Half arsed Napster 2.0 rundown
Boom, I start up Napster...it asks me to login. iTunes doesn't do this, why does Napster? Oh look, I can't browse the store without logging in...LAAAAAME.
So I login and it automatically takes me to the Home section, complete with spazztastic "Rich Media Content," as they like to call it. The layout's not that bad, really. It's just a little bit sparse. The organization of the New Releases pane is inconsistent with the Just Added pane. I hate scrollboxes within scrollboxes. Oh, and what's that "Get Napster Premium Now" button at the top? Hmm...
And what happens when I maximize the window? Holy facking whitespace, Batman! Golly, what's that giant ASCII cock doing there?
Okay, enough of that...what about the tabs near the top of the window? Here's the one labeled radio ...
And magazine. Screw that. WTF good is a magazine I can't read while I'm pinching a loaf? At least it doesn't cost extra. Get that upside down loser out of my sight.
Okay, okay, let's give the magazine a shot. Oops, it broke. It did give me a nice white canvas for me to flex my artistic talents though.
Yeah, you gotta pay for the message board too...Yeah, I'm going to pay to talk to all seven other people who pre-registered and got early access.
This is what the Browse section looks like. Notice how it lumps Artist and Album into the same column. We have to use the craptastic Windows style (+) hierarchical expansion to see the albums under each artist. And that column doesn't show ANYTHING by default. We have to select a genre from the pull-down menu, then select another sub-genre and click the "go" button before anything shows up. The artist names slowly appear and cascade down the column. It's not instantaneous like the iTMS is on my cable modem. It's just text right? Sheesh. Why do we have to use both pull-down menus and column views just to browse the music library?
Finally, a somewhat cool and voyeuristic feature. We can see what songs customers are previewing, complete with their logins and profiles. Who's holly56? Is she hot? I wonder...
Here are the songs holly56 bought.
Another novelty feature. We can travel through time and see historical Billboard charts...via the same crappy interface of course.
I feel like downloading something...oh wait, no I don't.
So I login and it automatically takes me to the Home section, complete with spazztastic "Rich Media Content," as they like to call it. The layout's not that bad, really. It's just a little bit sparse. The organization of the New Releases pane is inconsistent with the Just Added pane. I hate scrollboxes within scrollboxes. Oh, and what's that "Get Napster Premium Now" button at the top? Hmm...
And what happens when I maximize the window? Holy facking whitespace, Batman! Golly, what's that giant ASCII cock doing there?
Okay, enough of that...what about the tabs near the top of the window? Here's the one labeled radio ...
And magazine. Screw that. WTF good is a magazine I can't read while I'm pinching a loaf? At least it doesn't cost extra. Get that upside down loser out of my sight.
Okay, okay, let's give the magazine a shot. Oops, it broke. It did give me a nice white canvas for me to flex my artistic talents though.
Yeah, you gotta pay for the message board too...Yeah, I'm going to pay to talk to all seven other people who pre-registered and got early access.
This is what the Browse section looks like. Notice how it lumps Artist and Album into the same column. We have to use the craptastic Windows style (+) hierarchical expansion to see the albums under each artist. And that column doesn't show ANYTHING by default. We have to select a genre from the pull-down menu, then select another sub-genre and click the "go" button before anything shows up. The artist names slowly appear and cascade down the column. It's not instantaneous like the iTMS is on my cable modem. It's just text right? Sheesh. Why do we have to use both pull-down menus and column views just to browse the music library?
Finally, a somewhat cool and voyeuristic feature. We can see what songs customers are previewing, complete with their logins and profiles. Who's holly56? Is she hot? I wonder...
Here are the songs holly56 bought.
Another novelty feature. We can travel through time and see historical Billboard charts...via the same crappy interface of course.
I feel like downloading something...oh wait, no I don't.
Comments
Here's my public profile and a nice little endorsement.
And the CD burning options or complete lack thereof. You can burn a music CD and that's it. There's no gap control or anything. <kornheiser>STINKS.</kornheiser>
For about 30 minutes I couldn't figure out how to buy more than one selection at once. There's no "shopping cart" in the store. The default setting functions sorta like One-Click. It turns out you can use a contextual menu to 'bookmark' (my term, not theirs) songs in playlists, but it's tedious. You can also see recently previewed songs on the bottom-right column, but it only stores a very finite number of songs, so it's unreliable as a shopping cart. The closest thing to a shopping cart is a fackin' playlist!
And here is how Napster organized the five courtesy downloads I got.
