I was wondering if you had considered the possibility of AI companies using the recordings for voice training and faking. Good to see that you made an attempt with https://www.crowdwave.com/robots.txt but a couple suggestions.
The ability to listen to all the messages in a channel without tapping, as if I’m listening to the messages on my answering machine, would do be nice.
nebyoolae 10 hours ago [-]
There is something strangely compelling, to crib from another commenter, about this site, its throwback UI, and general “this seems like a good idea even if no one really uses it”actually potentially useful art-piece-ness.
I tried both recording something on the site and uploading a file (all from an iPhone), but neither worked.
Regardless, kudos on this project. Hope Bob gets his milk.
andrewstuart 10 hours ago [-]
Hello I'd like to help you with recording - would you mind please emailing developers@crowdwave.com describing what went wrong when you tried to use the microphone, and what device you are using Thanks!
mydriasis 3 hours ago [-]
Love it! Getting an error on playback now, though -- just says "4". Odd! Console reads that "A resource is blocked by OpaqueResponseBlocking". I'm on Firefox.
miek 2 hours ago [-]
Same. I could play msgs on the first page I landed on, but not on any subs
jayemar 39 minutes ago [-]
Interesting project. It'd be nice if you could trip off the few seconds of silence that is in many of these
WeaselNo7 2 hours ago [-]
Super cool. Love the interface, was not expecting to be thrown back a few decades!
On mobile, I tried recording to /c/PepTalk, but after recording my voice, none of the buttons ('save', 'play' or 'stop') did anything. So I wasn't sure if it had actually uploaded.
Then when I went back to the /c/PepTalk channel to check I had a popup saying something like 'failed to fetch waves' (sorry, I don't recall the exact error message!).
I'll keep an eye on this ongoing though, as I adore the concept.
io84 3 hours ago [-]
Brilliant execution, congrats!
I saw the note on your about page that says "crowdwave was written in a weekend" and I was blown away by the polish for such a short project... and then only afterwards read the post text here that actually it took months and was a rabbit hole. It shows though, well done!
equilibrium 10 hours ago [-]
Did Bob eventually get the milk? People are getting worried
andrewstuart 10 hours ago [-]
Bob has gone missing.
jwong_ 12 hours ago [-]
I was similarly inspired by afterthebeep, but didn't get anywhere. It'll be interesting to see if different niches/metas build up over time.
I had fun browsing the different topics, and could see myself using this as a way to have "slow" social media usage.
smusamashah 7 hours ago [-]
This is amazing. I vaguely recall seeing this long time ago (may be here on HN) and people were having fun and submitting new audios. It's not a new project right?
Update: you have linked that project in the about section of your site.
andrewstuart 7 hours ago [-]
Yes! It's explained in the blurb above......
smusamashah 7 hours ago [-]
Oh Sorry, the HN client I am using on phone didn't show the blurb.
idiotlogical 59 minutes ago [-]
Sorry to be that guy. But the UI is more Windows 95/2000 (minus the Icon in the leftmost side of the title bar).
Win3.1x just had a little dash at the far left, and simply an Min/Max on the right.
I love the look btw
2 hours ago [-]
jasn-armstrng 3 hours ago [-]
Nice work Andrew. Nice experiencing something new on the web with simple old school cool.
yarg 17 hours ago [-]
I read significantly faster than people speak, everything in voice would be immediately frustrating to me.
Though I think there may be a target audience in the blind community; who could find the demi-organic nature of recorded speech more conducive to genuine conversations than their standard text-to-speech conversion software.
(Which I think there's a good chance a lot of them are using for one of their primary social networking interfaces anyway).
