Psonar Blog

There’s been a lot of heat and not much light about which internet music services work on the iPhone – and whether you need to download an app to use them. As far as Psonar is concerned it’s simple – we’re taking advantage of the HTML 5 support that Apple has built into the iPhone’s browser to allow us to stream music from Psonar to our users when they’re out and about with their iPhones without an app. Navigate to the Psonar mobile website, log-in and enjoy your music.

I have to confess to being rather an agnostic in the great app debate – on the one hand it’s all much easier if rich functionality and content can be accessed directly through the browser – just navigate there and get going – as Rich Urwin explained in his Psonar blog post There’s No App for That in March. On the other, apps are a great way for people to identify and access content as well as applications in a way that is safe and easy – and they can also get to them again using the icon that’s installed with every app.

Of course, it’s also easy to add Psonar to the list of app icons on your iPhone or Touch – navigate to www.psonar.com, touch the ‘+’ symbol on the bottom of the iPhone browser screen, select ‘Add to Home Screen’ and a Psonar ‘P’ bookmark will be added:

AT&T’s announcement that it’s limiting transfers on its mobile data plans has thrown a serious spanner in the works of on-demand video and music consumption over wireless networks, as Wired and PC World reported last week.

It was always a rather challenging vision – being able to stream music and movies to your phone, iPad or other 3G connected device wherever you were. ‘Challenging’ in that the networks were never up to it: too little coverage outside the metropolitan areas and too little available bandwidth even in the metropolitan areas. Spectrum is limited and can’t be indefinitely stretched by yet more clever wireless technology such as CDMA. The network operators are busily trying to get everyone to use Wi-Fi to transfer some of the burden onto fixed line broadband.

Psonar has always been about letting people access their music anywhere, any time and on any device. Sure we support streaming straight to mobile (where the phone operating system lets us) and we’re always looking to improve the quality of that experience. The reality is, however, that the easiest, quickest and free way to enjoy music and movies on your phone or portable device is to hook them up to the internet directly, or via a PC or Mac using USB, and let the wires take the strain. The Psonar SongShifter is optimised to make the transfer of music files to and from all your devices (PC, laptop, phone, mp3 player, iPad etc) as pain-free as possible.

As usual, it’s wise to be wired.

Thanks to everyone who completed the Psonar user survey – a total of 58 users so far. Many people took the trouble to suggest specific changes that could improve how Psonar works now and made suggestions for new features.

Demographics
Respondents were mostly North American (55%) or European (39%), male (84%) and evenly split across those aged 25-34 (37%) and 35-44 (36%) – although 18% of respondents were aged 14-24.

What Users Want
Most people came to the service looking for somewhere to keep their music and be able access it anywhere at any time – and 5 people specifically mentioned the demise of Lala. Nearly everyone (90%) had downloaded the SongShifter, uploaded tracks (86%) and streamed music using the player (69%). 8% of respondents had download (not streamed) music and 2 respondents (4%) had published a track on Facebook.

Comments on Psonar
The main comments were:

• color scheme too garish (update: latest release – 21 June – has reduced the amount of purple/pink and made other improvements to layout)
• “clunkiness” (update: latest release – 21 June – incorporates database access and AJAX enhancements to improve speed)
• it would be better to have a player integrated into the web page (update: we’re developing an embedded player which will allow drag to player but which can also be “popped-out” of the page if wanted)
• add shuffle play (update: due for implementation in the next 4-6 weeks);
• several people commented that a browser based upload solution would be better than the SongShifter (update: SongShifter allows access to USB connected devices, such as phones and mp3 players, and enables track downloading (as opposed to streaming) – but we’re developing a lightweight uploader which will run on Mac, Linux and, potentially, PC which would obviate the need to use the SongShifter in some circumstances)

Suggestions for Improvements
Besides these comments, other improvements suggested were:

• ablility to delete tracks;
• renaming tracks, add more metadata or edit metadata;
• Last.fm Scrobbler integration;
• greater control over SongShifter (e.g. select tracks for upload);
• include more social features, such as comments on tracks or playlists and recommendations to friends;
• add album art;
• add lyrics.

Paying for Music
On paying to listen to music they don’t own, respondents had mixed views: 39% said they wouldn’t be prepared to pay at all, 33% said they’d like to see Psonar offer access like Lala’s “web songs” (where a payment of 10c gave the right to stream, but not download, a song an infinite number of times so long as the user remained a Lala member) and 16% said they’d be prepared to pay 1c or 1p (n.b. for our non-UK users 1p = 1/100 of £1) for one or more plays of a track. Several people said that they would be prepared to listen to ads to support free streaming.

Mobile Site
A significant majority of respondents (62%) said they were very or quite likely to use (or continue to use) the Psonar mobile site.

Thanks for the Offers of Help!
Finally, we’re really grateful that so many people offered to help develop Psonar: 80% of respondents said they’d complete further user surveys and 80% said they be prepared to test new features. We’re proposing to email everyone who volunteered and offer to include them as ‘beta users’ to test new features prior to production deployment.

Best wishes and many thanks,

Martin, Rich and the Psonar team