From an implementation standpoint the migration from a traditional hosted environment turned out to be easier than anticipated. There were some minor code changes required mostly around how disk access works (and I don’t want to downplay the work involved since Eric did it all and it’s still rocket science from my perspective) but apparently it was a fairly smooth transition. Eric had the foresight to architect the app so all disk access occurred via a single class so it apparently involved changing the way things worked in one place.

The good news is absolutely nothing changes from your perspective as a user of the service but performance should be snappier on a daily basis. Plus if Oprah decides to make a joint audio recording with The View using our platform, service to you will continue uninterrupted whereas before such a traffic spike would have likely vaporized our server. One thing to note for the other young startups out there running a windows stack in a traditional hosted environment: you can take advantage of the BizSpark program and get a bunch of free Azure hosting in your first year. Find more details about that deal here. Have fun on the new souped up system!

We worked with Songsinc and their technical team to integrate our recording technology directly into their web site and make it possible for anyone to begin working with any of the tracks immediately online thereby bypassing the software, expertise, bandwidth and time constraints that typically preclude would-be users from getting started.

You can read the formal press release and create your own version of any of their songs. Let us know what you think. And if you have an existing traditional audio business of your own that could benefit from streamlining the recording aspect by moving it to the cloud, get in touch with us. We like making it easier for people to record stuff and work together.

If you’ve already been using Scratch Audio you may need to kill your cookies to see the improvements but basically the first time you go to record we’ll hand-hold you through the process of each step involved in making your first song with helpful in-line guides like this one:

So how does this affect the advanced people like yourself who already know how to use the tool? It means you’ll soon have more neighbors to collaborate with. We believe making the first user experience a useful & rewarding one (or at least not a frustrating one) is key to building a thriving songwriting community. And lowering the difficulty bar for getting started in music-making is one of our core values.

The other big change you may notice is that you can now zoom in the DAW. This was a heavily-requested feature on our suggestions page and we’re stoked to finally deliver this functionality. This should make it significantly easier to get around your composition while sequencing

There’s a laundry list of other geekish improvements in this release. In no particular order those are:

• Improved UI for the login/create account dialog in the DAW
• More sensible slider controls for volume, pan, zoom, effects, etc. (ie. jumps right to where you click instead of incrementing)
• Fixed a nagging font issue (where sometimes the wrong font would load and make everything look funny)
• Lots of tweaks to html/css/javascript to help improve page load speeds
• New db access layer to drastically reduce # of sql calls per page (basically rocket fuel to make searches and results pages load much faster)
• Improved handling of user avatar images to improve performance
• Some misc code cleanup/refactoring (the code equivalent of cleaning the bathroom)

Lastly we’re excited to now be offering a service for bands who wish to do fully-outsourced remix competitions as a way to promote their music. If you’re a band you can read more and signup for us to run your next remix contest here. Everyone have a safe July 4th and this holiday declare your own independence of desktop recording software

We’ve made it easy for anyone to participate using our online DAW (although you can still use your own desktop software if you prefer). We’ve also populated our library of drum samples with a bunch of content at the right tempo so there’s plenty of raw materials to choose from. Play around with it and show us what you can come up with via a link in the comments here or a Tweet or Facebook message. Let’s see what skills you got!

We’re proud to announce the addition of three core social features which dramatically improve the usefulness of Scratch Audio as a music collaboration platform:

• TAGGING: allows you to tag your songs and profile with attributes of your choosing that make it easier to connect with others and make your creations more discoverable. Some examples of useful tags are assigning attributes of: location, language, instrumentation, genre, and even open-ended descriptive tags about what you’re looking for in order to complete a composition.
• FOLLOWING: you can now monitor specific artists and songs and track them as they evolve. Similar to the way the asynchronous follow system of Twitter works you can not only follow others but see who is following you and the artists you follow. This helps you discover & connect with like-minded musicians.
• NOTIFICATIONS: what good is tracking artists and songs if you have no way to be alerted of developments? We implemented a simple notification system that will send you an email alert anytime new activity occurs that’s relevant to you (ie. someone follows you, an artist you track publishes a new song, someone creates a remix of one of your songs or leaves a comment).