4 hours ago [-]
ed 11 hours ago [-]
You should add a talkboy[1] inspired voice changer to make it less intimidating to leave a message
I'm surprised nobody mentioned Airchat yet. It's already a social site where every post is a voice recording.
tchock23 18 hours ago [-]
I want to like Airchat, but I find the UX to be horribly confusing. Maybe it’s intentionally that way, much like how Snapchat supposedly started out?
zameermfm 13 hours ago [-]
Love the idea! Awesome execution, I just want to see it in a future evolution of twitter like UI, so it becomes easy in my head to keep, access and listen. Keep building what you love.
raylad 9 hours ago [-]
This was tried: Odeo was more or less this, and it became Twitter because people preferred text.
spencerchubb 3 hours ago [-]
and now my Twitter feed is dominated by video
maybe it was a matter of cost. over time the cost of storage has gone down, and people are more engaged by richer forms of media. video > photo > text
btbuildem 3 hours ago [-]
Or people are increasingly illiterate / disengaged. Video is a medium that requires minimum effort to consume.
spencerchubb 5 minutes ago [-]
your word choice sounds quite negative: illiterate, disengaged, minimum effort
why is it a bad thing to consume media that best aligns with how humans perceive information?
SketchySeaBeast 2 hours ago [-]
Seems chicken and egg to me.
klondike_klive 16 hours ago [-]
I'm so much less articulate when I'm speaking than when I'm typing. I can't see myself ever having the wherewithal to use this,but u have to say it's an interesting concept!
quantadev 13 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
0x3444ac53 12 hours ago [-]
Why do you feel the need to talk down to people who use text chat? Nothing in any of your comments here have been remotely productive, and most everything you have said has been weirdly obsessed with calling this passion project stupid because you think "the youth" would never dare say a word out loud.
I've read through several of your comments, and none of them offer anything even remotely useful. It's all just mean and unhelpful, and I don't see how it adds to the conversation at all.
quantadev 11 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
krageon 6 hours ago [-]
> I bet the children of today's youth will be mostly "non-verbal" humans
You are being mean and unhelpful. GP really has a great point in asking you why you felt the need to get on this high horse and talk down to everyone around you. For asking you this you've responded to them with more personal attacks. Ironically, this was their complaint to begin with - you didn't add anything to the conversation with your reply. Please do better.
quantadev 40 minutes ago [-]
Thanks for the tip, but don't take everything so seriously. Some of what I say is obvious satire, and humor.
justsayinginnt 19 hours ago [-]
The aesthetic is spot on.
What is the intro sound to each clip? Feel like I heard it before somewhere.
andrewstuart 19 hours ago [-]
>> Feel like I heard it before somewhere.
Depends how old you are!
In the olden days when you had a "phone message machine" at home, you'd come home and press the play button to listen to your messages, then hear a beep between each message.
It's meant to sound like the click of the play button and the beep.
johnnyApplePRNG 21 hours ago [-]
Cool concept! I think the main issue is that it's difficult to glean information from audio bits quickly. I can look at Reddit or HN's front page for example and quickly scan what I am interested in reading, but with audio that's not so easy.
schlauerfox 4 minutes ago [-]
Sounds related to Wadsworth's Constant on youtube where it skips the first 30% because early on most were filler intros,
also related to the millennial pause, where people over a certain age hit record and have a brief pause before talking versus younger who are already talking while the recording starts, which was an observation of tiktok users of 'elders' like Taylor Swift doing so.
andrewstuart 21 hours ago [-]
Yeah audio is a different experience that's for sure.
I find it's the sort of thing I use probably at different times to when I might use Twitter - perhaps in bed before sleep listen to some messages, on the couch chilling.
thomasswift 21 hours ago [-]
this is pretty fun. - one suggestion auto-clip my millennial pause at the beginning
FredPret 18 hours ago [-]
I thought I would hate it (voicemail is the worst thing ever) but this is strangely compelling
andrewstuart 18 hours ago [-]
Glad to hear that! Judging from the comments here there's a few people who like it, but also a few who really don't. So it's nice to hear you got something from it thanks.
trwhite 19 hours ago [-]
I really hope Bob picks up that milk
andrewstuart 19 hours ago [-]
I believe he's quite busy.
trwhite 19 hours ago [-]
Love the site dude! Feel glad to have been part of this transient joke with a bunch of strangers on the internet
andrewstuart 19 hours ago [-]
Thanks yes I have to say it was a micro moment of fun.
netik 12 hours ago [-]
probably the hardest thing here is people read faster than they write.
in the 1990s I helped build a dating site where people put their profiles on small voicemails. This is very reminiscent of that and I think the engagement was low because it was a lot to listen to
18 hours ago [-]
higgins 19 hours ago [-]
why does the username validation require it to end in a number? we all must 1337?
andrewstuart 19 hours ago [-]
It's a good question.
