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Community mismanagement 101: TheSixtyOne alienates top users
So, music site TheSixtyOne underwent a massive redesign. Old news, right? I was thrilled, others less so.
Those disgruntled souls left plenty of comments sharing their feelings, and one of them was kind enough to set me up with a few of TheSixtyOne's top users. These are people who have been with the site for a year or two, day in, day out, and accumulated gazillions of "points". Amongst them is the top user on the site, SallySilvera, level 24 with over 130,000 rep points (that's a lot). We're talking rabid loyalty here.
They all had a lot to say. I listened. Lengthy email rants elaborated on how they've lost their friends; how the sense of community is gone; how much harder it is to communicate with artists, and so on and so forth. The point is that these loyal users had actual reasons, and a lot of pent up emotions.
I also emailed TheSixtyOne developers asking if they'd like to tell me anything. While waiting for their reply (which never came), I sat back and watched how things unfold. I wanted to give them a chance, to see how they'd manage this massive PR flop. I followed their Twitter and saw they posted a handful of replies to unhappy users. "That's nice," I thought, "they're starting to take responsibility".
Well, imagine my surprise upon...
seeing this. Don't bother clicking; it's a very short blog post, basically mocking their users. Here's the whole blurb:
"rumor #1: thesixtyone is run by venture capitalists. hilariously false. however, if you know a "venture capitalist" with great taste and an affinity for working out of a living room while munching on chex mix, please let me know. we're hiring.
rumor #2: thesixtyone hates bach people. we actually love bach, especially yo-yo ma's performance of the six unaccompanied cello suites. we do dislike spammers and bots, though.
rumor #3: james miao's 6'3 frame is the result of a chinese conspiracy to compete in olympic basketball. no comment."
So, in this non-capitalized burst of unbridled arrogance, TheSixtyOne basically let the world know, along with their most loyal users, that they simply don't give a damn.
Regardless of the design change, this is not how you manage a community; this is not how you treat your most loyal users. These guys can take a lesson or two from Seth Godin. Nice going.
[Thanks to sallysilvea, philomath, rafaelbrandao, jonlandis]
Comments
24
Subscribe to commentsGarpthecatFeb 4th 2010 3:07PM
I was once in love with this site and one of the top users. I was discovering music and playing a game. However, these guys have not only gone and ruined the fun they have recently made it very user unfriendly. Very sad to see a good model go bust.
Jewish DaveFeb 4th 2010 3:15PM
Honestly I can't even use the site anymore since the redesign. I've tried 2 different browsers on 3 different computers. None of the buttons work. It just sits there when I click on stuff (anything except the next song button). So I can't log in to my account. It really sucks.
VeloxiFeb 4th 2010 3:27PM
I'm with you guys. I used to visit the site regularly. Sure, it was kind of clunky and slow, but it worked well and was designed quite well with a mind for usability and interaction.
The new design is a pile of crap with stale mac and cheese on top. Sad, really.
2PenniesFeb 4th 2010 3:33PM
So sad you let these people influence you enough to write this piece of garbage post. You should have just stuck with your original post a couple weeks ago that was actually on point.
Gary GammaFeb 4th 2010 5:13PM
Because covering the other side of a story is inappropriate when you don't agree with it.
davytheskunkpunkFeb 5th 2010 3:28PM
or maybe the numbnutses that run T61 oughtta actually ANSWER AN EMAIL NOW AND THEN
nk019Feb 4th 2010 5:07PM
I've never seen this site before. I just checked it out and it looks really neat, actually. I don't know what was there before, so it may have been better. What's there now though is very intriguing. It's easy to use. Honestly, this just sounds like a case of "Get off my lawn."
thomasad3Feb 5th 2010 12:00PM
No, you said it all when you said you had not been to the site before the change. You can have no idea what that site meant to the daily users. I'm sorry, but you are not entitled to an opinion on this issue.
LangFeb 4th 2010 5:33PM
This seems like the same kind of crap Engadget and Gizmodo have pulled on their readers recently. Engadget turned off comments because they didn't have thick enough skin and Gizmodo basically posted a long rant against their readers. The funny thing is, both were related to the stupid iPad.
Maybe it's a new trend?
