I recently read a comment in a discussion that serves as a petition for new media players that concerned me. According to one of the participating network creators, Ning informed him there is "no market for entertainment and will be a miracle right now to get better players". If this is what was said, it is an unfortunate statement for two reasons:
1) It it is short-sighted and illustrates lack of vision.
2) ReverbNation
Don't you think that if we had better music players, we might attract more artists to our networks? Isn't it possible more artists would likely start their own Ning social communities? It is my belief that more artists would be willing to forgo sites like ReverbNation and SoundCloud if we had better music players. Here's what I think would make all the difference in the world not only for network creators who run entertainment sites, but would (in my view) attract more members to our networks and more individuals looking to build their own social communities on Ning.
1) Better theming options, separate from other Ning media players. All Ning media players need a facelift overall, something more streamlined instead of clunky, which is how it looks now. I like what Google has done with their video players, very modern!
2) The 5 star rating should be more prominent, and the artists on my site are notified of the ratings.
3) Notification to my artists as to who rated their songs and added their tracks to their profile pages.
4) I'd like for the home page player to be linked with the music players on other profiles, so that I can feature my artists on a monthly basis.
5) The embed is good, but I'd like to be able to link to our players. Sites like Facebook won't accept embedding, and though you can use a work around to link to the player, but it would be a pain to my members, and all you get is an ugly link on Facebook, rather than a thumbnail image like ReverbNation players offer.
6) Download capability. Many of my artists offer free downloads, and I would love for them to be able to decide whether or not members who are fans can download their music.
7) Ideally, I would love for there to be a music page. We used to be able to do that using the Apps.IO jukebox, but sadly, those days are gone.
I realize Ning can't possibly fulfill every wish that pops up in these forums, but it would seem to me this is something that could greatly benefit Ning as a whole in addition to its network creators.