Its really because on the back of my mind I was wondering if there's a way to have revenue without intrusive advertising or anything.
And, inspired by the games industry where people seem very willing to buy digital good to make their characters look good, I thought well thre are people on the internet who really value having exactly the username they want. And then I thought well maybe I should hold off giving away what might be a practical, non intrusive way to generate revenue. Thus I though, well the easy way is just to put a number on the end of the username. That's the thinking. If you've signed up, as an early joiner I'd be happy to give you your username without the number - email me at developers@crowdwave.com and I'll fix you up.
wickedsight 2 hours ago [-]
I personally think that's pretty cool. Also fixes the squatting issue that otherwise would undoubtedly happen.
I do wonder whether a big company could sue you to give them the account for free on the premise of this being 'blackmail'. Might be something to keep in mind. But once BigCo sues you for this, you probably don't need their money anymore ;)
lagniappe 17 hours ago [-]
dibs on 'root' ;)
Unai 16 hours ago [-]
Sorry about the dismissive comments you're getting. You hacked something up and I think it's pretty cool and surprisingly fun. You nailed it with the beep at the start of each audio too. Feels warm, like actual humans communicating with you (even if it's something silly) instead of cold usernames just sharing headlines and memes for karma points.
I wish the HN vibe was more like a digital makerspace and a bit less a tech business news. Sure, I don't think crowdwave will ever be as big as twitter or reddit, so what? That's not a bad thing! Reddit was infinitely better 15 years ago. Even if you close the site tomorrow, I already got some joy from it.
Anyway, I like it, really good job! (:
PS: Does anyone know about an online community similar to HN that actually has that digital makerspace vibe? I said that and know I want it to exist.
jdiez17 7 hours ago [-]
I'm always a bit shocked when I see people attacking other people's passion projects. I don't mean constructive criticism, but stuff like "why would you even spend time on this, *I* don't like [recording my voice/the programming language you used/whatever]".
+1 to the digital makerspace idea. I've also been looking for such a thing. Probably the closest thing I know is the maker side of YouTube where people show what they are working on. But obviously you're "encouraged" to "industrialize" your hobby and the barrier to entry is huge...
Would be cool to find a community that is very welcoming and non-constructive feedback is not allowed.
andrewstuart 16 hours ago [-]
Thanks for the comments! Yeah I was a bit surprised that some people seem to really not like the idea, other have had a lot of fun and posted plenty of funny messages.
Regarding other online communities maybe IndieHackers?
16 hours ago [-]
relaxing 18 hours ago [-]
Welcome to hell.
lumenwrites 14 hours ago [-]
Don't mind the weird negativity you're getting from some of the comments, this project is awesome and very inspiring! It's amazing to see someone so creative and enthusiastic about what they do. The idea is great, and the execution is excellent as well. The UI is unique and charming, while being easy to use.
People complain about audio being slow to listen to - I don't know, people do listen to hours of podcasts. People do spend hours on tiktok. With enough users and a voting system, the best content should rise to the top. With the playlist functionality, you'd queue the posts you want to listen to and listen to them passively, while cleaning the room or driving to work.
Recording little songs or super short flashfiction stories... With the right creators to make quality content, I totally see how this could turn into something awesome.
One bit of feedback - why require the usernames to end on a number? I want to use a username Im using everywhere else.
Also, uploading an audio file didn't work for me.
pjc50 6 hours ago [-]
> Recording little songs or super short flashfiction stories... With the right creators to make quality content, I totally see how this could turn into something awesome.
Hmm. "Recording song" => copyright nightmare for all involved. Short stories .. well, do you know why youtube is banning ASMR?
andrewstuart 12 hours ago [-]
>> Also, uploading an audio file didn't work for me.