These features coupled together make it easier to connect with musicians & producers and to socialize your creations. Other great enhancements we’ve added recently include:

• An improved sorting algorithm modeled after Hacker News that ensures freshest & most popular material rises to the top of both the artists and songs pages (coupled with the FOLLOW capability it makes it possible to truly “follow da leada” at any moment – hence the silly lead-in to this post…)
• Deals with five different loop providers to significantly expand the selection of audio samples in the library.
• Enhanced categorization of samples and drum kits and streamlined searching to make it even easier to find the sounds you need for your song.
• One-click publish to your SoundCloud profile (complementing the existing quick-share publish options to Facebook and Twitter).
• Various fixes and enhancements to the DAW to solve time sync’ing issues and improve overall performance.

If you haven’t used Scratch Audio in awhile, give it another look. It’s quickly evolving to be the easiest way to get your musical ideas out of your head and into a convenient “scratch space” for faster collaboration and discovery with others. Drop us a comment and let us know how you like the new features. And if there are other enhancements you’d like to see add them here so others can vote on them and help triage their prioritization for inclusion.

]]> http://blog.scratchaudio.com/2011/05/11/tagging-follow-notifications/feed/ 0 http://blog.scratchaudio.com/2011/03/17/lean/ http://blog.scratchaudio.com/2011/03/17/lean/#comments Fri, 18 Mar 2011 00:45:57 +0000 admin http://blog.scratchaudio.com/?p=364 We’re constantly seeking ways to get better insight into what our users want via implicit and explicit feedback. We’ve been running an interesting experiment for several months now where we’ve been presenting hypothetical paid plans to new users and seeing how they’re received. We actually did a talk on this subject at this year’s AZ Entrepreneurship Conference and I was hoping to be able to post that video but given an immediate deadline for a startup challenge that we’re applying for, I’m going to jump the gun and do a quick overview here.

We’re planning to share all the data and methodology from this experimentation but for now check out the presentation I gave last week for the Kauffman Foundation Fastrac class in Gilbert, AZ:

These slides were designed to be visual aides so it’s sparse as a standalone preso and a bit disorienting (although Prezi crushes PPT). If you get past the motion sickness and lack of text, there are some really interesting data slides 15 clicks in that show how we’re using Kiss Metrics and Optimizely to “ghost-sell” our paid plans. The core essence of this technique is this:

We’re not actually charging for our service at this point – we’re strictly in a learning phase. We want to get a solid understanding of what musicians find valuable enough to pay for. Currently on the second step of signup (after you record a song but before you save) we present new users with a choice of various plans including some which are paid and one that’s free. If they choose a free plan we ask an additional question to gauge whether they would ever pay for it and if so, under what conditions. We’re simultaneously A/B testing multiple versions of the signup page to dial-in things like features, pricing, messaging and presentation. We log the plan signups and track all these variables to identify what people are most receptive to and unearth patterns.

Kiss Metrics provides an easy way to track the breakdown of plan types by source and Optimizely gives us a friction-less way to A/B test different aspects of the plans. And the survey gives us free-form input from users so we can learn more about what might compel musicians to pay. This combination of quantitative implicit and qualitative explicit feedback helps us to zero-in on what people actually want. The net result of these experiments is that when we actually do go and implement paid plans, we have a good degree of confidence that they’ll be well received because they’ve already been validated by real people using the software. We save engineering time and you get a service you really want.

