Possible Challenges II: Privacy

In this post, I want to continue my talk on possible challenges this networking site could face; specifically, privacy.

Though not as detailed as MySpace or Facebook, this social network will still contain a certain amount of personal data; data that users might not want certain parties to read. The easiest way to do this, of course, is to set filters on searchable information, much like Facebook has done. With Facebook’s filters, users can set their information to be viewable by a customizable range of people; from the public, to only friends, to even only certain users. Further options enable the user to choose to index his or her profile for search engines, allowing the user to opt out of having his profile show up on a Google search. This works out great on a purely social networking site, as most people you connect with on Facebook or MySpace are (hopefully) people you trust and/or know in real life. Where it gets tricky is a site like this one, where a user has to be able to allow other users to search for him or her and view the profile for compatibility with other musicians, while also being able to restrict certain information from coming up in a search. While a street address is certainly a handy thing to have on your profile, to make sure you’re within acceptable commuting range of another band, you might not want it displayed to absolutely everyone who searches for guitarists in your area. The tricky part is in letting people know how and when to use these tools, rather than the tools themselves. As mentioned before, simple filters can allow for a huge range of customizable privacy options. However, users might not necessarily make use of them fully, and when trouble arises, I, as the creator and manager of the site, could be held liable.

An easy, if annoying solution, would be to force people to go through an interactive tutorial at the time of registration to learn about privacy tools available to them. If that’s asking too much, it’s always possible to make this tutorial optional, and have legal language explaining that if the user opts out of using a tutorial, we are not to be held liable for information that ends up in the wrong places.

Next post, I’ll hopefully get into some input/output stuff; more specifically, the inputting of recorded audio as music samples, and how best to have other users hear this media.

Possible Challenges?

Last week, I briefly touched upon my networking idea facing challenges that were faced by all social network sites, but did not really delve into it too deeply. This week, I’d like to do precisely that: flesh out the kinds of troubles other have faced, question if I’ll face those same challenges, and explain how I would solve them.

Perhaps the largest challenge is building a simple, effective user interface: one that displays all the information a user needs in a concise, uncluttered manner. One of the main turn-offs that sent MySpace on its death-spiral was the messy, cluttered profile layout. With the ability to add HTML instructions, users could customize their profiles with banners, animated .gifs, and embedded video. Added to that were the MySpace music player (a clunky embedded Flash object) and many ads.

The above example illustrates two ineffective solutions to two problems that all sites face: how to provide a user with enough control to personalize their profiles, and how to come up with revenue to sustain the site. As far as customization, I am for the idea of providing the user just enough control to fill in the blanks on a common template, especially when it comes to a service tailored towards working musicians. As stated previously, there would be allowance to put in biographical information, work experience, and a music player for work samples, with the actual files most likely hosted by a third party like SoundCloud.

Obviously, the hope is that this network grows to encompass thousands, if not millions, of people, but handling all that traffic requires revenue. The most common way to acquire revenue is through hosting ads. However, users don’t like ads cluttering their interface. This problem could be tackled in a variety of ways: We could charge a fee for premium services offered by our site: perhaps access to industry databases, assembly of press kits for bands to offer to record labels and management agencies, or even access to professional contacts like printers and graphic artists. This could be supplemented with ad space. A more specific solution to the problem of revenue is hard to give without actual numbers on usage. These are general solutions to a problem that's likely to come up.

I don’t want to write too long a blog post, so I’ll save my talks on privacy for later in the week. Though I doubt anyone but my TA is reading this, I’ll go ahead and say that any comments are welcome; especially those that question my logic and require me to flesh out my ideas more thoroughly.

Introducing My Idea

With tools like LinkedIn or Monster.com at the hands of professionals, both potential employees and employers’ experience in job searching has become much more streamlined.  For them, the need to search through a newspaper, or even a listings site like craigslist.org, has been virtually eliminated. Why is it, then that musicians are still left in the dark; forced to trawl through forums and listings in hope of finding like-minded individuals and, more practically, a paying gig?

My entrepreneurial idea revolves around a networking site designed specifically for musicians. Modeled more after a professional networking site like LinkedIn, rather than Facebook or Google+, this site would allow musicians to find work. This could range from filling a spot left vacant by the departure of a musician in an established band, to finding permanent work with a band, or even finding local musicians with like-minded interests to start from the ground up. Though more tailored for semi-professional to professional musicians, this network would be open to all that are interested in use of the service.

The logistics would operate like this: Musician A would create a profile on the site, listing some basic information, like age and sex, his proficiency in instruments, styles of music, and his area of residence. When Musician B used the site, looking for a replacement for his band’s guitarist, he could access this virtual database of musicians in his area, filtering by instrument, genre, and other parameters, such as age or sex. With a sufficiently narrow search, Musician B would find Musician A, contact him, and hire him for the spot. This could operate on several different levels, from a young individual searching for band mates for a new band, to a local orchestra searching for a new violinist. It would also work the other way around, allowing individual musicians to search for work opportunities.

This ties in directly with last week’s lecture, as this would be a form of social network. Just like LinkedIn or Facebook, this network would face similar challenges and concerns; ranging from privacy issues, to streamlining the user experience and making sure the site offers exactly what the user wants, without overburdening him or her with marginal information.

As this idea fleshes out, some of the these challenges will become more clear, and I will address possible strategies in overcoming them, as well as addressing how certain elements of the IT world could benefit such a service.