{"id":4667,"date":"2011-09-23T11:31:32","date_gmt":"2011-09-23T16:31:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcitement.com\/?p=4667"},"modified":"2011-11-16T23:07:38","modified_gmt":"2011-11-17T05:07:38","slug":"need-to-unload-your-baggage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/internet-2\/webapps\/need-to-unload-your-baggage\/","title":{"rendered":"Let Grooveshark Help Unload Your Emotional Baggage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Feeling upset? Music can solve all your problems. Or at least that\u2019s what Grooveshark\u2019s<\/a> latest publicity stunt, emotionalbagcheck.com<\/a> would have you think. Grooveshark, a kind of Pandora<\/a>\/Spotify<\/a>-esque all-in-one streaming site, started up in 2009 and is now up to over 35 million users. Grooveshark, trying desperately to stay relevant as Spotify enters the U.S. and other services grow in popularity, created emotionalbagcheck.com as an indirect gateway to the music \"\"<\/a>site. Entering the site, you’re presented with two options: \u201cI\u2019ve got baggage\u201d or \u201cTake that for you?\u201d. The former is for you to vent your own issues while the latter is to read someone else\u2019s problems, recommend a song to heal their woes, and write a short reply. Upon first inspection, it seems like a really cute idea. Helping out those in need, healing with music, letting other people know they have help.<\/p>\n

But where emotionbagcheck.com and Grooveshark fail is on execution. The site, obviously relatively new, doesn\u2019t have many visitors yet and there doesn\u2019t seem to be a sophisticated system in place to ensure that once someone starts to \u201ctake that for you,\u201d they finish. What this means in practice is if someone leaves the page your response is on, Grooveshark won\u2019t send you any music recommendation or words of comfort, as happened to me in my three attempts to get some comfort for the harsh realities of my life.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>On the other hand, reading about someone else\u2019s issues and doing your best to assuage their grief or help them in any way is rewarding in itself. Almost addictive. One of the first baggages I carried was someone\u2019s woe over a lost boyfriend: \u201cI really, really, really miss you and hope you\u2019re doing well at that new job at Whole Foods.\u201d I responded with a recommendation of “Someone Like You” by Adele and wrote, \u201cI know how it feels to really miss a love one and still care about them to wish them help in the future.\u201d And that was just one of many responses that hopefully consoled weary souls in whatever plight they were in.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t help but wonder what Grooveshark\u2019s aim is in emotionalbagcheck.com. Is it just another way to get users hooked on their service? Are they really trying to help people? Frankly, I think with the real social interaction built directly into the normal Grooveshark player or even into Facebook, as Spotify did, this idea could be a hit. It\u2019s a new social twist on music that if implemented correctly (send me a damn<\/em> response, Grooveshark), could be something big.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Feeling upset? Music can solve all your problems. Or at least that\u2019s what Grooveshark\u2019s latest publicity stunt, emotionalbagcheck.com would have you think. Grooveshark, a kind of Pandora\/Spotify-esque all-in-one streaming site, started up in 2009 and is now up to over 35 million users. Grooveshark, trying desperately to stay relevant as Spotify enters the U.S. and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,46,1609,40],"tags":[1385,124,564,112,226,516],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4667"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4667"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5763,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4667\/revisions\/5763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}