Like I said, this is just a quick & dirty post on this subject and we plan to go into much greater depth about how we’re doing things in hopes it helps other boot-strapped startups. But frankly I’m Irish, it’s St. Patty’s Day and I’m looking out on the scene over Sixth St. in Austin going bananas so this blog post is about over

Props to Noah for letting us crash at his place this past week. I’ve been at SXSW Interactive and gotten the opportunity to rub elbows with people like Patrick Vlaskovits, Hiten Shah, Eric Ries and Steve Blank so it’s a bit surreal to talk about this stuff after having chatted with some of the pillars behind the Lean and CustDev movements. Shameless plug for Noah but I recommend checking out his Lean Startup Bundle – it’s like Mac Heist of web apps for startups and appears to be available for another three days. We purchased one ourselves and were already using a handful of the tools in there (Kiss Metrics is one of them). If you’re a fellow startup you’ll find at least one tool in there that makes the whole suite worth the cost of admission.

If you want to track our progress and get the results and techniques we share, subscribe to the RSS of this category on our blog and follow us on twitter.
Erin go braugh!

]]> http://blog.scratchaudio.com/2011/03/17/lean/feed/ 2 http://blog.scratchaudio.com/2011/03/04/were-hosting-an-sxsw-party/ http://blog.scratchaudio.com/2011/03/04/were-hosting-an-sxsw-party/#comments Fri, 04 Mar 2011 14:31:07 +0000 admin http://blog.scratchaudio.com/?p=345 We’re hosting a day party opening day of the music portion of South By Southwest this year.
WHEN: Wed, March 16th noon – 7pm
WHERE: Jackalope 404 East 6th Street Austin, TX 78701
WHAT: A huge freakin’ party to celebrate indie music. Sign up to be the first able to remix the songs you hear.



RSVP via Plancast

Oh and (knock on wood) we’re going to try and get some stems from the artists that perform, load them into Scratch Audio and make it so you guys can remix their tunes. Good stuff. Here’s the flyer and band bios:

1:00 PM	Candy Claws Ryan Hover and Kay Bertholf, composers, arrangers, and principle songwriters of Candy Claws, wrote Hidden Lands on keyboard because they don’t know how to play keyboard. They had to rely completely on what sounded right, rather than rely on techniques they had learned. Strange chords and melodies arose that might sound “wrong” to the trained musician, but sound mysterious and exciting to them.
2:00 PM	Kinch Kinch, an indie-pop band from Phoenix, AZ, who for the past few years have felt at home writing sharp, angular rock songs that burrow into the listener’s ear and refuse to leave, while at the same time penning songs full of warmth, maybe a little bit of naiveté, and — dare we say? — even a touch of earnestness. Advances, Kinch’s self-released 2008 debut, was named best Arizona Record of 2008 by the Phoenix New Times, a Village Voice alt-weekly. They have officially showcased at New York’s CMJ Music Marathon, Austin’s SXSW, Milwaukee’s Summerfest, San Francisco’s NoisePop, and dates on Van’s Warped Tour.
3:00 PM	Gospel Claws Gospel Claws are an American rock band based in Tempe, Arizona. Their music has been described as “rambling desert-pop”, “uber-catchy indie pop”, and even “Jan & Dean on cough syrup”. But no matter how one chooses to describe this band, the fact is that singer “Joel Marquard…always delivers.” Admittedly, that last quote is simultaneously referencing Marquard’s music and his day job as a FedEx driver. After leaving Dear and the Headlights in 2007, he hooked up with longtime friend Sloan Walters. The two songwriters eventually recruited some other friends, John Mulhern and Scott Hall, for a rhythm section. Wesley Hilsabeck, who Marquard hooked up with via his delivery route one day, rounds out the lineup on second guitar.
4:00 PM	Fake Problems There’s nothing predictable about Fake Problems sonic journey from underground heroes to indie rock trailblazers. Since forming in Naples, Florida, five years ago the group have released two critically acclaimed full-lengths, won over countless fans all over the world and toured and played shows with everyone from The Hold Steady to Frank Turner. However with their sophomore release on Side One Dummy Records, Real Ghosts Caught on Tape, Fake Problems have exceeded even their own lofty expectations by creating a cerebral masterpiece that sees the band fully reconciling all of their seemingly disparate influences and proving it’s finally their time to step into the spotlight.
6:00 PM	The Gay Blades The Gay Blades are a two piece from New York City who play an acerbic brand of Trash Pop. What is Trash Pop, you ask? Trash pop is what happens when two keenly observant wanna-be hipsters write and record songs the same pair couldn’t possibly pull off live, and make up for their missing bass player with consistently explosive performances and a heaping spoonful of swagger. Clark Westfield plays the guitar and Puppy Mills plays the drums. They met while volunteering in a traveling sideshow, Clark juggling and Puppy taking tickets. Afterwards, back in NYC, the duo formed The Gay Blades.



