Posted by Dublin Drupaller on April 24, 2009 at 5:03pm
Definitely go for a music distribution
47% (33 votes)
Definitely go for seperate modules
36% (25 votes)
Alternative approach (please add a comment)
6% (4 votes)
Undecided
11% (8 votes)
Total votes: 70
Comments
what this poll is about..
hi Guys,
Just setup this poll that sprung out of a few email exchanges and discussions with other Drupallers who are involved in developing for artist/band sites.
In the process of creating a new discography.module for Drupal 6.x, it struck me that I'm actually burning up a lot of wasted energy here trying to create a new module...rather than creating a drupal distribution for music.
In other words...as well as a discography, it makes sense to have the following elements as well:
capturing email addresses/phone numbers of fans who want to receive a newsletter and being able to filter those by town/city for gig reminders
an easily updatable tour page, which automatically updates a myspace/facebook/twitter/other
a private area for fans of the band to communicate, discuss, get freebies and extend the network out into social networks like facebook/bebo/etc.
selling downloads on itunes is more or less pointless for most bands and artists unless you're bling. YOu don't even get the email address of the fan who bought your music on itunes. It's far better to have a solid downloads shop built into the artist site where the artists makes *all* the money...the artists *controls* the pricing....and the artist receives *all* the contact details of the customers (for later use in newsletters/new releases/etc.
Based on the premise that the above is a relatively generic list of features for a band site....do you guys think it's better to go for a drupal distribution, using the minimum amount of modules and instead maximising the use of CKK or do you think it's better to develop modules for each feature?
In essence, I genuinely think that a Squared space for artists/bands is an achievable solution using Drupal....the question is, what's the best way of getting there and how many people would be interested in it.
cheers
dub
Very Interesting
Its a good thing this is coming at a time like this. I actually launched a music site some couple of days back, and one of the challenges I faced was having to use Drupal to create a site that promotes different upcoming artists.
The site I'm referring to is http://star234ng.com.
I think I'll love the drupal distribution for music.
Thanks for the concept.
http://cnariostudios.com | http://cnario.deviantart.com
http://cnariostudios.com | http://cnario.deviantart.com
Press / Sales Tools area
I'd also like to propose a Press area as well. One thing that most label sites have is an area where journalists can download high resolution artwork and photos, band biographies, press releases and streaming audio versions of the releases. The same area is often used as a home for sales tools like one-sheets. I've got some of these things implemented using CCK / Content Types already and would be happy to re-work them to fit into a better overall framework.
Hello dub!
When you say "drupal distribution" you mean to have a drupal install profile or something else?
For biography I think it's just a CCK filtered html field in the content type. News actually can be the blog module with few extra cck fields while contact is just the usual contact module. Member's area can be an OG with subscription.
If the band runs the site (not a social networking thing) the Ubercart seems great for selling directly their music. Tricky part is the data capture and tour updates. If you think of it as a drupal install profile I think it's feasible and it won't be too hard to deliver. Is that the idea behind it or am I missing something?
thanks
Thanks for the input Charos and yep..the idea would be that the band runs the site (although it could be used by labels to setup sites masquerading as an artist site) ...think square spaced for artists/bands and that's pretty much the aim of a music distribution.
There would be a super admin (user id = zero) and artist/band admin (role type)...so the site maintainer isn't bamboozled by Drupals admin interface & menus and is only presented with specific admin functions only.
Quick question...why would you include the OG module for a members area? Just curious.
Yes , OG idea was for the
Yes , OG idea was for the members area as you said. But if it's just an artist website then there is no point. I was thinking that this distribution could be for labels as well (one website , many artists/bands) so the OG could be handy. But if I understood correctly ,this distribution is aimed for single band/artist website.
..
I see what you mean.
Labels have been quick to exploit the potential of using Drupal in a music context...particularly by setting up sites masquerading as artist sites. http://www.bobdylan.com is a good example. That is a drupal site, but, it's been run by the record label instead of the artist despite it being presented as an "official Bob Dylan website" rather than an "official sony website" featuring Bob Dylan.
A multi-site installation for a label like sony makes a huge amount of sense and the benefits are a no-brainer. Fans of Bob Dylan are more likely to engage (and register their details) with a site like that, rather than a corporate label site. Also, music fans are less likely to rip off artists when dealing direct...e.g. they are more likely to buy an album direct from an artist than they are of downloading it illegally - the only caveat being that the music shop on the artist site is solid and trustworthy.
For a label...they could setup a multi-site version of the "music dist." I'm suggesting....in other words, using the same suite of modules to service multiple "artist sites"..
Yes , I'm aware of the Sony
Yes , I'm aware of the Sony case from Lullabot's "Do it with Drupal" session. This might work for someone like Sony or similar major label (that the signed artists don't share the same target group) but if you think about Indy labels this is not the best way to go. Small labels usually get picky with what artists to sign and usually all artist share similar genres and music styles. So if a fan of "X" band visits the "official site of X" , most probably he is interested for the "Y" band of the same label as well. If I had a label I would try to make a mini social networking site (mini MySpace) where my signed artists runs everything the way they want and I just provide the platform. This way artists that probably don't have relations with the other artists of my label (60's are over!) but share a common ground , can actually come together and built up musicianship. Same thing for fans (band discovery,interaction,etc.) as well. I think that every label that goes the masquerade way is loosing the big potentials of Web 2.0 and in the end is just loosing potential fans and revenue! Anyway, I got away from the actual point here, but I wanted to highlight why I hate the "official" unofficial sites!!
understood..
I understand what you're saying, but, I don't see a music dist. for drupal being indie-centric or major-centric. If you can visualise a download page for the music distribution, where the developer selects from a list of features...such as music shop, tours, discography, video, forum etc. so, when they click on the download button...only the modules (and patterns) required for the selected features are downloaded.
Using that same simple model, a multi-site pattern or a shared-authentication.module could be offered, for independent/major labels who would like to use it as a platform to service multiple artist/band sites for example, or if labels would like to cross-pollinate fanbases by offering shared authentication for members areas.
Not sure if that makes sense or not, but, I think it might be a simple way of approaching it.
Distribution with one custom module
I would favor a music distribution (do you mean install profile?), mainly because everything you've outlined can probably be handled by some combination of cck, views, og, panels, etc and a good theme template. Additionally, this will allow the maintainer of this (you?) to focus more on configuring things together and creating nice templates, instead of maintaining custom modules.
The one allowable exception is that I do think it would be a good idea to create one custom module, like a lightweight music_distro.module which would basically allow for easier customization & configuration of all the other modules/themes. You wouldn't necessarily be creating new functionality with the module, just increasing configuration options to work for your use case. It would sit on top of all the other modules and use them to achieve its own, loftier goals.
The other question that should probably be asked: what DON'T you want to do with this distribution? With Drupal, it seems fair that setting some boundaries and hard limits on things will prevent a situation where everyone expects everything, or it tries to satisfy every use case scenario, which is ultimately impossible.
Keeping things simple and slim, especially at the beginning, seems like a good idea to me.
..
thanks for the input. Interesting points.
I was thinking of using patterns for the distribution but what would be extremely useful would be to "automate" the download of all the required modules (for a specific pattern)...so people don't have to go looking for each module from a list of "required modules"..downloading them etc....i.e. only one click is required to pull down the complete installation and required modules + pattern file.
Acquia have gone a step further with how they provide their distribution of Drupal..but I'm not thinking of heading that direction. I would prefer to keep it simpler.
On the subject of what you DON'T want in a distribution...what would be on your list?
Dub
Patterns looks promising.
Patterns looks promising. Functionally I think it will achieve the goal of turning on/off high level functionality based on cck, views, etc. Usability wise I haven't taken a look at it, but I hope it is easy enough for a Drupal newbie to understand and operate.
The automated download is interesting, but also a different sort of beast than what you've initially presented. The automated download is an overall great Drupal.org idea so that people can just select the pattern or functionality they want and it automatically zips up and installs those modules for you. That is a much more technical challenge though, but could lead to a more robust solution. And you might get much more support for development from the wider Drupal community.
Initially I thought you were simply trying to get the most functionality out of the least amount of modules, and then simplify the Drupal configuration process to achieve your music distro goals. So let's say you ship with Ubercart, CCK, Views, and Panels. Just with those basics and a nice backend interface, you could achieve most of the feature set you've described. Why add anything else?