BorderRuffianFeb 4th 2010 6:28PM
Um... I have never used this site before, but I was intrigued and I just followed the link to the earlier Download Squad article. In it is a link to the old interface. It appears you can still use it. Choice is good, right?
MatthewFeb 4th 2010 7:07PM
What a great site. I've been a big fan of last.fm for a long time but somehow never heard about TheSixtyOne. I just signed up. Like others have said, I don't know what the old site looked or functioned like but this is a really great site. An app like the last.fm app would make it even better.
On a side note, my experience is that the most vocal and active members are not always the key to a healthy online community. In the case of TheSixtyOne, it appears the key to their success will be members purchasing music - not necessarily the community or commenting system. Or, maybe I'm missing something.
squeakyfingersFeb 4th 2010 7:38PM
The artists can't get the word out about their music to their listeners anymore. The communication between listeners and artists is gone. Effectively stunting their ability to get people to buy their music. Communication and the ability to grow your fanbase is how unsigned and unknown bands make money. TheSixtyOne started out as a place where independent artists could upload their tunes to a massive audience.
a few quotes from their about us portion of the site:
"thesixtyone makes music culture more democratic: artists upload their work for review, but, rather than allow a stuffy suit in a boardroom to decide what's good, thousands of listeners do."
"We're on a quest to help people fall in love with something new while giving deserving artists an efficient channel for finding their audiences."
The comment walls and community aspect are a part of that. As a testament to this, a real life example is the fact that hundreds of former t61 listeners and artists have flooded a new site Uvumi. The lost and found group (which consists of exclusively former t61 members) there has 230 members....Uvumi grew by 30% in just three days after the t61 overhaul (the number is much bigger now, but i don't have that figure in front of me) and artists and listeners are still coming!
my point? making money is about more than selling a cd. its about creating a buzz, a fanbase, and a connection to a band. and t61 effectively killed that with their redesign.
MatthewFeb 4th 2010 7:49PM
Well stated, squeakyfingers. I will check out Uvumi. Thanks for your feedback.
davytheskunkpunkFeb 5th 2010 3:44PM
you are missing something, ask any artist who had success with the old site, now nobody will see your music, they killed it for 99% of the artists so they could promote the chosen 1%. I call bullshit.
squeakyfingersFeb 4th 2010 7:11PM
Thank you for taking the time to listen and write this article. I applaud you for taking the time to see all sides of the story.
davytheskunkpunkFeb 5th 2010 3:46PM
HEAR HEAR nice job of journalism here to see why people were actually so mad.
appstatsFeb 6th 2010 12:36PM
Be forewarned: I used my credit card on this site, bought songs, tipped artists and everything. (Since t61 takes the first $20 for their trouble, which is fine, I'm sure most of my money went into 6'3" james miao et al.) Then they pulled the rug out from underneath me and the other users. The sixtyone DOES NOT answer emails sent to help@thesixtyone.com , even from PAYING CUSTOMERS! Then, as this post shows, they MOCK THEIR CUSTOMERS.
They may program a great site, but their interpersonal skills are sorely lacking.
CAVEAT EMPTOR
Sheila L.Feb 6th 2010 4:20PM
If I were in the music discovery business, I would replicate the old app. Everyone here knows it was a winner, and the new app is just another internet radio. They really should have just created a second site instead of replacing the old one because it essentially is a whole different app. They should have known better, and I'm sure they'll feel the consequences of their actions. But to have the destruction of a community on their backs and have no shame about it is totally inexcusable. They deserve to get shat on.
MusicMissionaryFeb 6th 2010 4:56PM
Excellent followup Erez. You put in some good journalistic work & got a little taste of the arrogance we've been dealing with. We got very emotionally involved and had a lot of respect for the owners and what they created. It felt like a real betrayal when they yanked it all away without warning.
ZombieFeb 7th 2010 6:39PM
The problem with T61's redesign is the site now has a different feature set and a different emphasis. The old site's features were more useful to a lot of established users (myself included) than the new site's. For us, the old site met our requirements, and the new site does not.
Even if you set aside bugs and usability problems (and they're real) the change in functionality is sufficient to be a real problem. If a few other people just discovering T61 now find it to be a nice site, that's because they're looking for something different than T61's old users were. The site doesn't do what attracted me there in the first place any more, so there's no real reason to go on using it.