ZAK FM
466 people have listened for 20 minutes or more.
Feedback includes:
“This site is replacing Hype Machine for me.”
“I can’t wait to know who I’m listening to so I know who I’ve just been turned on to.”
“I think the idea of a site that just plays music at random is awesome.”
My conclusion after 24 hours, both obvious and often forgotten, is that people enjoy the reduction of choice, but only if they continue to derive some value from the resulting decision. In otherwords, People don’t need what’s best for them, just what’s good enough.
The bigger lesson for me is that services don’t need to be superlative (ie. most customized, most comprehensive). At least, they need to do one thing well through a flawlessly easy interface.
Think that the last paragraph here is dead on. Too many sites are trying to do mashups of different services that what they are offering either gets lost, or goes unused by the visitor.
I also like the fact that Zach didn’t build this functionality into his own site. He could have just have easily had this happen when you reach his homepage, yet that would have been overwhelming. Now you go to a site who’s only point is to play music. You know what you are getting into way before you even get there.
One bit of feedback:
A button for launch in its own window. Same layout just 50% to 60% smaller so I can leave it open and not have to worry about closing it.