What I wouldn't want in a slimmed down distribution:
- a lot of extraneous web 2.0 community stuff, no chat modules, no buddy system/friendship network
- assuming a lot of things about what I want to be turned on by default or making me turn off a lot of things
- trying to solve everyone's use case (record labels, individuals, bands)
Things I would want:
- default views widgets, nice panel layouts and themes, lots of display options
- a nice backend tool to expedite the configuration process
- something that solves basic problems for a single music group (selling/displaying music, email list, about page, contact form)
Patterns rocks!
We were lucky enough to have Chris Bryant give a similar presentation to this at DrupalCamp LA - http://dc2009.drupalcon.org/session/drupal-patterns-managing-and-automat...
A big inspiration behind it was to be more efficient in creating the many sites their company has been doing for Warner - http://graviteklabs.com/
So most of the building blocks for custom setups already exist.
Gus Austin
PepperAlley Productions
Gus Austin
thanks
Many thanks for those links Gus...they are spot on for what I'm thinking of. I'm also guessing that the GravitekLabs guys may have already thought about music dist. for Drupal......they also sponsored and built the patterns.module.
I've dropped Savra Bryant (the patterns.module developer) a quick email flagging this thread.
dub
Separate, but collected
I think it's important to keep everything in separate modules, because not every band is going to use all of the features, and some of the features would not be unique to the distribution. For example, not all bands go on tour, but lots of websites have newsletters and mailing lists.
I'd argue that it makes sense to develop the modules as a package. That way you could keep all of the code that is common to the band sites in a single "base" module that is a dependency for all other modules in the package.
I agree with charos that some of the features described could be handled in other ways, using CCK, Views, Ubercart, etc. However, I really do think it would be cool to have them as part of a Drupal distribution for musicians, with all of the content types and templates already set up. I'd be the first to use it! But from a community aspect, I think it's important to keep the unique modules (like discography) separate, with really good APIs. This means that any bugs could be localized to particular modules and easier to track down without affecting an entire distribution.
I'm joining the chorus of everyone else praising your efforts! Thanks a ton for working on this, Dub! And thanks for involving us in the discussion!
cheers
thanks fr0st...
Appreciate the pat on the back...but I haven't really done anything yet other than start a discussion on the topic.
On the subject of seperate modules. I understand completely with what you're saying. A solo artist, just starting out, wouldn't necessarily need some of the features a band who has been gigging for 10 years might need. Hence the "square spaced for Music" description. Square Spaced is "modular" in a patterns sorta way. So for the Drupal music dist., i envisage functionality split into patterns which would have a group of modules associated with that pattern. So you might have a pattern for a music shop...another pattern for a music + tshirt shop..another pattern for a members area and so on...which would obviously share a bunch of modules..but also have some modules unique to it.
In other words, you would build your music distribution in a modular fashion....rather than download a kitchen sink solution.
Not sure if that's making sense or not..but, what I would like to see is a site where you can select each element (pattern) for your music distribution of Drupal...that site would automatically build the Drupal tar download, using stable releases as the reference for contributed modules....and away you go.
So the site builder doesn't have to go looking at a list of "required modules"...visiting drupal.org modules page to find them..download them...untar then...and test them (which is very important as developers sometimes tag the wrong file on cvs.drupal.org so you end up with a stable file that isn't stable..that happened me recently with filefield.module)...and then upload and enable them...sometimes in steps...and so on.
As a side-note, when I was doing some dev. work recently for basic discography functionality, I needed roughly 17 contributed modules. Okay..some of those modules would be used again, in other areas of the sites...such as cck...date api..etc. but, still. I think it's worth exploring an alternative and more automated route.
while it's good to discuss...I'm keen on seeing how much interest there is in this on here. As of today we only have 6 votes..which suggests that there is minimal interest so far. hopefully it will catch the eye of more music related developers over the next few weeks.
dub
Patterns
Make sure to look at Patterns and its related thread. I think that might be the route to go for your work.
Aaron Winborn
Drupal Multimedia (book, in October!)
AaronWinborn.com (blog)
Advomatic (work)
Aaron Winborn
Drupal Multimedia (my book, available now!)
AaronWinborn.com
Advomatic
thanks
thanks Aaron.
yep. I'm familiar with patterns and it looks good.
A lot depends on the demand for a music dist. for drupal. As of today, we only have 6 votes...which doesn't really warrant getting in too deep into the idea. Let's see what sort of interest the poll gathers over the next few weeks and take it from there.
Dub
A musician's opinion...
I happen to be a designer, but I'm also a recording musician.
I thin for most musicians, a distro that had the ability to turn on and off features would be easiest. As a designer, I love the flexibility of views/cck approaches, but if I was trying to be a full-time musician... I wouldn't want to learn all that. I would want to have features that turn on and off. Then, if you get a musician who wants to get a little more into Drupal, they can customize the solution for themselves.
Having a standard distro with custom modules also gives another benefit... the outputted code will be the same for everyone, so complete custom themes could be created rapidly, and cheaply, without much testing needed after you make your first one.
Anthony Pero
Lima, OH
http://limafirstmedia.com
http://portfolio.anthonypero.com
Anthony Pero
Lima, OH
http://premiereventconcepts.com
http://tripsports.com
totally agree..
Hi Anthony,
Thanks for chipping in.
I agree with you re: turning stuff on and off, but, I'm a minimalist at heart and get very dismayed with the amount of code bloat Drupal comes with (I would prefer if Drupal was trimmed right down rather than already coming with many features some sites might need).
Ideally, I would like to see a smorgasbord of options before you download the music dist.
For example, not all artists/bands might need a music shop (they may not have a license to sell their own music downloads/CDs or their label may prefer to push sales through chart registered music shops) so I think those related modules shouldn't come with the music dist.
So if you imagine the download page for the music dist....a developer can select different features...and when they click on the download button, the site builds the download for you, based on the feaures selected. If the user doesn't select a music shop...the downloaded distribution doesn't include ecommerce modules. Similarly, some artists may not need a video section...so those related modules shouldn't come down with the default music dist. download.
Not sure if that makes sense or not..but, it's a slightly different, more automated and a more minimalist way of looking at how a drupal distribution might work. There is a technical challenge with how to pull the stable modules together for each feature pattern and then deliver the final download to developers, but, I think it's possible.
At the moment, the way Drupal works is you download the default drupal kernel, for lack of a better description..and then download and install add-ons (contributed modules) individually. The code bloat that comes with that at the moment is large and just about acceptable, but, I would cringe at the thought of applying the same process for a Square spaced style distribution for bands/artists. There would be simply way too much code bloat.
So I'm totally with you on being careful with how standard the music dist. is, what modules should come with it and and which features should be enabled by default.
dub
Patterns ftw!
That sounds great! Then the idea of combining that with Patterns allows users to later download that Music Shop, say, if they decide a few months down that would be a good feature. As opposed to an Installation Profile, which doesn't allow an existing site to be modified.
Aaron Winborn
Drupal Multimedia (book, in October!)
AaronWinborn.com (blog)
Advomatic (work)
Aaron Winborn
Drupal Multimedia (my book, available now!)
AaronWinborn.com
Advomatic
Separate modules because...
I'm thinking my band website needs are fairly individual, and that any standardized system will always be far from my needs. BUT...I haven't ever used an install profile.
I would most likely prefer to be able to turn on and off big chunks of functionality (Discography, Tour calendar, etc) with Modules (or perhaps, Patterns).
-micah
I would most likely prefer
how would you react to a music distribution download page that allows you to select Discography, tour calander, music shop, members area etc...before you download the distribution?
In other words...the download page pulls down all the necessary modules and pattern files for only the features you selected?
dub
Hasn't this been done already?
Looks like we have another window of activity regarding a Drupal musician/recording artist profile. As with this previous thread, Dub has provided a great deal of inspiration...thanks! So let's do this - there are are several distributions, multi-sites, and great artist sites we can build off. Many different use cases depending if you're an indie musician, major label, publishing company, or composer. With something like patterns, we should be able to provide many flavors of custom/customizable sites.
I definitely think there's a desire to have a base recording artist profile(s) available on drupal.org. Also think it would be relatively easy to fund the effort by pooling $$ from stakeholders ranging from artists, labels, and other business' who would value this type of product.
Assuming we could secure the funds, who would like to lead such an effort... Dub!?!
Gus Austin
PepperAlley Productions
Gus Austin
Really interesting disucssion
Hi guys,
I'm new to Drupal and this thread. I have a really big interest in developing a distribution for artist web sites.
I work with a company called MusicDept who helps the nordic music industry to develop artist & label websites.
So far we've only used custom soltions to build websites like f ex http://www.kevinborg.se/, but are really looking into a distribution solution that would allow much more cost effective set-up and maintenance.
