monstr's dashboard

monstr shared an idea in SoundCloud on November 23, 2009 11:35:

Stop using modal windows / lightboxes.

You have quite a bad implementation of modal windows / lightboxes on your site.

The login one should only be used on a page with content and not on the homepage. What's the point?

The one on pages with content often doesn't work and appears blank which is amazingly annoying.

Example - I visited the Little Boots Remix Competition group and decided to join. I was not logged in. I clicked 'join' and was presented with a totally blank modal window. Er, hello? I realise that I need to log in to join a group but I think you should either fully test your window code for robustness or at least have a fallback that goes to a normal login page. I had to navigate round myself, login, then go back to the group and join. Bad usability.

Finally when I decided to look for reports about this on this feedback site I middle-clicked 'Feedback' on the top mini-nav and got, wait for it...... another modal window with Get Satisfaction embedded in it!

monstr replied on October 28, 2009 22:03 to the problem "My uploads won't complete on Soundcloud :(" in SoundCloud:

David - your replies really worry me. Why does it have to be "Flash version, file size, internet connection, Wifi vs. plugged in" etc etc?

Forget using a different browser - your product should be cross-browser compatible.

Forget Flash versions - you should be coding for the most prevalent version, which is usually 1-2 versions behind the latest available. And your code should be robust enough to handle intermediate releases like FP9.115 etc.

Uploads seem to be a major problem here (see my latest frustrating attempts to upload - http://support.soundcloud.com/soundcl...)

monstr reported a problem in SoundCloud on October 28, 2009 21:48:

Uploads won't work in normal or 'old-school' page. Serious problem.

I'm trying to send a track to another SC member.

On the usual 'send a track' page I get the progress bar and a complete notification. Then a note saying 'Don't Forget To Save' (which is slightly odd since the button at the bottom says 'Send Track' not 'Save Track' - more bad UI).

Problem is when I click the Send Track button the page just scrolls up about 20px. I thought it might be directing me a required field that I'd missed but the only required field is the title which is automatically filled by the filename and was indeed filled in.

Repeated clicks of the Send Track button have the same 'scroll up' effect until the button scrolls of the button of the screen.

I tried the old-school uploader but when I click 'Save Track' the staus bar at the bottom of the browser doesn't give me 'Connecting to soundcloud.com...', it just stays with 'Done' and the page does that scroll up thing again.

I pay for this service and I expect it to work. SC is promoted as the audio sharing service for professionals but the service I have had since paying monthly has been far less that professional. Do I really need to go back to zipping WAVs, uploading to my server and emailing links to people?

Please get these basic things working and thouroughly cross-browser tested.

Info: Firefox 3.5.3 / WinXP Home SP3 / Wi-Fi connection /

PS - I tried to upload in IE but it's IE8 on my machine and your site looks truly awful with none of the dropdown meus working so I couldn't even get to the page I wanted. I realise this is probably a glorious IE problem and not your fault.

monstr replied on October 28, 2009 21:33 to the question "Why won't soundcloud let me upload? :(" in SoundCloud:

matas - That kind of essential information belongs on the old-school uploader page don't you think?

Why should I have to get annoyed, navigate to this help forum and search for others with the same problem, to eventually be told something so counter-intuitive that it really should be spelt out at the original source?

I am shocked at how many parts of your site have really bad UI and bad logic. I'm currently battling to get a track uploaded, but aahh that's another question for another post :-(

monstr shared an idea in SoundCloud on October 24, 2009 16:32:

Replace your inaccurate 'Oops, looks like we can't find that page!' page

When I click a link in an email that should allow me to download a privately shared track from Soundcloud I get this page. This should NOT happen.

Firstly, the statement is inaccurate - the page does exist. I just need to be logged in to view it.

Secondly - do you make the assumption that I log in to Soundcloud every time I switch my computer on? Because I don't. Nor do many other people. So pretty much everybody is going to see this incorrect page.

I can see there is a short note and a link under the huge 'Oops!' text that says if I am looking for a private track I need to be logged in. That should be the prominent message on the page. Not one that tells me the page doesn't exist.

Thirdly - The link doesn't even go to a page. It initiates a download. This is so much fuzzy thinking.

It's an easy fix SoundCloud - if a /download URL is requested then check to see if the user/track exists then if it does and you can't find a logged in cookie display the login page and get my login details straight away instead of makingme click 'login' myself. If the link is invalid (like maybe soemone poking around at URLs trying to see what's out there) then you can show an error.