Oh yeah oops! I need to fix that sorry. Recording via your microphone should work fine but I seem to have broken the file upload somewhere along the way.
4 hours ago [-]
imp0cat 12 hours ago [-]
> weird negativity
Nothing weird about that.
I can understand how some people might be vary of publishing samples of their voice on the internet after seeing what happend to authors and artists whose text and images found a way to the web, then got ingested and regurgitated by a multitude of LLMs.
weego 19 hours ago [-]
I literally never want to hear other people's words as voices, or have my voice casually dumped on the Internet along with probably, over time, far too much reconstructable info about me.
indigodaddy 4 hours ago [-]
I actually think some sort of tts angle would be a better idea
andrewstuart 19 hours ago [-]
>> I literally never want to hear other people's words as voices
Radio and podcasts have been successful for hearing peoples voices, but its not for everyone.
Not everyone has to do it - I'm thinking that there's a group of people in the world who like talking and they're the people I'm hoping will enjoy it.
t0mas88 12 hours ago [-]
Radio and podcasts only work with a small group of people who are good at creating that type of content. They either write a good script or have a clear plan (and talent) for unscripted content.
That's far different from "Hey it's Bob, ehm, so, yeah about tomorrow, we need a place to grab beers with John and Alex. I was thinking it could be SomePlace at X street. What do you think?" which costs the listener much more time than just reading a text message.
But I think this site might be on to something with the voting and all. That should bring out the content that's worth listening to.
seattle_spring 19 hours ago [-]
Right? I had a couple of friends switch over to voice messages on FB messenger when the feature was introduced. I don't talk to them anymore because I just never could be bothered to listen to that crap when they could have just as easily used the text messaging like a normal person.
handfuloflight 16 hours ago [-]
It's faster for them to speak than write, and it's faster for you to read than hear.
Empathy equally applied would mean the message is never sent.
briandear 6 hours ago [-]
However if one doesn't speak the language natively, text is far preferable because I can quickly translate. Can’t translate some long voice message.
I am in multiple group chats: Spanish, Catalan, English. And with quick translators, we can all communicate with each other. With voice, it would be impossible.
wickedsight 2 hours ago [-]
Sure. But it's less invasive for both. I can send a text on the bus without bothering anyone. I can read a text on the bus without bothering anyone. Time isn't the only reason that many people don't like voice messages.
bugglebeetle 12 hours ago [-]
Or that dictation software exists…
grues-dinner 9 hours ago [-]
Voice messages are very popular
soco 7 hours ago [-]
And I ignore them like the GP. We seem to manage.
grues-dinner 6 hours ago [-]
Huh, I didn't mean to submit, I didn't finish the comment. It was supposed to say "...in Asia, and there's a button that transcribes to text for the reader".
iknowstuff 17 hours ago [-]
I think some data about how much usage the feature gets would be more helpful here than simple I do/don’t comments.
monkeywork 18 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
4 hours ago [-]
tchock23 18 hours ago [-]
I’m surprised by these comments and how much some people seem to hate audio.
Audio can be great for conveying emotion versus text (and without the awkwardness of video). It’s also 3-4x faster than typing out comments. I’ve seen stats saying it produces up to 8x more content because of how easy it is to talk vs type (especially on mobile).
Maybe if the posts were transcribed it would help (although that’s expensive at scale, especially for a side project without a clear path to monetization).
Regardless, kudos to the creator for trying something new and fun in such an apparently ‘controversial’ medium.
ako 10 hours ago [-]
I don’t need 8x the content, it’s a benefit of writing that it forces writers to be more concise, Transcribe is not more expensive for the writer, the device can do it for hem. This message for exemple, has been transcribed by my iPad.
ipaddr 17 hours ago [-]
Listening vs transcribing. No one has time to listen to a subreddit our eyes scan much quicker. Transcribing might be quicker for most (some of us type quicker than speaking). The experience is negative on the whole. Lucky AI can listen and put to words those voicemails.
2d8a875f-39a2-4 6 hours ago [-]
> It’s also 3-4x faster than typing out comments
Yeah faster for you, much much slower for everyone who has to receive it and listen to you ramble incoherently. That's just selfishness talking, just like that friend who is always late for things making everyone wait. "My time is worth more than yours".