There definently is business to be made in this sector, as music companies really thrive in finding appropriate solutions to communicate, interact and gather information about the end-consumers.
What would your time estimation be on developing a distribution that could allow a quite easy setup of a site like http://www.remedydrive.com/?
quick rewind, revision and follow up based on feedback
hi guys,
As a quick follow up, based on the feedback and points made...here's the bones of a proposal or pitch to move this forward.
Instead of possibly getting bogged down in a comittee-based MDFD (Music Distribution For Drupal)....what if we created a very simple site, where the core functionality was to deliver a music dist. for drupal in the following way:
Drupal developer visits the MDFD site and selects from a list of feature options, such as music shop, tours, discography, video, forum etc. so, and when they click on the Download button...only the modules (and patterns) required for the selected features are downloaded.
That's a relatively simple framework and maybe a good approach because it means that:
In other words...instead of creating a Music Distribution For Drupal...we're really creating a framework where a distribution can grow and thrive.
There are technical challenges, such as the "smart" download page pulling together the necessary (stable) modules & patterns and creating the tar file, but, I think it's a relatively simple way of approaching it.
What's your thoughts?
Dub
+1
As I mentioned before, I think this is an overall good idea and I think the rest of the Drupal community will support the idea. It also will free any one person from having to maintain the whole thing - different individuals can maintain different patterns to ensure it works as expected. And if anyone wants to create any additional modules to work with their pattern, they can go ahead and do that and package it with their pattern. Sounds good to me
bingo.
You're spot on, Zirafa. That's the ideal scenario you've outlined. There's a huge amount of work going on with patterns.module, DASTs (Drupal automated staging toolkit) and installation profiles at the moment, which helps....it's almost like an arms race to see who can come up with the best way of automatically packaging a Drupal Application.
Dub
Great discussion
Hi guys,
I've been following this discussion for a while and I think its great what you guys are trying to do here. I am currently in the processing of putting together my first Drupal website which is for a musician friend of mine and I am reading this with great interest. I really like the idea you suggested there Dub about being able to select which features are required and then only the modules / patterns required would be downloaded it would really simplify things I reckon..and it would certainly make things easier for us beginners :)
yes!
I have been waiting for this to happen. Busy building an artist site at the moment as well and I wholeheartedly support the idea for a drupal distribution for music(install profile).
A Video & Picture Gallery could be included in the distribution.
Also - as well as discography a global mp3 player (with pop-up window option) should be included (see www.mybrightestdiamond.com) . Would be nice if you could select the tracks you want to appear in the global player from those uploaded for the discography.
I have been trying to use Wimpy mp3 player on my site as a global player (see www.mybrightestdiamond.com). It is great because it build a playlist from the mp3 files that are in it's folder. Only problem is that it runs a php script to do this and it seems you can't run php scripts inside the /files directory (Which, to my knowledge, is the only place you can upload files to in Drupal)
How can I contribute financially?
What is your ETA on completion?
..
thanks for the suggestion.
And yep a video & gallery will be available for (rather than included in) the distribution. I'm very concious of the fact that most independent artists/bands tend to work with shared hosting accounts, rather than expensive, dedicated servers...so I don't want to fall into the trap of creating a distribution that requires a significant wedge of cash to pay for hosting each year.
In other words, when downloading the distribution, the developer will have the choice of "self hosting" the audio/video or "external hosting" audio/video. i.e. the memory and processing power required to process a video upload is quite large.....so for some small bands and artists will prefer to host their audio on imeem/last.fm and their video on vimeo.com/youtube.com for example and pull playlists and previews into their own site. Depending on which option they choose, will determine which plugin modules will be included in the distribution.
The bottom line is, instead of trying to come up with a "catch-all" comittee based drupal distribution for music download...the idea is to allow for a dynamic distribution download using (probably) patterns.module.
hope that makes sense.
I'm doing a feasibility study at the moment..hope to have that finished mid-may and by then we will know whether the project is technically feasible (there is a huge amount of development going on with instalation profiles/patterns/dasp etc.), what sort of resources will be required and how much it will cost. So there will be an opportunity to donate/sponsor the project at some stage.
cheers
dub
+1
As I mentioned before, I think this is an overall good idea and I think the rest of the Drupal community will support the idea. It also will free any one person from having to maintain the whole thing - different individuals can maintain different patterns to ensure it works as expected. And if anyone wants to create any additional modules to work with their pattern, they can go ahead and do that and package it with their pattern. Sounds good to me
I'll be the devil's advocate in the group...
OK, I don't want to rain on this parade because I think this is an AWESOME idea and I've wanted to see it happen for almost three years now. However, I do have a few opinions on this.
One thing is this needs to be dead simple to install. The fewer choices the better. I loved Ubercart and recommended it like crazy when they had that cool automatic installer on their site, but they got rid of the installer because it was too much work to maintain. From then on the thing was just far too complex for 95% of the people out there to ever install, let alone configure. An automatic installer is critical imho. Only a handful of the musicians who could really benefit from this are techy enough to even install drupal using Fantastico.
From a personal experience perspective (I make an offline database software package used by >3000 musicians in 21 countries) the potential for feature bloat is HUGE, everyone always wants just one more thing. For that reason I think it's imperative we have a lead maintainer on this project with a will of steel. And that maintainer has to want to stick around for the long haul. I don't know if it's money or what exactly is needed to make this happen, but that person needs to be consistent, insightful, and awfully strong-willed. :-)
One last thing, I'm worried about Drupal to be honest, with all these interconnected modules it feels like it's getting sluggish. For example: I just tried to install the DASH player (and all it's associated modules) on a friend's drupal site and once it was installed it made the Administration screens take over 60 seconds to load. Strangled the administrative side of the site, I had to uninstall it.
OK, that's it for me, I would love to see this fly because I absolutely HATE that sites like bandzoogle and nimbit and sonicbids and hostbaby can charge what they charge for their stuff. I LOVE drupal and have been using it for three years. Would love to see this work, I just want to make sure we can really succeed. I'd promote it like crazy to my customer base that's for sure, and integrate my product with it backwards and forwards.
very interesting post.
Totally and utterly agree on all counts. Drupal did get a little shaky with version 6.x (although it has improved somewhat) and the point about feature bloat is spot on.
To provide a little backdrop...this thread grew out of some work I was doing on a discography.module for Drupal based on the idea of just using existing modules. It struck me as amazing that I needed to download so many modules, just to have a release date field option when submitting an album or single release. The temptation to write a bespoke discography.module, with an in-built date field was very strong....but I would then need that date field for a tours page. So I bounced back to the CCK and Views approach. The problem with that is you need to understand views.module to be able to pull it all together...and having used Drupal for 5 years and consider myself very familiar with it, my head still spins when I look at the views interface. There is no way on earth a newbie or a relative newcomer to Drupal would be able to build a music site that way. The bottom line is, it became a strange dilemna that led to the question "a music distribution or custom modules?"
Thanks to the recent development of the patterns.module, the ability to create a simple Drupal installation has been made much simpler. I would like to take that a stage further and allow developers to download ONLY the modules and patterns they need for their music site.
In other words, instead of searching out, downloading and installing of the 14 or more modules you need to implement a simple discography in Drupal, the MDFD does it for you. Not only that, but, you're not limited to just one option. For a music shop, you can have a choice of a magento, drupal ecommerce api, ubercart or an iframe music shop option to be included in your download.
In principle it sounds very simple, but, there will be a requirement for someone (or group of people) to keep an eye on the MDFD so it doesn't end up like the ubercart auto-install that became a headache to maintain. What I would like to do is get the MDFD idea to a proof-of-concept stage...i.e. we know it's technically feasible (it works) and then start looking at funding requirements and roll-out plans.
As for your point about project lead...I know a few hard-nosed and succesfull business/project managers I would love to have on board steering this project, but, that introduces overheads at a very early stage and shifts activities to fundraising, rather than development, so, while I'm happy to nudge this along to a proof-of-concept stage, I think we can rewind and review who leads the project full time and how it's rolled out at that point.
dub
It's finally time!
Seems like the talk about this has been endless..fact is, the promise of install profiles/distros/custom site configurations/etc. are only now starting to be realized. There also has been some great innovation with Drupal media and Drupal artist/band sites in general.
Can we 'officially' crown Dub our fearless leader? Think a dedicated project/scrum manager is also essential (anybody?). I'd be happy to help wrangle support (dev talent, funds, marketing, production, documentation) wherever we need.
