviously came from friends and family. I was pleasantly surprised that it also came from some complete strangers.
Sincerely thank them. Forget about other people’s cynicism, I myself have been racked by periods of doubt several times over the last few months. So when people offer encouragement and support, I lap it up happily. My own conviction has helped but Mavrix couldn’t have made it this far without the love it has received from some very kind people.
We’re launching! We’re launching! We’re launching! Soon that is. The beta will launch in a few weeks and the public launch will happen soon after.
We’re calling it MySwar.in because in the end, it’s about your taste in music. The Coming Soon page is up so you can sign-up right away and be one of the first to participate in the beta. Also, please help us get the word out. Your friends will thank you!
What can you expect? In a nutshell:
PS: We’re launching with 40 decades of Hindi film music – from the 70s through current day. We’ll add the remaining after launch.