]]> http://blog.scratchaudio.com/2011/03/04/were-hosting-an-sxsw-party/feed/ 3 http://blog.scratchaudio.com/2010/11/25/tips-for-music-teachers/ http://blog.scratchaudio.com/2010/11/25/tips-for-music-teachers/#comments Thu, 25 Nov 2010 20:58:33 +0000 admin http://blog.scratchaudio.com/?p=325 Having been on both sides of the table taking as well as teaching music lessons, I want to share a few ideas here for music teachers on how to improve the effectiveness of your lessons and improve student retention.

The primary challenges of the music teacher can be traced back to a single driving factor: the level of student engagement. Student longevity, referrals, willingness to practice and absorption of material are all heavily driven by how well you are able to engage your students. If you anchor concepts and techniques concretely to music they want to learn, you go a along way towards making practice fun and something they look forward to. If lessons remain abstract theory and far removed from what the student knows and likes then he/she will languish in musical boring land and eventually gravitate towards other pursuits that are more stimulating & rewarding.  So the question becomes “how do you hook students’ interest while conveying the fundamentals that help them advance as musicians?”

It took me three instruments before I finally found my calling with the guitar.  But it wasn’t for lack of connection with the instruments that was the issue prior – it was lack of connection with the teacher. I burned through violin and piano teachers like cheap firewood as a child and it wasn’t until I met Frank Danna that everything clicked into place. Frank knew innately the secret of successful music teachers – rather than impose a structured, theory-intensive lesson plan he instead asked me “what songs do you want to learn?”  I chose technically challenging songs like White Lion’s Hungry. Frank would learn the guitar parts and then next practice teach them to me while distilling core musical ideas and relating everything to big picture concepts and techniques.

So how does Scratch Audio fit into the music teacher’s repertoire as a tool?  One of the frustrating things of my weekly practice schedule with Frank was that I’d race home and learn the part and then have questions which would have to wait a whole week to resolve (<- BTW this is an outstanding problem for a music teacher to have).  The more I learned, the greater my appetite for instruction became.  Rather than having scales forced upon me I was begging Frank to explain the mechanics of the music I was learning. We’d record the parts on my 4track recorder and I’d take them home and play along but there was no opportunity for teacher input until our next weekly session.

Scratch Audio gives the instructor the unique opportunity to work with the student between practices. Multiple parts can be recorded online and the student can create his/her own remixes by muting out tracks and playing along.  What’s more, the student can record parts and share them back to the instructor via email. The net effect is continued learning between practices, resolution of learning roadblocks and deeper student engagement.  There’s also a handy byproduct of this interaction which is the archived progress of the student over time.  Parents can monitor their child’s progress in one place and it becomes easy to write that next check having tracked their child’s continued advancement.

There are plenty other valuable benefits to compel teachers to use Scratch Audio to improve the connection with their students but we’ll explore those in a future post.  Happy Thanksgiving music lovers! Today I’m thankful for many things but above others I’m thankful for the insightfulness of a guitar teacher back in ’91 who found how to connect with me and unlocked an incredible universe of guitar music which I continue to explore and be fascinated with to this day.