Any other thoughts on next steps, needs, and potential pitfalls?
Gus Austin
PepperAlley Productions
Gus Austin
spreading memes
I think we should act quickly and in stages. Here's a few suggested calls to action I think should happen straight away.
Time-wise, I can clear my desk in early may to take on the initial feasibility study and setting up the of MDFD project site, so we can get moving quite quickly. One of the pitfalls is that we talk too much about it and we end up with analysis paralysis or an initiative that requires a lot of resources. Because there area lot of Drupal music sites already out there...I think once we find a way to stockpile those "patterns" and nail the single-download feature, the MDFD will naturally grow and evolve.
There will naturally be requirements for documentation, theming, funding, dev & marketing etc. but I think we can start discussing how that works later in May, when we will, at least, have something in place when those discussions start. If people are in agreement, I'm happy enough to take the lead and bring it to the end of may when we can have a rewind and review discussion and start thinking about stage 2..i.e. rolling out a beta MDFD
NOTES:
I haven't thought of a catchy name for the project yet, anyone any ideas? preferebly something we can grab a dotcom domain for.
If there are any companies or individuals out there who have thought about doing something like this, but never got around to it and would be interested in sponsoring the initiative, please drop me an email.
dub
Project
Hi guys,
Again, great discussion!
We've been looking for developers to develop this form of solution. We have been proposed a project spanning over 100 H to develop a distribution in accordance with below.
What are your ideas? Should we go ahead and do it? I'm not a Drupal expert, but I have lots of opportunities to do business with this solution.
Anything else we should think of before going ahead?
Project Summary
Project Details
1.Core Drupal platform development:
• Installation of basic Drupal system.
• Creating proper architecture to handle big volume of media content.
• Installation of the existing modules or creating new ones to fit the features list specified below.
• Creating HTML and CSS interface templates to make the process of applying new designs as automated as possible.
Moving 1 site on to new platform:
• Creating new HTML and CSS from layered PSD design files and connecting it with the system.
• Test and quality assurance of setup
Re-using this platform for new sites.
• The distrubution package will be delivered in zipped format and will be able to set-up on a range of set-ups.
• Documentation (installation guide) for 3rd party developers who will continue using the core platform.
• Guidelines (documentation) on using new design with HTML and CSS templates
Features Specifications
General administration
Permission manager for editing permission levels of super user, administrator and editors
User can edit language of all content on site (including registration forms etc.)
User can choose whether fan comments should be approved or not before published to site
User can create new pages on site
Search
All content published to site is searchable
Blog & News
User can create, edit & manage blog posts in WYSIWYG-editor
User can add images (multiple) to blog posts
User can categorize blog posts
User can embed rich media content (f ex youtube and similar) in posts
Posts can be filtered and published on multiple locations on site (f ex both in ’blog’ section and latest post feeded front page)
Registered Fan can post comments to blog post
User can create posts from mobile phone (e-mail)
Blog can be set up for multiple bloggers
Image Galleries
User can create, edit, rearrange and delete image galleries
User can add/delete images to image galleries via easy upload interface
Images are displayed in overshadowing pop-up window (like on http://www.kevinborg.se/media/gallery)
User can create ’press section’ with high-res photos available for download (thus not displayed in pop-up)
Events Calendar
User can create, edit and delete events
User can add details about about date, time, venue, city and country of event
User can add link to site for purchasing tickets
See http://www.kevinborg.se/kalender/ for example
Events are automatically removed from site when date has passed
Visitor can filter events based on location, date etc.
Content Syndication
Visitor can subscribe to RSS feed for all published content
Clean URL:s for permalink creation
Audio Player
User can upload MP3 files (or similar format) to be played in media player
User can create, edit and delete playlist for media player
Audio player can be displayed as embedded player or as pop-up
Visitor can play, pause, stop, skip tracks in media player
Registered fan can rate (f ex scale 1-5 stars) audio in audio player
Video Player
User can upload mov, mpg or flv files (or similar format) to be played in video player
User can create, edit and delete playlist for video player
Video player can be displayed as embedded player or as pop-up
Visitor can play, pause, stop, skip tracks in media player
Registered fan can rate (f ex scale 1-5 stars) audio in video player
Visitor can play video in full screen
Community (see http://www.kevinborg.se/fans for examples)
Visitor can register/unregister for fan club
Visitor can login to fan club
Registered fan can create profile page that displays fan name, age, city, country
Registered fan can upload profile image (avatar) to be displayed on profile page
Registerd fans get a wall where other fans can leave comments
Registered fans can leave comments on news & blog posts
Registered fan receives an e-mail notification when somebody has left a comment on their profile page
User can create pages that are only visible to registered fans
Registered fans can comment on media items
Registered fans can comment on gigs
Registered fans can add rating & reviews to products
Registered Fans can rating & reviews to events
Forum
Registered fan can make posts in integrated forum
Registed fan can create new threads
User can moderate content in forum
Guestbook
Registered fans can leave posts in integrated guestbook
User can edit and delete guestbook posts
Analytics & SEO
Google analytics is installed on site
User can set-up and edit meta-tags on pages
Shop
External retail solution can be integrated on site (basically just displaying an existing mini-site in a frame)
Newsletter
User can create & send newsletter to fans registered to site
User can view statistics on newsletter sendouts
excellent ideas
hi Marcus,
Thanks for contributing.
The idea I have in mind for deployment of the MDFD (music distribution for Drupal) is very similar but with one key difference when it comes to how to to deliver the TAR download.
Instead of packing it full with a "best guess" collection of modules and patterns, I would prefer if each element was broken into modular elements and the band site developer simply chooses which elements he or she wants included in the MDFD download.
Or to put it another way. I would break down your spec. for a MDFD into seperate options, so you end up with a clickable option for NEWSLETTER, SHOP, GUESTBOOK, FORUM, TOUR DATES, DISCOGRAPHY etc. on the MFDF download page. So when you download your MFDF you only download the modules and patterns you need.
It's a slightly different way of thinking about how to build a MDFD, but, I like it because it means you can have 2 options for TOUR DATES.....4 options for a music shop (ubercart/Drupal ecommerce API/magento/iframe for an external shop), 2 options for a newsletter, 2 options for audio/video previews (external player like imeem for artist sites on shared hosting, built-in audio/video media functionality) and so on, by gathering together patterns from existing music sites, such as your Kevinborg.se website.
I'm not saying you shouldn't go ahead with development of your idea, but, if we can gather enough support and interest in developing the platform to deliver a bespoke "Drupal App" download in the way I outlined for the MFDF, it will make your job a lot easier and simpler....and it won't impinge or take away from any business opportunities you may have already identified with your re-usable platform idea.
dub
undecideds & alternatives to dist.
Just a quick note....can the people who voted "undecided" and "alternative approach" post their thoughts/arguments on why they voted that way.
I'm more or less convinced that an MDFD (Music dist. For Drupal) as outlined is the way to go but I would like to hear more arguments to the contrary, if you have the time. I'd prefer to have a D'oH! moment now rather than in two weeks time.
dub
hi (need help for my project)
hi everyone
I am building a site for music portal.
I want to ask if the setup correct.
I am setting up content types.
This is how I setup:
Artist (name, biography, genre, image, site)
Album (title, release date, label)
song (name, file (mp3))
video ( title, file, *genre, *category)
relation (artist(name), *album (title), *Song (name))
genre (genre)
category(category)
I am thinking about doing tour date, but I need some guidance and one more question how do you do comment and rating for video, news and album. and one last one, how do you setup news?
I appreciate for your help
Thank you
..
can i recommend you check out the following page:
Ingredients and examples for a drupal band/artist site
http://groups.drupal.org/node/5167
This discussion is about whether we should pull all modules together into a Music distribution For Drupal artist/band sites or carry on with individual modules. That thread will offer more guidance on which modules are good for tour dates etc.
dub
Thanks
Thank you for your help
Panels maybe?
Since the dominant opinion is to go for a music dist. then I will would like to get some opinions for Panels 3 integration wishlist. Is this an overkill? Two days ago beta1 was released and by playing around with it seems very powerful with endless features! Seems like a great way of displaying the content and create visual appealing pages. It's hard to get Panels setup but with the Patterns seems a good way to go. Enable and disable features could by content elements and sees very straightforward. Just planting seeds :)
absolutely
Thanks Charos for chipping in.
You're right. Panels is very powerful and the general direction we're taking this is that band.artist site developers will be able to contribute patterns to the music distribution.
e.g. a developer might have the option to include a panels.module driven "community page", which pulls/scrapes content related to the artist from other sites (myspace/last.fm/bebo/twitter etc.) and panels.module organises it into a nice interface.