When will I get auto speech to text for all voice messages on all messaging apps? Or better still auto-decline all voice messages; "Sorry this recipient has disabled voice messages".
g-b-r 16 hours ago [-]
> It’s also 3-4x faster than typing out comments.
It's also 3-4x slower than reading, on the other side, and impossible to search (without some voice recognition tool slapped over it)
> up to 8x more content
So, you have to lose up to 4x8 more time to obtain the information you probably didn't need
g-b-r 16 hours ago [-]
Anyhow, using voice is sure often better, but in a call, where you can stop the interlocutor, and ask them clarifications or to get to the point...
Audio messages should only be occasional, in my opinion
4 hours ago [-]
quantadev 17 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
g-b-r 16 hours ago [-]
In my experience it's more the younger people who likes audio messages..
quantadev 16 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
TheHumanist 13 hours ago [-]
Have two teens. They call and do voice chats (Discord, etc.) all the time. Face time is huge with their generation, for example. Now two things they don't seem to do is leave voicemails and check their voicemail.
But, they do call people tons. Way more than I do. I'm 41 and hate phone calls lol and face time? Hell no. I'm good on that. Their generation loves it.
quantadev 10 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
g-b-r 16 hours ago [-]
yeah, they'll send an audio!
quantadev 15 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
TheHumanist 13 hours ago [-]
You are laughably incorrect. Do you have kids? They are face timing and sending audio messages constantly. Maybe cut the snark or take it back over to Reddit?
quantadev 10 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
qingdao99 14 hours ago [-]
Some Gen Z hate audio messages and will not listen to them out of protest, others will send them every day. For most, they're just sprinkled in occasionally in primarily text chats (with their friends - likely not with anyone they're not close with) when there is some reason to send a voice message, e.g. conveying emotion or when typing is difficult.
That's my experience! n≈30 Gen Z.
quantadev 14 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
pfych 14 hours ago [-]
I'm (relatively late) Gen Z & some of my friends incessantly send voice audios via iMessage to me instead of texting and I hate it. Seeing their iMessage logs with other people is terrifying. It's nothing but 30-60sec voice memos back and forth.
quantadev 14 hours ago [-]
The main problem with voice is that you can't read (i.e. consume) them at a glance like you can text. The problem with text of course is that it conveys no emotion, and therefore everyone "invents" what they "think" the emotion is, and if it's some stranger you always assume negative emotion because "other internet guy" is always by default, a troll.
g-b-r 15 hours ago [-]
that's my experience
Etheryte 1 hours ago [-]
Just so you know, despite what might've been best intentions, your cookie banner is not compliant with what the law in the EU says. Consent for tracking has to be free, in other words, even if a user doesn't consent, they still have to be able to use the site. You don't need consent for functional cookies and never have.
1 hours ago [-]
bangaroo 19 hours ago [-]
Look, I appreciate the motivation, I love a passion project, and I'm happy you've clearly learned things and taken on new challenges, and I love that for you. I'm so happy you've had the opportunity to build a cool thing you like.
That said, "Twitter/Reddit but every post is a voicemail" is a dream I wake up from in a cold sweat. It is a thinly-veiled threat. If you were trying to keep a cool website from me, and you accidentally said the name and I asked "what's that," if you said "oh, it's twitter/reddit but every post is a voicemail" you would successfully hide it from me. I cannot imagine a concept less compatible with the way I desire to experience the internet.
I'm happy for you, glad you built a cool thing, and I'm hopeful you see all the success you want from it. I shan't be going there.
enugu 19 hours ago [-]
Funny reply. But consider that making twitter posts audible and experiencing the full rage is fundamentally different from starting with audio first.
The reason I say that is because I have frequently seen the same people who rage in text based media, have a very civil, even productive conversations on video (possibly because the human element is more obvious).
There is an open field out there for better functioning discussion sites, maybe audio/video micro-conversations could play a role (auto-transcribed as text is easier to skim and focus on chosen parts).
cruano 18 hours ago [-]
YouTube had video replies ages ago and it didn't take off.
