Alright, someone from Guvera joined in the discussion! It sounds like things are going better than expected. A few comments/questions (and I totally get if you can't respond):
- Is there anyway you guys could make it easier to find out if credits are available?
- Is there a plan in place to get credits on a more regular interval?
- Any chance we could have download histories shown in our accounts?
- The search engine needs to allow for some refining - seriously, you try to find Love 2 by Air...
I do appreciate that you guys have cleaned up the interface and made it significantly easier to handle multiple tracks. Good luck!
We're rooting for you dddanmar. The more alternative legal download sites there are the better, and you've already done better than I expected, so keep it up!
Thom, to answer your questions (bear in mind, this is coming from me personally, not the company directly so anything here is subject to change or not to happen at all):
1) It is an idea that's been tossed around - I'd like to see it at the top of the site on every page near the login section - '3 Downloads Available' which open to a new popup listing the channels they are from. Also, to link channels you can complete some action to get extra credits (surveys etc).
2) We are always limited by what our advertisers want as a budget - they can set 2 downloads per month, per user etc. It's down to getting more advertisers on board that focus on your demographic.
3) Yes, it's coming.
4) The search engine just had a major overhaul last week - we've changed the back end which allows it to work at a much faster speed, gives the groovy little autocomplete on the front search page, and a few other changes. If you search for the track 'Love', tracks matching that exactly, just the one word, will come in the results first. As you go further into the search, tracks like Love Me, Love Me, start to show up. It can be sometimes just a bit of playing around with the search criteria, either Title/Album/Artist for specifics, or Keyword if you wanted to search everything in the one go, eg : love is love - blackbyrds
Thanks for your support and the welcome, I've seen some Last.FM groups and a few other areas pop up along the way, the more people talk about the site, the better!
Also, are many of you making use of the streaming playlists?
@dddanmar - do you have plans to expand into Europe at all? I've tried to join a couple of times from the UK but at the moment I am not allowed to do so. I'm sure you would get a lot of support from here.
Thanks for coming here. I will stream music at least once a week on Guvera. I usually use it to extend my listening rather than preview things I might buy/download. It seems like a lost opportunity that this feature isn't being tied to the site's sponsors.
I'm curious to know why Guvera is so track oriented. As you might guess, most of us here are album oriented, and we find hunting down individual tracks rather frustrating (particularly during the EMI promotion in September). Besides the fact that credits come from several different sponsors, is there any impediment to making searching for albums simpler?
@BT - Total guess, but I would think the current climate of music sales favors track sales. Plus even with a big dump of credits there typically isn't enough for your standard 10-12 track album.
@dddanmar - Thanks for the response. It's good to hear what the company is thinking, with the understanding that it's not official and who knows if they can even implement it. Guvera was actually brought up in another thread as an option for streaming before you buy. I've done it a few times, but I'm so bad when it comes to playlists that it hasn't entered the realm of regular use. Although it makes sense to use it that way...
I've actually got a number of playlists set up at Guvera, and they work very nicely for streaming, but the problem is I don't stream very often at all. My work environment is loud, chaotic, and I'm up and down from the desk, when I'm at it, all day long. At home I'm either listening to the stereo, or if at/near the computer tend to be trying to catch up with listening to the music I've downloaded. This, frankly, is why the idea of "clouds" really matters very little to me, and if eMusic for instance thinks this is going to compensate for charging higher prices they are wrong in my case at least.
For anyone who likes psych/shoegaze/ambient, this album becomes a steal combining guvera (tracks 4-5) and emusic. Haven't listened into it yet, but it sounds interesting from what I've sampled.
Has anyone here downloaded John Coltrane's "Ascension" from Guvera? I finally got around to listening to it, and track one, "Ascension (Edition II)", cuts off after about 10 minutes. I want to redownload it, but I'm not sure if the file is messed up or my download failed for some reason. It's only one credit for a 40+ minute track, but I'd rather not waste one to have the same glitch again.
Comments
(Those two gift tracks were great, trippple D!)
Thanks for noticing that thom!
Craig
So go.
Now!
Wish I could make the credits refresh faster at times :p
Craig
- Is there anyway you guys could make it easier to find out if credits are available?
- Is there a plan in place to get credits on a more regular interval?
- Any chance we could have download histories shown in our accounts?
- The search engine needs to allow for some refining - seriously, you try to find Love 2 by Air...
I do appreciate that you guys have cleaned up the interface and made it significantly easier to handle multiple tracks. Good luck!
Craig
Nice to have you here.
Thom, to answer your questions (bear in mind, this is coming from me personally, not the company directly so anything here is subject to change or not to happen at all):
1) It is an idea that's been tossed around - I'd like to see it at the top of the site on every page near the login section - '3 Downloads Available' which open to a new popup listing the channels they are from. Also, to link channels you can complete some action to get extra credits (surveys etc).
2) We are always limited by what our advertisers want as a budget - they can set 2 downloads per month, per user etc. It's down to getting more advertisers on board that focus on your demographic.
3) Yes, it's coming.
4) The search engine just had a major overhaul last week - we've changed the back end which allows it to work at a much faster speed, gives the groovy little autocomplete on the front search page, and a few other changes. If you search for the track 'Love', tracks matching that exactly, just the one word, will come in the results first. As you go further into the search, tracks like Love Me, Love Me, start to show up. It can be sometimes just a bit of playing around with the search criteria, either Title/Album/Artist for specifics, or Keyword if you wanted to search everything in the one go, eg : love is love - blackbyrds
Thanks for your support and the welcome, I've seen some Last.FM groups and a few other areas pop up along the way, the more people talk about the site, the better!
Also, are many of you making use of the streaming playlists?
Thanks for coming here. I will stream music at least once a week on Guvera. I usually use it to extend my listening rather than preview things I might buy/download. It seems like a lost opportunity that this feature isn't being tied to the site's sponsors.
I'm curious to know why Guvera is so track oriented. As you might guess, most of us here are album oriented, and we find hunting down individual tracks rather frustrating (particularly during the EMI promotion in September). Besides the fact that credits come from several different sponsors, is there any impediment to making searching for albums simpler?
Thanks,
BT
@dddanmar - Thanks for the response. It's good to hear what the company is thinking, with the understanding that it's not official and who knows if they can even implement it. Guvera was actually brought up in another thread as an option for streaming before you buy. I've done it a few times, but I'm so bad when it comes to playlists that it hasn't entered the realm of regular use. Although it makes sense to use it that way...
Craig