That's the ideal scenario and it looks like patterns.module can help fulfill that "dynamic download" feature. It means that a developer who doesn't want a panels driven community page...or a panels driven video preview page (for example) doesn't have the modules and patterns required to do that included in their download. It also means we avoid code-bloat and members of the community can submit their own patterns for inclusion in the distribution, so the reliance isn't on a small team to maintain and come up with all the new changes/ideas...it's done by the community with some form of protocol or simple rules that keeps things tidy.
hope that makes sense..
dub
sorry
sorry i didn't go through this page, i have post something that ask for help. I am new in drupal
On the earlier post, it mention about tour dates from myspace, or other facebook. I think it's good idea to implement this in drupal also.
I am currently update site , most artist have their site on myspace or facebook. it's a big job to key in all the tour dates and into our data. i hope there're solution for this
Thanks
tours_synch.module
I agree..it would be great to have a tours.module that automatically updated myspace, last.fm, upcoming.org and other sites. There is a module called the Live Journal Cross Poster module that does something along those lines for live journal but I'm not aware of a Drupal module that specifically allows you to synch tour dates in that way.
Until such a tours_synch.module is created, can I suggest you check out the following http://groups.drupal.org/node/5167 (Ingredients and examples for a drupal band/artist site) which might offer some guidance to which modules maybe the best for implementing a simple tours page on a site?
dub
Thank
Thank you for your great response. I will check it out
I found this link when i research myspace tour date
i hope it can be used. I don't know about programming, but i think this might help
this is the code:
http://www.juicyfly.com/playground/myspace.php
and this is someone make it:
http://makedatamakesense.com/myspace/event/
..
That's a myspace parser Andy. It just pulls a feed from a myspace account to list events.
When I was talking about a tours_synch.module I meant that you update your drupal driven artist/band site and it automatically updates your last.fm, myspace, bebo, facebook pages automatically. The code you linked doesn't solve that. It works the other way around..i.e. you have to update your myspace page to update the events feed the parser is gathering.
dub
oh so you want people to
oh so you want people to come to the site to update instead of going to myspace or facebook.
but i have this code which is match to my need how is it implement in drupal, to receive data from myspace
quick one..
Try this: http://drupal.org/node/454018
This discussion is about whether we should pull all modules together into a Music distribution For Drupal artist/band sites or carry on with individual modules. Can you please keep "how to? discussions" on drupal.org or http://groups.drupal.org/node/5167
newsletter module for bands
great to see someone pick up the reigns for this. I voted for the music distribution and love the idea of selecting what you want before you download. count me in for donations when the project outline is ready dub.
one thing that is lacking at the moment for bands/artists is a native drupal newsletter module that allows you to collected subscriber email addresses with fields like city/country. Is it possible, using the patterns idea you have for rolling out a Dynamic Music Distribution to have a pattern for the simplenews.module that expands it out with those fields?
Most bands use mailing lists for promoting gigs and new releases. simplenews.module is fine for new releases but it would be great if they could filter emails by city/country for promoting gigs
phil
newsletter module by geocode radius search
Couldn't agree more with phil above. I think searching by zip code or geocode radius (i.e within 50 miles of the performance venue) would be preferable. That's how I do it in Indie Band Manager and that's how sites like bandloop are doing it now. It's basically a key off of latitude and longitude.
great idea
thanks Phil & Charlie...
superb ideas. I think we will probably start out with a simple functionality that captures city/country/zip elegantly first and then look at the geocoding idea in more detail. If it's simple to add-in that functionality, great, but, I'd like to walk befoer we run.
If you don't mind me asking, Charlie..one quick question
If a Music Distribution For Drupal (MD4D) existed that matched the services bandloop provides....would you prefer a hosted service or would you download the MD4D and DIY the hosting?
In other words, one of the questions I have about the MD4D idea is do people sign up for bandloop style hosted services because of the functionality that comes with the service or is it because it is a hosted service.
If it's the latter, it might offer a significant funding option for project development, but, if it's the former, i.e. people just use it because of the functionality they provide, with the exception of complete beginners...most might just download the MD4D and use it on their own server.
I'd be interested to hear what you think. And if you have any more ideas like that...please chip them in.
Dub
spec.
Hi Charlie,
I'm drawing up a spec for a fanbase newsletter module at the moment. You don't happen to know if band manager/bandloop are using an internal/external API for building the geocode list?
At the moment, the module spec. only includes town/city and country options for targetting a mailout. keen to know more about the geocoding idea.
dub
Newsletter by region/mileage radius
Indie Band Manager uses an internal zip code database table to do the comparisons and generate the query that finds all the records within 50, 100, or xxx miles of a specific venue, customer, or show.
Awhile back there was an opensource website app out to find coffeeshops that were NOT Starbucks by zipcode. I assume it used some opensource zip code search, I had heard that was relatively trivial with php. I am not a php programmer so my knowledge is very limited, sorry. Just searched google and this looks fairly promising:
http://www.micahcarrick.com/04-19-2005/php-zip-code-range-and-distance-c...
-Charlie
thanks
many thanks for the info. and leads. It's definitely something that should be included in a music distribution.
if you have any more brilliant ideas like that, please post them up here.
dub
Views Mail
I recommend considering this route for the newsletter/mailing list, or at least speaking with SomebodySysop about this module, because if I recall correctly he developed it specifically to do proximity email blasts. Maybe it could be integrated with simplenews?
http://drupal.org/project/views_mail
This way it'd be very patterns friendly, you could collect all sorts of user data, sort by it with views filtering, and then send a targeted email blast.
Also a quick followup -
Also a quick followup - location module / cck has proximity zipcode search via views exposed filter built in. Another one worth checkin out.
thanks
thanks for the heads up about that zirafa. looks good. I think I remember you mentioned that before. I'll drop the maintainer an email to see if there's a working demo (i.e. a possible pattern/feature) we can use.
Dub
geocoder
I imagine once you have the geocodes entered in the database or accessible via an external API...you could do something like this:
SELECT fan.name, fan.mail from guest, zipcodeWHERE fan.zip = fan.zip
AND zipcode.lat < [maxlat] AND zipcode.lat > [minlat]
AND zipcode.lng < [maxlng] AND zipcode.lng > [minlng]
Yahoo have a geocode api
http://developer.yahoo.com/maps/rest/V1/geocode.html
As do google
http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/services.html
Perhaps we could start a seperate thread about a possible fanbase newsletter module. I think it would be a killer idea to add in to the music distribution.
If we could focus on features like this, I can see people being more willing to donate for the module development - instead of paying a subscription every month for a commercial service.
thanks phil
appreciate the pointers. keep em coming. dub
on the list of things we need
Totally agree phil. I'm not sure if it can be done using patterns or if we need a seperate module for it, but, it's on the list of things we need for a music dist for drupal (MD4D).
any more ideas or functionality requests?
Dub
Time for a separate working group?
Now that we're moving forward with this (for real), it may be a good idea to create a separate working group to focus on the effort (MD4D)? Dub, if you think it's a good idea, we'll let you do the honors!
Gus Austin
PepperAlley Productions
Gus Austin
end of may..
I think it would be good to open that group up at the end of may when I should have a brief white paper ready....that way the the community can start picking holes in the plan and we can finalise a roadmap and development plan if everyone is in agreement.
I'm also concious that there have been similar initiatives before, like the kendra hub and attempts at creating an installation profile for artists/bands, so what I would like to do is act as a catalyst to re-ignite that enthusaism and energy, without stepping on anyone's toes. In other words, the more I look into the MD4D the more I see the huge amount of work that's already been done....it's as if it just needs a little nudge to jumpstart it. If I can help with that nudging, great, but, I'm all ears to those who have been down this road before.
dub
Don't worry about toes - it's a time issue
Unfortunately I know how this works all too well for just about any product you're not developing directly for a client. Team comes together - realizes the amount of time it'll take - need to pay the bills - drupal shops and clients come to the rescue - momentum is lost. The frustrating bit is how most of these efforts could be easily funded if things didn't fizzle out before a proper site spec or proposal.
Obviously it's going to a lot of time/research for a product proposal, but I think the right people committing to the development (i.e. not gusaus) will be enough for stakeholders to start seeding the effort.
Based on this, I think we should set up our working group now and I'll assign this project already set-up for funding - http://www.fossfactory.org/project/p160
Don't worry about providng nudging - I've got that part covered!
Gus Austin
PepperAlley Productions
Gus Austin
thanks
cheers Gus. Great to see so much stuff happening. I've dropped you a quick email about that fossfactory thing.
keep up the great work
dub
"crown Dub our fearless leader..."
Thank you Dub, you are my fearless leader and all songwriters write a verse, as now we can write more songs.....
quick update
Just to let people know
(a) It will be the end of june before the white paper for a MD4D (music dist 4 Drupal) is available. Was hoping to have it ready by now, but, work got in the way.
(b) keep posting your ideas..suggestions or indications of support for the initiative.
cheers
dub
I've just voted undecided...
Rather than try and present a comprehensive argument as to why, I'll explain where I'm coming from.
I built a band site last year in Wordpress, which is really just a blog (not that surprising).
But in the last couple of weeks I've been building a project management site for the band in Drupal using OG. The band is scattered around the country so it makes sense to have a centralised site for co-ordinating rehearsal, recording and gig dates, discussions, todos and the rest. Not all members of the band are internet geeks, so I'm currently attempting to configure Mailhandler and Mail to Web so that band members can participate directly via their email client. I'm already using Notifications.
The obvious missing piece of the jigsaw is the ability to upload and present new recordings, mixes or song ideas, which is how I stumbled across the developing discography module and then this thread, but my guess is I'd want to customise many of the fields in Discography to serve our present purpose.
Could an MD4D include an 'intranet' (for want of a better word) for mixers, producers and musicians working remotely?
In the long term, the band will want to sell recordings through the site (if they don't go down the iTunes route) so an MD4D package sounds great, but then they have a web developer (me) on board. If they didn't, wouldn't they just plump for MySpace?
In addition to the modules mentioned above, they'd need SWF Upload or similar, because they're on shared hosting (as Dublin mentioned, lots of bands are) with a php upload limit of 2Mb. And of course, they'd need an image manager fully integrated with a WYSIWYG editor that 'just worked'. Could those features be included?
Drupal is an incredibly powerful and flexible beast precisely because of its modular nature, and I can see site admins having a great time with MD4D, configuring, downloading, customising and extending, but I'm less convinced that MD4D could be an off the shelf solution for bands who just want a web site.
Or have I misunderstood the intention?
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to rush off and find out what this Patterns thang is all about...
--
http://www.mediachrome.com
http://digitaldocxtrine.com
..
Thanks for taking the time to vote and explain why you voted the way you did. That feedback is invaluable.
The quick answer is yes.
I envisage an optional extra admin-layer for non-techy artists/band site editors that sits on top of the Drupal admin interface - in other words, a very very very simple click-and-do admin interface.
The quick answer is yes.
Although, the discography module may not suit the application you mentioned. It has a lot of fields that are specifically for official recordings, rather than work-in-progress stuff.
You could create a new ROLE TYPE called something like Band Member and create a new content type called "song ideas" that is restricted to users with the role type "band member". In other words, by editing the permissions (under ADMIN -> USERS -> PERSMISSIONS) only band members can create/view "song ideas".
The same principle is used for fan members-only areas.
On this topic, many artists I know use (the very good) http://www.soundcloud.com for the situation you just mentioned. That's quite useful because artists can dump raw pro-tools files (which are very large) up there or full quality WAV/AIFF.
Another useful (and open source) option is the (excellent) http://eyeos.org which is a superb "cloud" style desktop manager. It's modular and they have a neat file upload/sharing add-on thing, so a band could have a private http://cloud.bandname.com subdomain with eyeos installed. It's plausible to use Drupal for the same idea, but, many bands/artists are on shared hosting with upload file size limits that might be okay for uploading low-res mp3...but, not for studio quality or WAV/AIFF.
I would recommend they do both. Although I'm not so keen on myspace..they have been very reluctant to pay artists a fair royalty for the use of music on their multi-million dollar site. I would recommend your band gets in touch with Merlin Music Network who are doing deals with spotify, last.fm, qtrax, comes with music and all the new all-you-can-eat music services.
As for selling downloads/cds...the MD4D will come with a music shop selling CDs/DVDs, MP3, WAV and AIFF (WAV/AIFF are CD quality downloads) using amazon.com and their webservices for handling the downloads. It will also all you to sell t-shirts, band merch and gig tickets. If you drop me an email, you can see a beta version of that in action with a project about to go live very soon.
A turn-key solution is the long-term goal of the MD4D. However, it's been attempted a few times before by others and never really got off the ground - mainly because of funding as I understand it. The willingness is there and the demand is certainly there, but, it seems to be difficult to hit the right buttons with an open source project to attract investment/funding. A drupal visionary (Gusaus) got in touch recently about this and he's very positive that funding can be raised. I'm working on the plan at the moment for that funding campaign, so I'm hoping he's right and we can get this moving.
The ultimate goal is to have an MD4D with the key required features that a relatively-non-techy can click-and-go with an admin interface layer thats is intuitive and simple.
hope that makes sense and thanks again for the feedback. Appreciate it.
dub
take care with EyeOS
I installed it on a very good drupal host and I got warned that if I don't stop using it, my account will be banned. It seems that EyeOS is very very resource-hungry and stresses CPU too much for shared hosting and VPS. Unless you've got a dedicated server, EyeOS is not an option.
quick update re: kendra hub
I finally got word back from Daniel (kendra hub project, which was related to the music dist. idea in this thread) this week. The project isn't on ice as previously thought - they updated their proposal at the end of april and are about to embark on a fundraising campaign for the project.
http://groups.drupal.org/node/18936
I think it would be counter-productive for 2 very similar projects to be hitting the same people for funding and support, so I think it's best if this thread was put to bed and people looked towards the kendra hub project as a possible solution.
I tried to get in touch with the kendra team a while back, before this idea took shape, to see where their project was at and I got the impression that nothing was happening..in the last few weeks it appears to have sparked into life again, so, it's a little bit frustrating for me...I was told by Stephane (scor) one of the kendra hub team leaders that there was "still no progress on the kendra hub proposal. not much hope either"...on the 18th June. Now I'm learning that it's all systems go....
On the flip side, the updates to their proposal at the end of april appears to have incorporated a lot of the key ideas and suggestions made on this thread, so it hasn't been a complete waste of time.
Anyway..thanks for all the feedback, suggestions and emails. hopefully the kendra hub team will pull through on their fundraising campaign and get things moving forward.
cheers
Dub
This is just the beginning...
Hi Dub and All,
This is a surprise that I wasn't expecting (as they usually are). There's so much good work going on here in Drupal groups I can't track it all.
Apologies for being quiet over the last few months. I was travelling lots and what time on the computer I had was spent on paid work. Not a good excuse, I know. That said if you ever want to pin me down in the future then just skype or phone and I'm all yours. However, I feel that all the work that has gone on here has not been wasted in the slightest.
That's a big baton you're handing us Dub. The scope of Kendra Hub will have to widen somewhat to be worthy. But I'm not going to let you (Dublin Drupaller) get off so lightly though. I want you in the Kendra Hub team. I've wanted that for a while. But now I'll make it official. I hope that you accept. While I'm at it I also want Gus (gusaus) in with us too.
We were waiting on Knight Drupal Initiative to come through with funds for Kendra Hub but that's all stalled and they can't be relied upon to come back any time soon. So, we've got to raise the funds ourselves. We've got to go out and get the funds direct from those that'll benefit from Kendra Hub: the artists, managers and record labels. Oh, and by the way, I don't want to embark on such a grand mission without these funds - it'll just be too painful.
The next step is just to get on those phones, have meetings with donors/sponsors and start raising cash pledges. We've got a good start: Real World (that's Peter Gabriel's record label and studio) have already pledged at least 3K GBP. It isn't much but it gives us a lever with which to go out to artists, managers and record labels. I know that we've got an incredible network between us - and access to some amazing resources in terms of brains and cash. And now that Kendra Initiative is part funded by the EU we've got some kudos behind us too. You never know maybe Knight Drupal Initiative will match what we raise if we can show substantial industry support.
I reckon we should aim to get the proposal down to a couple of pages of not too techie language and use that as the "sales" pitch.
I also reckon we should all get together in Paris in early September. I'm a bit old fashioned and like to meet people I work with face to face at least once!
By the way you'll find me everywhere with "dahacouk" on skype, linkedin, plaxo, facebook, twitter, aim, ichat, yahoo, jabber, irc, yaddi, yadda...
This is just the beginning...
Cheers Daniel
Thanks for the update
Thanks for your comprehensive reply to my previous post, and thanks for the update re: Kendra.