The trouble with audio is the barrier of entry. By the time you've wrote your script and managed to record it and edit it you might as well have made a video.
delecti 1 hours ago [-]
As I remember it, the problem with video replies wasn't that they didn't take off, it's that they were mostly dominated by busty women making fairly low-effort content but whose thumbnails nonetheless drew clicks.
andrewstuart 19 hours ago [-]
>> I'm happy for you, glad you built a cool thing, and I'm hopeful you see all the success you want from it. I shan't be going there.
I appreciate the well wishes even if its not your cup of tea thanks!
That is a completely unfair take. While our experiences online might be predominantly text based, it's not like we don't go outside and talk to people offline. I'm in online video call meetings several times a day at work and have taken part in many conference talks, workshops, etc. In no way are my verbal skills "the level of a 10yr old".
What is true though is that I avoid audio chats where possible. Not because I'm scared of them, but because it's way too intrusive. I might be listening to music, or I might be in public without my headphones. How do I record something discretely if I'm out of the house. Sure I might publish it publicly, but I don't want a random stranger next to me hearing in case it's something only a niche community might understand.
quantadev 34 minutes ago [-]
It's widely known what sort of mental health today's 20-something are struggling with at a staggering rate of like 80% of them. Many employers won't even consider hiring them because of the self-entitlement and underdeveloped emotional disposition. I didn't make this all up in my head. I just read a lot. It's a generalization yes, because all statistical facts are by definition generalizations.
kreyenborgi 20 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
4 hours ago [-]
aloisdg 20 hours ago [-]
So not accessible. Not fetchable. Not searchable. Not indexed on search engine. I will not use it.
acc_297 20 hours ago [-]
Non-searchable and non-indexed sounds like a breath of fresh air these days especially for such a whimsical project
aniviacat 20 hours ago [-]
Perhaps using speech-to-text to make it accessible and searchable would be nice.
The text wouldn't even need to appear on the site; it could be hidden in the accessibility meta tags.
quantadev 13 hours ago [-]
Dang man, I just recorded a hilarious joke on there, and it blew up when I clicked save saying "ERROR: Recording over 1 minute long."
Plz bro. You cannot possibly even be serious with this.
There's like totally not even any such thing as in integer smaller than 1 bro. Did it expect a length of zero minutes? Is it like the Dirac Delta Eq where the timeframe is infinitesimal and the area integral is one?
andrewstuart 12 hours ago [-]
Apologies for that - that's a genuine bug.
I left the one minute limitation in when I was doing some testing.
I've kicked it back up to 12 minutes which is what it should have been.
quantadev 11 hours ago [-]
I mainly just wanted to help you by letting you know I encountered it that issue. People seem to be enjoying playing with that app tho. Congrats on creating something fun!
tomcam 18 hours ago [-]
Not interested, but the name crowdwave is one of the most brandable I’ve ever run across
andrewstuart 18 hours ago [-]
I picked up the domain for $10 maybe 5 years ago or so.
I was just casually searching domains and there it was, available for $10.
You would not believe how fast I reached for my credit card.
quantadev 16 hours ago [-]
Crowdwave is definitely the perfect name for the app. Wave means sound waves, and it also means a "wave" hi. Perfect.
tomcam 17 hours ago [-]
Yeah that was brilliant
Rendered at 16:07:54 GMT+0000 (UTC) with Wasmer Edge.
Some robots.txt validation tools include the query string and since you have Disallow: /*.mp3$ a URL such as https://audio.crowdwave.com/DhERq8HaTKupuN5DVohWDQ/19985/CM4... might be allowed because the URL doesn't end with .mp3
Consider using
or You might also want to make the same robots.txt file available at https://audio.crowdwave.com/robots.txtI tried both recording something on the site and uploading a file (all from an iPhone), but neither worked.
Regardless, kudos on this project. Hope Bob gets his milk.
On mobile, I tried recording to /c/PepTalk, but after recording my voice, none of the buttons ('save', 'play' or 'stop') did anything. So I wasn't sure if it had actually uploaded.