How about this?

monstr replied on July 14, 2009 17:57 to the idea "How about storing "Don't Ask Me Again" preference in user account rather than browser?" in SoundCloud:

Seriously - am I the only user that thinks that clicking "Don't ask me again" on the dashboard on every new visit to SoundCloud is not only irritating but amazingly ironic?

I have to keep telling it to not ask me again - this must be some kind of universe-imploding recursive loop?

monstr replied on June 30, 2009 17:48 to the idea "We want more detailed statistics - like Bandcamp" in SoundCloud:

By the way, for those that don't know, Bandcamp is a site you can use to sell your music. It's totally different to SoundCloud's professional sharing, community, slick player-based setup.

So please don't think I'm suggesting Bandcamp as any kind of alternative to SoundCloud because it really isn't.

But their stats sure do wipe the floor with SC's :-)

monstr shared an idea in SoundCloud on June 30, 2009 17:44:

We want more detailed statistics - like Bandcamp

While I really do love the SoundCloud front-end, Dashboard, music players and sharing features I feel that the statistics leave a lot to be desired. Bandcamp has some amazing stat reporting and all of this meta data is availe to SoundCloud, it;s just not put to use. This video shows off Bandcamp's stats brilliantly:

http://blog.bandcamp.com/2009/03/16/t...

I'm talking about where your music players are being embedded, how many full plays vs partial plays vs skips on each track, date range selection, even which search engines are driving people to oyur music.

We need these stats SoundCloud! Pretty please! :-)

monstr started following the idea "Show which site a track was played on" in SoundCloud.

monstr started following the idea "Statistics on tracks played from start to end" in SoundCloud.

monstr started following the idea "Statistics on tracks played from start to end" in SoundCloud.

monstr replied on June 25, 2009 18:25 to the question "What counts as a download?" in SoundCloud:

Nobody from SoundCloud has an answer on this?

monstr asked a question in SoundCloud on June 18, 2009 22:29:

What counts as a download?

We've had a huge response to our tracks in the last 4 days - 1,400 downloads and 700 plays - which has come as a bit of a suprise!

We embedded aplayer for one of the tracks in our MySpace page and put a huge link on our homepage - www.monstr.co.uk - to our SoundCloud page. We've also been blogged on a couple of fairly popular blogs, Oh Crapp! and Kunk, but stil these figures look rather large.

Can you tell us what counts as a download and a play? And a profile view? Because with 176 profile views but over 1400 downloads this suggests that most of our download hits are from off-site?

Not that we're complaining about that many downloads of course! But it would be good to know where they are originating so we can target our promotion better in the future.

Thanks.

monstr

monstr replied on June 18, 2009 22:22 to the question "How do I see where downloads are coming from?" in SoundCloud:

That would be very handy to see. We've had 1400 'downloads' in 4 days and we'd love to see where they're coming from.

monstr reported a problem in SoundCloud on June 18, 2009 22:19:

'View All' link on a tracks 'More Stats' page is broken.

Trying to see who has downloaded my track this week but the 'View All' link goes to your 'broken' page.

monstr replied on June 16, 2009 17:44 to the problem "set view" in SoundCloud:

Any progress on this small bug guys? I'm now paying for a PRO service from you and these small bugs fixes should be easy kills shouldn't they?

I've had a few hundred downloads so far this week and it's mostly of my older material because people are seeing that at the top of the page.

Seriously annoying.

monstr started following the problem "set view" in SoundCloud.

monstr started following the problem "Issues with sets and tracks pages." in SoundCloud.

monstr replied on June 16, 2009 17:42 to the question "Can I re-order the tracks on my user page?" in SoundCloud:

Any progress on this small bug guys? I'm now paying for a PRO service from you and these small bugs fixes should be easy kills shouldn't they?

I've had a few hundred downloads so far this week and it's mostly of my older material because people are seeing that at the top of the page.

Seriously annoying.

monstr replied on June 16, 2009 17:41 to the problem "bug - unable to change the default display on profile" in SoundCloud:

Any progress on this small bug guys? I'm now paying for a PRO service from you and these small bugs fixes should be easy kills shouldn't they?

I've had a few hundred downloads so far this week and it's mostly of my older material because people are seeing that at the top of the page.

Seriously annoying.