It does make sense to avoid duplication, and if the Kendra team have taken on board some of the thoughts expressed here, then your effort hasn't been wasted.
Jim
http://www.mediachrome.com
http://digitaldocxtrine.com
What aren't we duplicating?
There's already a huge amount of overlap and duplication in the sense that most of the tech we're talking about has already been built. Problem is a lot of the innovation is client/market driven and the larger community (non-technical developers, indie labels, producers) are usually the last ones to benefit. A good indicator is the lack of any type of install profile even though there's been a lot of talk/interest for years. Even with open/funded projects, there's often times a lot less collaboration than you would think. This again, I think, is largely a factor of tight deadlines, limited resources (mainly time), and no easy way to openly collaborate or keep track of the larger community.
One thing that I believe gets lost is the fact that any funded project (Knight, Google, etc.) would be freely available on drupal.org for anybody to take/modify and use for our own branded solution. It's one thing if you don't want to approach stakeholders w/ multiple 'branded' projects - that shouldn't prevent collaboration/pooling of funds/developer resources behind the scenes.
Thanks to Dub, I believe we're close to having a plan and someone who can drive the development. Let's figure out an actual cost, figure out how to pitch this, and get on w/ it. There are plenty of stakeholders who will fund if we can ever get to that point.
Gus Austin
PepperAlley Productions
Gus Austin
Biggest Mistake Ever
I'm with Gus here. Stopping production because someone else might make something similar is the biggest mistake ever in the history of man. Theirs may never get completed. They may never get funded. I vote a most whole-hearted "nay" to stopping development.
Agreed! Carry on!...
Yes, I think it's a great shame that this thread has come to an abrupt halt. I'd be really interested in seeing the white paper for a MD4D. You've got a lot of support on this thread and it would be a shame to throw that away. What happens if Kendra Hub doesn't get off the ground? Then we've all lost. No, best for all these efforts to carry on regardless of what the others are doing. Carry on!
I'm also trying to get together a BoF submission for DC Paris. Let me know if you are interested.
Cheers Daniel
Money talks
Sounds cliche, but I'm thinking a little bit of funding will cut through a lot of debate. So here's the deal - If we can be square that 1) some version of what we're building will be freely available on drupal.org; 2) Dub will lead the dev; 3) Daniel/Kendra will support; we can commence funding.
Aside from the open source product(s), other benefits (TBD), sponsors will have a risk free way to support via FossFactory -
http://www.fossfactory.org/
http://www.fossfactory.org/overview.php
Chime in if this is something you could help support financially and let's pick up the pace a bit...
Gus Austin
PepperAlley Productions
Gus Austin
Media BoF at Paris. Please vote now...
Hi!
I’ve submitted a request to hold a BoF called Drupal for Media.
So, please vote for it as soon as you can if you’re going to DrupalCon Paris. Time is very short!
Many thanks! ;-)
Cheers Daniel
very very frustrating
This is very frustrating.
I can understand dubs reluctance to get into duplication but it's been nearly 3 months now since the Kendra team have pulled the rug on this thread and the only progress I can see is that a proposal is being written!!! :-(
Why didn't the Kendra team support dublin drupallers initiative, rather than the other way around?
The way I see it, Dub has being one of the most proficient contributers to the arts & music group since its inception and the spec. outlined here is much closer to what I would like to see developed rather than the Kendra proposal here.
These projects have different goals...
As you say your self you'd rather see Dub's rather than Kendra's proposal. So, good. So, these are different projects, right? So, where's the duplication? Sure, there's overlap so cool. Why did Dub give up when he was so close? How did Kendra actually really mechanically pull the rug? That sounds like we built Kendra Hub proposal intentionally to get on your nerves. How can you honestly say that? We are doing what we do because we love music and art and want it to carry on. The Kendra team can't do development without cash to pay itself. That's our model. Not yours. Not Dubs. Fine. Good. By the way Dub has not made any input into Kendra Hub.
So, why has Dub stopped? Have you spoken to him? I have! Pick up the phone and call him! Have a chat! Give him your support! That's what he wants.
Let's keep going for it!
Cheers Daniel
..
I did speak to dub (via email).
As I understand it, he contacted the kendra hub team, before embarking on his drive and was told that the project was stalled and there was not much hope for progress (see his earlier post on this thread). He couldn't work for free on the project and was embarking on a fund raising campaign. When he found out later that the project had resurfaced he stopped because he thought it was counter-productive for two almost identical projects to be going for funding.
That's how I understand it and I'm a little confused when you say that dub didn't make any input into the kendra hub idea. He is one of the main contributors on the kendra hub proposal discussion here: http://groups.drupal.org/node/18936 and a lot of his previous contributions to the arts & music group are evident in the proposal itself.
You are correct...
Yup, as far as I can tell you are telling it how it is. But it was all very abrupt.
Yes, I take back my comments that Dub didn't work on the Kendra Hub proposal - he did.
So, where does that leave us, hmm?
Cheers Daniel
Kendra, perhaps you should
Kendra, perhaps you should abandon your proposal and support Dub anyway you can - either financially or with CODE.
If you really believe that what he is doing is good work than support what he is doing, it doesn't make sense to try and lure him over to your team and your agenda, especially when you haven't got much to show. Or to just sit back and try and benefit from his work. Personally I feel Dub's proposal is simpler and easier to digest than Kendra's.
And if you are working on code, and it's all behind the scenes, please open up what you are doing. For an open source project to work you've got to contribute your changes incrementally and allow the community to absorb and understand what is going on. Split it up, divide and conquer, make it modular. Do reverse bounties for code changes, hire the module's original authors, etc...
As long as there is a feeling of mutual trust and respect among collaborators, users and testers, the project can maintain momentum even with minimal funding and without multi-page proposals. After all, funding only gets you so far - what happens when the money runs out?
Makes sense to me
Actually, I think the very fact that Dub is likely to have some code is a good reason to try to get him involved in the Kendra project.
Your point about the simplicity of Dub's proposal is, however, spot on. The Kendra Hub proposal is vague and needs to be firmed up to be really useful in any practical sense. I can see the merits of trying to get some sort of framework into place before development starts, but--as pointed out by others--much of the functionality mentioned in the two proposals already exists within Drupal in some form or another, so someone should be able to start making some proposals about which specific modules can be used or modified to suit the needs of artists and labels looking to use Drupal to sell their music. The Kendra proposal does this to some extent in "Modules to be created", but it is, once again, a little vague. As it stands, Dub's proposal is equally skeletal. They're both just proposals, after all, and are out there to create discussion about their merits. And they are not mutually exclusive.
Thanks!
@allolex:
Everything you say makes sense. It's nice not to be asked to give either cash or developer time. Neither of which we have right now. This is a community project and I'm glad you recommending people help out in any way you can.
Cheers Daniel
I still would like to see some development happen very soon
I'm also recommending that people start doing some of the work beyond planning that people here can contribute to. We should get started the things that lead directly to coding and not risk over-planning. Some things will become evident when we start thinking about implementation. I definitely believe in "release early, release often".
You won't have to worry about the money running out if the project isn't dependent on development financed through fundraising or similar methods. There are plenty of developers, like myself, who are willing to dedicate some time to a worthy project.
How do you feel open source projects are best managed?
Can you be a bit more positive?...
zirafa:
"Abandon" sounds so negative! As I just replied Kendra needs cash to do work to pay for food and living etc. So, that's our priority and our model here. Doesn't have to be the way you work though. Why don't you give Dub your time and cash? We're all in the same boat.
Have you phoned Dub and chatted with him? Offered your support? Ask him to carry on!
What? "Or to just sit back and try and benefit from his work." Isn't that the definition of open source?!?!
We are not working on code yet.
The aim is not to have the money run out! ;-)
Cheers Daniel
Not trying to be negative...
Seems I have touched a nerve with you. The reality is Dub is no longer working on this project in large part because you have stepped up. Kendra is now leading this project. I am suggesting Kendra should try and support Dub or Dub's proposal, which I see as a positive suggestion, not a negative one. Dub's proposal has wider implications and benefits for the rest of the Drupal community (beyond just art and music) which means a greater chance of success. The strategy is also more decentralized, meaning no huge dependencies on any one person or organization which I see as a good thing.
I have spoken with Dub concerning this issue (over email) and have been a long supporter of his work over the years. I understand his reasoning to cool off on this project for now.
Benefiting from others is just one aspect, contributing back is another. Mutual trust and respect is what pushes everything forward, as well as transparency and accountability.