Then when I went back to the /c/PepTalk channel to check I had a popup saying something like 'failed to fetch waves' (sorry, I don't recall the exact error message!).
I'll keep an eye on this ongoing though, as I adore the concept.
I saw the note on your about page that says "crowdwave was written in a weekend" and I was blown away by the polish for such a short project... and then only afterwards read the post text here that actually it took months and was a rabbit hole. It shows though, well done!
I had fun browsing the different topics, and could see myself using this as a way to have "slow" social media usage.
Update: you have linked that project in the about section of your site.
Win3.1x just had a little dash at the far left, and simply an Min/Max on the right.
I love the look btw
Though I think there may be a target audience in the blind community; who could find the demi-organic nature of recorded speech more conducive to genuine conversations than their standard text-to-speech conversion software.
(Which I think there's a good chance a lot of them are using for one of their primary social networking interfaces anyway).
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talkboy
maybe it was a matter of cost. over time the cost of storage has gone down, and people are more engaged by richer forms of media. video > photo > text
why is it a bad thing to consume media that best aligns with how humans perceive information?
I've read through several of your comments, and none of them offer anything even remotely useful. It's all just mean and unhelpful, and I don't see how it adds to the conversation at all.
You are being mean and unhelpful. GP really has a great point in asking you why you felt the need to get on this high horse and talk down to everyone around you. For asking you this you've responded to them with more personal attacks. Ironically, this was their complaint to begin with - you didn't add anything to the conversation with your reply. Please do better.
What is the intro sound to each clip? Feel like I heard it before somewhere.
Depends how old you are!
In the olden days when you had a "phone message machine" at home, you'd come home and press the play button to listen to your messages, then hear a beep between each message.
It's meant to sound like the click of the play button and the beep.
I find it's the sort of thing I use probably at different times to when I might use Twitter - perhaps in bed before sleep listen to some messages, on the couch chilling.
in the 1990s I helped build a dating site where people put their profiles on small voicemails. This is very reminiscent of that and I think the engagement was low because it was a lot to listen to
Its really because on the back of my mind I was wondering if there's a way to have revenue without intrusive advertising or anything.
And, inspired by the games industry where people seem very willing to buy digital good to make their characters look good, I thought well thre are people on the internet who really value having exactly the username they want. And then I thought well maybe I should hold off giving away what might be a practical, non intrusive way to generate revenue. Thus I though, well the easy way is just to put a number on the end of the username. That's the thinking. If you've signed up, as an early joiner I'd be happy to give you your username without the number - email me at developers@crowdwave.com and I'll fix you up.
I do wonder whether a big company could sue you to give them the account for free on the premise of this being 'blackmail'. Might be something to keep in mind. But once BigCo sues you for this, you probably don't need their money anymore ;)
I wish the HN vibe was more like a digital makerspace and a bit less a tech business news. Sure, I don't think crowdwave will ever be as big as twitter or reddit, so what? That's not a bad thing! Reddit was infinitely better 15 years ago. Even if you close the site tomorrow, I already got some joy from it.
Anyway, I like it, really good job! (:
PS: Does anyone know about an online community similar to HN that actually has that digital makerspace vibe? I said that and know I want it to exist.
+1 to the digital makerspace idea. I've also been looking for such a thing. Probably the closest thing I know is the maker side of YouTube where people show what they are working on. But obviously you're "encouraged" to "industrialize" your hobby and the barrier to entry is huge...
Would be cool to find a community that is very welcoming and non-constructive feedback is not allowed.
Regarding other online communities maybe IndieHackers?
People complain about audio being slow to listen to - I don't know, people do listen to hours of podcasts. People do spend hours on tiktok. With enough users and a voting system, the best content should rise to the top. With the playlist functionality, you'd queue the posts you want to listen to and listen to them passively, while cleaning the room or driving to work.
Recording little songs or super short flashfiction stories... With the right creators to make quality content, I totally see how this could turn into something awesome.
One bit of feedback - why require the usernames to end on a number? I want to use a username Im using everywhere else.
Also, uploading an audio file didn't work for me.