A++++++
Originally posted by Eugene
A++++++
Describes your "review"!
The files are WMA v7...they sound noticeably more warbly than the iTMS AAC files.
Napster claims it has 500,000 songs in its library, but many of those are streaming only, which are only available via the Napster Premium subscription service.
Probably the best review we'll ever see.
[edit by Brad: don't post huge inline images!!]
Really?
So the ONE image gets dinged (removed) there, but you can do 10-15 here?
In any case, funny stuff with this Napster review.
Not as funny as murbot's hard drive "repair" thread, but close.
Originally posted by Eugene
Napster claims it has 500,000 songs in its library, but many of those are streaming only, which are only available via the Napster Premium subscription service.
That's a big ouch right there IMO. Napster should probably compete on quantity, the WallMart of downloadable music, though I guess that holds true to some extent even if some (or many?) songs are streaming-only or for "premium" members only. We should have seen that last "premium" bit coming given this is all via Real Networks, isn't it?
We'll see. The iPod showed that Apple's design strength can make a big difference in the marketplace. But there are also many examples where "good enough" wins out over that. I don't know if Napster's UI will be good enough or not.
Well, the streaming thing does give me an idea for feedback to the iTMS: doing some of their own streaming radio, or at least setting up labels' radio stations in iTunes. Wonder how that would affect bandwidth issues and costs though?
Thanks, Eugene.
Originally posted by pscates
So the ONE image gets dinged (removed) there, but you can do 10-15 here?
That image screwed with forum formatting. My widest image is 684 pixels, not 1024 pixels.
Originally posted by pscates
So the ONE image gets dinged (removed) there, but you can do 10-15 here?
Big difference.
Eugene's images are small enough that they don't distort and stretch the forums at the normal width of 1024.
In iTunes, how can you bookmark songs you haven't purchased, but want to at a later point? The Shopping Cart forces you to buy everything you put in there. The iTunes Music Store needs publicly accessible wishlists.
Building on top of that, the iTMS of course needs the ability for other users to buy songs or mixes/playlists for you as gifts. The next time you browse the store, you get a notification and download links.
And building on top of that, the Napster pseudo-sharing concept is actually interesting as acknowledged earlier. If celebs can "publish" their playlists, customers should be able to too.
More creative categories too. Seasonal categories, like if you need quick access to Yuletide tunes for your Christmas iMovie masterpiece...Love songs for Valentine's Day. Et cetera, et cetera.
Originally posted by Eugene
Napster did give me some feedback ideas for iTunes Music Store refinement though.
<snip>
All good ideas, all ones I've submitted from more of an Amazon.com perspective, but now that Napster has some semblance of these features, it might be a good idea to submit them again with a new frame of reference.
Originally posted by Eugene
Napster did give me some feedback ideas for iTunes Music Store refinement though.
In iTunes, how can you bookmark songs you haven't purchased, but want to at a later point? The Shopping Cart forces you to buy everything you put in there. The iTunes Music Store needs publicly accessible wishlists.
Building on top of that, the iTMS of course needs the ability for other users to buy songs or mixes/playlists for you as gifts. The next time you browse the store, you get a notification and download links.
And building on top of that, the Napster pseudo-sharing concept is actually interesting as acknowledged earlier. If celebs can "publish" their playlists, customers should be able to too.
More creative categories too. Seasonal categories, like if you need quick access to Yuletide tunes for your Christmas iMovie masterpiece...Love songs for Valentine's Day. Et cetera, et cetera.
Some good ideas, but how would a wishlist work? Would I buy a song for that person and then they'd get an email telling them to download it? It would be nice, but it's not analogous to a book purchase or something... good for thought.
I stand corrected and I apologize. I just saw it run off the side quite far and thought "huh?". Wasn't sure if there was an actual pixel limit to know.
Thanks.
Originally posted by pscates
I stand corrected and I apologize. I just saw it run off the side quite far and thought "huh?". Wasn't sure if there was an actual pixel limit to know.
Yours must be pretty small!
I mentioned 1024 pixels because that was the width of the Longhorn screenshot.
I don't think I've ever set a browser window to cover my screen, so yeah...mine is "pretty small". THE BROWSER WINDOW, that is.
Originally posted by pscates
Not as funny as murbot's hard drive "repair" thread, but close.
How do I find this? I wana read it!!! I searched and searched, but couldn't find it, if anyone would be nice enough to point me in the right direction that would be awesome. Thanks!
And with that: