Hi P-Hunters (is that a thing?), and thanks for such a great post, T-Hayes (almost certain that's not a thing)
I’m Richard - the founder of Recast.
The idea behind Recast is pretty simple. Radio stations have mastered music curation/programming to build the perfect playlists, but radio as a music experience is pretty awful - there are ads and interruptions, endless repeats, plenty of tracks you wish you didn’t have to listen to, you have no idea what the track you like is half the time, and if you happen to be not be listening when it plays, well, that’s it. Recast is about building the perfect combination of broadcast radio and music streaming, by taking those playlists of radio stations all over the world, and then letting you listen to them as you would any other streaming music service (using Rdio and Spotify, for now).
I’d love to hear what you think, and answer questions until you run out of them!
@richoakley This is a brilliant idea... a very elegant way to combine the best aspects of streaming services and broadcast radio. Nicely done!
A few thoughts/questions:
I love that you provide a detailed breakdown of each stations genres. I'm wondering if that info could be used to even further hone/cull the playlist? For example, it would be interesting if we could sometimes choose to hear only the jazz tracks from one station, or exclude the pop tracks from another.
It would also be nice to be able to sort the list of stations so I could put my favorites at the front.
Lastly, I wanted to mention that the search function is currently a bit of a letdown... it's great if I happen to search for a station or genre you already follow, but if I do a search that brings back no results I just see blank space. In those cases it might be nice to give the user a little feedback like "sorry - we don't track that station (or genre) yet", and perhaps even provide a way to request a station or genre be added? Just a thought.
In any case, I'm really looking forward to using this app. Cheers!
@maxavery thanks so much for checking it out, Max!
We're definitely looking at ways to helping you find a more focussed stream of music, so one of those is to possibly allow you to tune in to a specific genre from a station. That said, the great thing about radio is the variety in music, so we're just being careful about it :)
As you listen to stations more, we'll start surfacing them at the 'top' of your list. The idea is for your list to a personalised mix of stations we know you like (from your listening) and those we think you might like (based on genres etc). We had one cool piece of feedback today to allow you to 'rearrange' icons like on an iOS screen, which could be fun too, though.
I agree 100% on the search - it's not very helpful feedback if there are no stations! I love the idea to include a way for users to request a new one in that space!
Here's some more info: http://smashd.co/non-commercial-...
It's one of the first "radio" apps I've been excited about. Didn't realize how good the radio could be with all the other junk cut out.
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