Hmm. "Recording song" => copyright nightmare for all involved. Short stories .. well, do you know why youtube is banning ASMR?
Oh yeah oops! I need to fix that sorry. Recording via your microphone should work fine but I seem to have broken the file upload somewhere along the way.
Nothing weird about that.
I can understand how some people might be vary of publishing samples of their voice on the internet after seeing what happend to authors and artists whose text and images found a way to the web, then got ingested and regurgitated by a multitude of LLMs.
Radio and podcasts have been successful for hearing peoples voices, but its not for everyone.
Not everyone has to do it - I'm thinking that there's a group of people in the world who like talking and they're the people I'm hoping will enjoy it.
That's far different from "Hey it's Bob, ehm, so, yeah about tomorrow, we need a place to grab beers with John and Alex. I was thinking it could be SomePlace at X street. What do you think?" which costs the listener much more time than just reading a text message.
But I think this site might be on to something with the voting and all. That should bring out the content that's worth listening to.
Empathy equally applied would mean the message is never sent.
I am in multiple group chats: Spanish, Catalan, English. And with quick translators, we can all communicate with each other. With voice, it would be impossible.
Audio can be great for conveying emotion versus text (and without the awkwardness of video). It’s also 3-4x faster than typing out comments. I’ve seen stats saying it produces up to 8x more content because of how easy it is to talk vs type (especially on mobile).
Maybe if the posts were transcribed it would help (although that’s expensive at scale, especially for a side project without a clear path to monetization).
Regardless, kudos to the creator for trying something new and fun in such an apparently ‘controversial’ medium.
Yeah faster for you, much much slower for everyone who has to receive it and listen to you ramble incoherently. That's just selfishness talking, just like that friend who is always late for things making everyone wait. "My time is worth more than yours".
When will I get auto speech to text for all voice messages on all messaging apps? Or better still auto-decline all voice messages; "Sorry this recipient has disabled voice messages".
It's also 3-4x slower than reading, on the other side, and impossible to search (without some voice recognition tool slapped over it)
> up to 8x more content
So, you have to lose up to 4x8 more time to obtain the information you probably didn't need
Audio messages should only be occasional, in my opinion
That's my experience! n≈30 Gen Z.
That said, "Twitter/Reddit but every post is a voicemail" is a dream I wake up from in a cold sweat. It is a thinly-veiled threat. If you were trying to keep a cool website from me, and you accidentally said the name and I asked "what's that," if you said "oh, it's twitter/reddit but every post is a voicemail" you would successfully hide it from me. I cannot imagine a concept less compatible with the way I desire to experience the internet.
I'm happy for you, glad you built a cool thing, and I'm hopeful you see all the success you want from it. I shan't be going there.
The reason I say that is because I have frequently seen the same people who rage in text based media, have a very civil, even productive conversations on video (possibly because the human element is more obvious).
There is an open field out there for better functioning discussion sites, maybe audio/video micro-conversations could play a role (auto-transcribed as text is easier to skim and focus on chosen parts).
The trouble with audio is the barrier of entry. By the time you've wrote your script and managed to record it and edit it you might as well have made a video.
I appreciate the well wishes even if its not your cup of tea thanks!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6A4F09E968494896
https://www.crowdwave.com
What is true though is that I avoid audio chats where possible. Not because I'm scared of them, but because it's way too intrusive. I might be listening to music, or I might be in public without my headphones. How do I record something discretely if I'm out of the house. Sure I might publish it publicly, but I don't want a random stranger next to me hearing in case it's something only a niche community might understand.
The text wouldn't even need to appear on the site; it could be hidden in the accessibility meta tags.
Plz bro. You cannot possibly even be serious with this.
There's like totally not even any such thing as in integer smaller than 1 bro. Did it expect a length of zero minutes? Is it like the Dirac Delta Eq where the timeframe is infinitesimal and the area integral is one?
I left the one minute limitation in when I was doing some testing.
I've kicked it back up to 12 minutes which is what it should have been.
I was just casually searching domains and there it was, available for $10.
You would not believe how fast I reached for my credit card.