From 0 to 30 in 6 hrs. Hello there Gainesville, FL!
So, beginning with my post earlier, I hypothesized about the state of Grooveshark. I got a lightning fast response from Ben in user relations. Through our later dialogues via my posts, his comments, and email I am thoroughly convinced that they care about what their users think. The company site says that they have 40 employees. Google Analytics tells me that 30 unique visitors visited my site today from Gainesville, FL (the Grooveshark HQ). So 3/4 of their staff visited my site today. How cool is that? Thanks to Grooveshark, Analytics, Download Squad, Cool user relations staff for a very interesting dialogue adding some spice to my day today! I have provided the whole story below for those interested (I’m looking your way Gainesville…..)
If you have time you should follow along the links with my story beginning with #1. (right click open in new tab on links)
1. I read the story on my Google Reader this morning, probably on my Instinct (Does anyone have any other way to reference this…? I was reading feeds earlier sounds like crap. Its kind of news but that too sounds so…. lame. ) and I came across the story about Grooveshark on Downloadsquad.com. i am an avid Pandora junkie so I was enthralled, especially because this article came right after this one about Pandora. To which I had previously said this.
2. I got a lightning fast response from Ben in user relations.
3. I responded to him via email and post and he responded.
4. I checked my balance – Lo and behold $10!!! That was freakin sweet.
5. So I posted my suggestions.
6. Ben’s Response to my thanking him for the deposit:
“No problem on my end! We’re more than happy to share, and like I mentioned in the comments, we try to be as open and transparent as possible. I’ll definitely take some time to sit down and reply to your first email (as well as the list of thoughts on GSLite so far) later today, once things get a little less crazy in here.
Thanks again for everything, and let me know if there’s anything I can do!
-Ben”
7. I checked analytics and calculated that 30 of their 40 employees had viewed my site, because I don’t know why anyone else in Gainesville, FL would be checking my site. What a fun day. Thanks Grooveshark!
No related posts.
Well, just so you know, there are others of us in Gainesville who follow GrooveShark, and I might’ve given you an impression or two… but still, I follow their links because they are so great, so I don’t want to do anything to temper that impression you’ve gotten.
Matt
18 Aug 08 at
Well I elicited a comment out of you, if thats all that comes out of that post I’ll take it as a win. Actually, I’m still banking on the fact that most of those visits were from Grooveshark employees. There were 38 unique visits as of now and Google lags a bit on analytics (I’m not whining, they are actually pretty up to date, within an hour or so. It could be much much worse). There were 32 before Ben’s tweet (were you part of the six additional in the mean time?) and that was only 3 hours ago, check in tomorrow. Seriously, thanks for the comment and I hope you come back!
Sean
18 Aug 08 at
I was there before then–I’ve had similar experiences with Ben, so I get the early input from him on whatever’s going on… following his tweets, tumblr, and pretty much everything else.
But yah, I’ll guess that GrooveShark employees were hitting it up, so, yah.
matt
18 Aug 08 at
And now you’ve hit Boston. I’m not a Grooveshark employee, but Grooveshark rocks and you generally can’t lose by doing what Ben suggests. Have you noticed the new Grooveshark Autoplay feature (which suggests songs similar to the one you are listening to)? That’s the one feature I was waiting for.
Emma
18 Aug 08 at
Did you talk to anyone from grooveshark about the legal issues? And if so, did you actually get a real response apart from “mmmh, well we think we should be legal and we shouldn’t have to pay royalty fees” ? Because I’m bored of ppl being all “yeah, new grooveshark is so cool … mashable said so” but not thinking about if their (business/legal) model is actually based in this world or in some fantasy land.
flo
20 Aug 08 at
Flo- do you have any justification aside from “legality” for your opinion, it would help to give more foundation to what you just said. You sound very angry. Do you work for the music industry?
Sean
20 Aug 08 at
No, I do in no way work for the music industry. Personally I wouldn’t say I’m angry, although of course if you think it sounded like that that’s like it is.
Other justifications? Isn’t that one first ones that should be talked about, before you talk about whether autoplay recommends sensible tracks or not? What I mean is, I know at least one other service (simfy.de) that allows people to share music with other people, but as I see it neither they or grooveshark have an actual legal explanation for this. (especially if some copyright holder would decide that they simply don’t want their music on a service, no matter if there is money waiting in an “escrow fund” or not)
flo
21 Aug 08 at