New Australian online music service Guvera is the flavour of the month at Waycooljnr.
First I interviewed its CEO, Claes Loberg, for The Vine, before publishing the full transcript here. And then I ‘road tested’ it for Mess+Noise, with the help from two independent Australian musicians - Ian Rogers from Brisbane doom rock trio No Anchor, and Melbourne electronic artist Faux Pas (Tim Shiel). Excerpt below:
In theory, Guvera is an admirable endeavour. But how does the service rate in terms of usability and practicality?
Checking The Boxes
Upon registering and before you’re able to download anything, Guvera demands that you begin filling out your profile with information on your favourite music, books, films, food, charities and so on. All up, there are eleven sections. Of course, what they’re trying to do is better match your tastes with the brands who advertise on the site. At launch, these range from Domino’s to McDonald’s, Casio to Band Hero.
This initial barrier, however, is an annoyance in itself. For example, if you’re interested in getting the new Nova-endorsed pop single, you’ll have to answer a series of questions first: whether you prefer “cop shows” to “cartoons”, or if you’d rather dine on “frozen meals” or “all you can eat buffet”. (Yes, those are all real options that appear on the site.)
By instantly demanding that the user tell Guvera their life story through a series of checked boxes, the chances of them mindlessly clicking their way through their profile are greatly increased. As a result, Guvera may well be subverting its initial aims: to allow advertisers to better “engage with” and target consumers by catering to their tastes. In this respect, they’ve got the order all wrong. The first few downloads should be “on the house”, so to speak, before the site requests that you play the marketing game.
Full road test over at Mess+Noise.
Have you tried Guvera? What are your thoughts?
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Amanda 04.08.10 at 7:32 pm
I’m all for enterprises that use the carrot approach to encouraging legal downloading, rather than the big stick one but yeah … I pretty much agree with the views at M&N. It’s a lot of stuffing around to … get some songs, and unless it was something I really wanted I wouldn’t jump through the hoops required to get, say, a 12 song full album. I would rather submit to a deeper engagement with the advertiser (a couple of minutes video ad or filling out a survey, say) to get a full album with one click than the current system.
There were a few glitches (I assume glitches) like the skateboarding website having Slim Dusty on their playlist. I assume its a a glitxh anyway and they matching gets better the longer it goes on, or maybe I am just underestimating the broad musical tastes of de yoof 2day.
OTOH I read somewhere they are getting Shock on board which interests me as they distribute a lot of the country/roots music I like so I’ll keep checking back and fiddling just in case they show up with the motherlode.
Amanda 04.08.10 at 7:47 pm
Oh Shock is already there, but not most of the back catalogue I’d be interested in. There’s a killer Bettye Lavette and Carol Fran compilation on Guvera I see but its 24 tracks so can I be bothered going back and forth? Its $14.95 on iTunes which starts to look good when I think of the hassle (of course Shock would probably be happy with that, advertisers not so much.)
Nic Hodges 04.09.10 at 10:57 am
I’ve given it a good go over the last couple months (a period over which I haven’t seen a lot of improvement).
Completely agree that the whole checkbox-to-get-tracks barrier is huge. I’m not entirely sure they can’t utilise my Facebook or Twitter feed to work out what I’m into really.
I’d go further though to say that the next huge barrier is just the amount of music on there. It still lacks a lot of great music, and unless I can consistently find stuff I want, I just can see myself making it my first (or even second or third) stop for new music.
I did a review on my blog at http://nichodges.com/wordpress/?p=55 that goes into a bit more detail, but basically I think it has potential, but still isn’t quite there yet.
Nick 04.12.10 at 1:27 pm
Aside from all the practical barriers described above, I think a fundamental misunderstanding of Guvera, is that the people downloading music ‘illegally’ actually care if the artist get paid. They don’t! If anything, I think they feel they have earned it, which is typical of Gen Y (which I’m a part of so don’t think I’m some crusty old guy pointing fingers at today’s troubled youth). They feel like, “hey, I just spent $500 across the summer on music festivals, so what is so bad about me downloading some tunes for free”
The fact is, it is still easier to download music ‘illegally’, and unless Guvera can provide a better alternative, nothing will change.