Perhaps I should state myself more clearly: I am not convinced by the Kendra proposal and the method you've been going about it. Feel free to email me privately if you want to discuss this - I don't want to turn this thread into a flame war.
Let's talk...
@zirafa,
Is "not trying to be negative" the same as "being positive"? ;-) Sorry, just one of my semantic jokes.
Sure you "touched a nerve". Basically I start to get sleepy when people keep telling me or suggesting at me what I should be doing and where I should be spending my money. I wake up and smile when people enter into a collaborative discussion with me about how we can create something useful and beautiful. Also, I wake up when people make specific comments on stuff that I have written rather than sweeping comments. Notice the difference?
Kendra never "stepped up" to "this project". Dub just dropped out of MD4D. MD4D is not Kendra Hub. Kendra Initiative is working on Kendra Hub. "Kendra is" not "now leading this project".
"I am suggesting Kendra should try and support Dub or Dub's proposal, which I see as a positive suggestion, not a negative one." But you said we should "abandon" Kendra Hub too! ;-/
"Dub's proposal has wider implications and benefits for the rest of the Drupal community (beyond just art and music) which means a greater chance of success. The strategy is also more decentralized, meaning no huge dependencies on any one person or organization which I see as a good thing." That's sounds great! Call him up and convince him to carry on!
"Perhaps I should state myself more clearly: I am not convinced by the Kendra proposal and the method you've been going about it." So, either help us fix it or leave us alone; give us pointers to problems one time but please don't nag.
On the whole I think you misunderstand/overestimate what Kendra Initiative is and how much resources it has for Kendra Hub right now: only enough time to raise money to pay for developers really. You want to help us build the case, market and connect with industry? Would love it!
"Feel free to email me privately if you want to discuss this - I don't want to turn this thread into a flame war."
What I'd like to do is have a skype call with you. So, get me on skype and we'll have a discussion. My fingers are tired of typing... I'm "dahacouk".
Cheers Daniel
...
This is the first time I've made any sort of suggestion, and I'm not nagging you to do anything.
Good luck with your project and maybe we'll talk soon.
Cool...
OK. I'll let the "abandon your proposal" comment go then! ;-)
Please connect to me on skype so we can do voice chat in real time - I find it much easier to sort out issues.
Cheers Daniel
Posted as a Drupal Kata project
I'm not going to weigh much on the current discussion except to say I'm still a bit shocked the project stopped in grand fashion as it did. These always have been different projects, yet what's similar is all innovation (code, configurations, documentation, etc.) were going to be freely available for anyone to use and improve. As long as the contributors get their fair return (specifically Dub in this case), I don't see any pitfalls. Real losers so far have been the indie artists, labels, and music fans who would really benefit from these solutions.
That said, we're picking this back up as a Drupal Kata project. It's going to be built - whoever values such a thing will help fund - we'll pay the lead contributors (Dub??) - release everything back to the community - and tell you exactly how we built it.
There are so many fun things we can do to generate buzz and raise funds as we do this (benefit concerts anyone??) - 80 freaking comments on this pretty much shows the interest already. Can we rock this, people!?!?
Gus Austin
PepperAlley Productions
Gus Austin
How do I participate?
Is this project happening?
If so, I would like to be a part of it.
I want this to be my crash course on Drupal, so I want to get started immediately.
What stage is the project in?
How do I get access to the documents for the project?
True Bryan Hatch
Concise Code
bryan@concisecode.com
..
Hi Bryan,
Thanks for taking part in the poll and expressing an interest. This particular initiative was put on hold because it was discovered another similar Drupal project was about to launch a fund raising campaign to raise money to develop similar functionality. Instead of having 2 competing projects essentially doing mostly the same thing and chasing the same funding, it was decided to put this on hold while the kendra hub got up and running.
More details and a link to where you can sign up to the Kendra Hub idea is here:
http://groups.drupal.org/node/21648#comment-81545
hope that helps
dub
Vote for Kendra Hub at Knight News Challenge!
Please vote for Kendra Hub at Knight News Challenge. Please provide constructive criticism. Please pass this on to your networks.
Cheers Daniel
Kendra Hub
Thanks Dub. I am checking the Kendra Hub project out now. http://groups.drupal.org/node/18936
True Bryan Hatch
Concise Code
bryan@concisecode.com
Installation profiles about to hit - it's time!
Just in case you missed the front page news... 'useful' Installation profiles are about to become a reality on Drupal - http://drupal.org/node/596488
It was this very post (over 4 years ago!?!) that turned me onto this Drupal thing -
http://raincitystudios.com/blogs-and-pods/colin-brumelle/bryghts-recordi...
Didn't know it was going to take several years to get the technology right, but we're finally at a point where we can do this.
Right!?!
Gus Austin
Gus, thanks for the heads up
Gus, thanks for the heads up and totally agree. Installation profiles are maturing. File handling is maturing (a big one!)
Let's do it!
Comment #100!
That shows how much interest there's been in the 86 years we've been talking about this...hahaha. Last time 'round I think (know) we got hung up in politics before there was a proper site spec. This is one fun/interesting way we could fund development once we put a time/cost to the effort. With a budget, we should be able to assemble a team to get this done.
If you support this effort, please chime in w/ thoughts on what you could do.
Gus Austin
Setting the stage for Rocktober
Per the discussion in this 'Rock for Drupal' thread, it's looking like there are some other people already leveraging music events to help raise funds for development. Not sure if/how the Rock for Drupal events will fit in, but it's time to start planning some events that will directly fund this. Also need to assemble a team to 'openly' develop this IF we gather enough funding to start.
So who is ready/willing/able to help develop and design this?
Gus Austin
Sorry to just be joining the
Sorry to just be joining the party, but this discussion is sooo spread out and the threads that I've previously found on the topic were all years old by this point. Count me in.
Is there a working spec document or something? The patterns module discussion seems promising for accomplishing a lot of the task. Also, I think keeping the end user (dude in the van on tour with his iPhone) in mind when setting this thing up is key to getting as much uptake as possible. Thanks for keeping it going, everyone...
john
John
Subscribing to this delicious thread
I have started to build a drupal music site and i have spent so much time trying to figure what modules to use. I am still contemplating if the unstable "Audio" module is a good idea to begin with. Can anyone point me in the right direction or link me to where i can find this info please?
I'd say go with Views and swftools
I went with the new beta of swftools that integrates with Views2 and really like it.
I'm not super technical or up-to-date fashion-wise though, so others may have better suggestions.
I built this site with it in 48 hours as a proof-of-concept for myself:
http://songmotel.com
Thanks Charlie
I like your site. So i am thinking each song is a node? I want my users (unsigned musicians) to be able to upload their music and sometimes a whole album (which will include album art, lyrics). What module(s) do you think will best serve that need?
CCK, Views and SwfTools
Just cck, views and swftools really, but I'm no expert. I don't know anything about graphics.
Yes, each song is a node.
You should integrate the chordpro converter too:
http://webchord.sourceforge.net/index.html
New year - New Drupal release!?!
Possibly this is the year we'll be able to provide some useful tools, features, solutions for indie artists and others? I set up a project on Drupal Kata to better manage communication and collaboration. It's open to join, lurk, or participate.
http://drupalkata.com/music/
Let's see what we can build with advances in Drupal, customizable features, installation profiles and other ingredients!
Gus Austin
Update
Hello All,
I have been following Drupal from a far since Drupal 5 and have heard and read a lot about a music distro for bands lables etc. I have yet to see this materialize in any way that is useful for a newcomer to Drupal. I see excellent ideas and discussion in the group and I am wondering is there something usable yet? If not what is the delay, I mean it appears that many bands / sites use Drupal.
If there not yet a distro, is there at least a general guideline, tutorial, step by step helper or some kind of direction avaialble that can help a newbie or a person who may be willing to convert to Drupal get started with their bandsite?
Thanks in advance, not trying to sound rude or ungreatful I am just disapointed that there is not at least a simple solution avaialble yet. If anyone can point in a direction that proves me wrong please do.
Regards,
Pushtape
For those interested, there's been some momentum building on this again -
http://groups.drupal.org/node/111789#comment-519629
http://drupal.org/project/pushtape
Gus Austin
Pushtape Demo site
We're still working on a stable distribution, but this should provide an example of what you can build on Pushtape already - http://live-pushtape-panels.pantheon.io/
This panels branch builds off Panopoly and incorporates features we're developing for news, events, video, photos, 3rd party integration, and more. When stable these add-ons will be available as features on d.o. and Apps.
Check out http://groups.drupal.org/music/pushtape for more information on progress and how you can get involved!
Cheers
Gus Austin