]]> http://blog.scratchaudio.com/2010/11/25/tips-for-music-teachers/feed/ 0 http://blog.scratchaudio.com/2010/11/25/this-months-featured-artist-mike-muretisch/ http://blog.scratchaudio.com/2010/11/25/this-months-featured-artist-mike-muretisch/#comments Thu, 25 Nov 2010 17:46:57 +0000 admin http://blog.scratchaudio.com/?p=296  This month’s featured artist is Mike Muretisch, or as we know him, Bart50. He is a 36-year-old software engineer by day, musician by night. He’s happily married with two sons and lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Mike hadn’t played any music in well over a year and hadn’t written any songs in probably 5 years.  Since discovering Scratch Audio, he has written two songs in a month’s time.   

 Tell us your story…

I’m primarily a bassist, but I’ve got enough experience screwing around with guitars to pass as a guitarist as well.  In my high school and college days, I played bass in several different bands doing everything from rock covers to grunge originals to some very original grunge/funk music.  None of these bands played more than a couple of shows before breaking up.  Then after college, in 1996 or so, my drummer friend and I decided to form a new band doing something completely different for us — I was going to play guitar, and he was going to sing.  We wrote a few songs at first, then recruited a bass player I knew from college.  We picked up a drummer I knew from high school too, but when that didn’t work out, our singer decided to play drums AND sing.  The three of us called our band “Bootnik Shanty” and ended up playing over 100 shows in the Pittsburgh area over a couple of years, recorded a CD at a local studio, and did a few radio interviews.  Those were the days and I miss the excitement sometimes.   

 Who are your musical influences?

I don’t really have any specific influences that anyone could identify from my music and I don’t have any aspirations to sound like anyone else.  My music is probably the result of all of the various bands I’ve been interested in over the years.   In the late ‘80s, I was heavily into hair bands.  In the early ‘90s, I was into grunge bands and some heavy metal stuff.  By the mid ‘90s, I started getting into ska music – I love poppy rhythms mixed with horn sections!  I was a pretty big Dave Matthews Band fan too.  Nowadays, I listen to Paramore, Weezer, Jack Johnson, and Jason Mraz.  I like anything that’s “catchy”.

How do you describe your music to people?

I usually describe my music as a combination of pure rock ‘n roll and pop, with heavy rhythms – maybe a little funky.  And it’s always happy.  I can’t write a song that isn’t happy – it’s like a chronic thing for me.  I could be writing a song about the death of a loved one, but somehow, it’ll end up sounding happy.

How did you hear about Scratchaudio?

As a software engineer and technology geek, I regularly listen to Scott Hanselman’s “Hanselminutes” podcast.  Recently, Scott had Eric Herbrandson on his show as a guest and they were talking about Eric’s Scratch Audio project.  I couldn’t believe it – a Silverlight-based online multi-track recorder?  I couldn’t resist checking it out.

It’s funny too because I bought a new bass and joined my church’s praise band a few years ago to fill my musical void, but quit when my youngest son was born.  I hadn’t played any music in well over a year and I hadn’t written any songs in probably 5 years.  Now I’ve written two songs in a month’s time.

Tell us about your most recent song published….

My latest song is titled, “A Better Day” and it’s about my recent experience with being unexpectedly unemployed.  It was a trying time for my family and I as I interviewed for several jobs that never panned out for one strange reason or another.  Every time I failed to get a job offer, I just kept plugging away at it and ultimately landed a good job.

 When recording the song, I used Scratch Audio’s built-in drums for my drum tracks, picking and choosing the individual drum sounds and writing several different beats for fills and song parts.  The bass guitar, acoustic guitar, and electric guitar parts were recorded using an old Zoom 3030 effects processor plugged directly into the microphone input on my 3-year-old Dell laptop.  The vocals were sung through an old Radio Shack microphone going into the same microphone input on my computer.

I spent probably 14 hours total on this project — 8 hours composing and recording the music, then another 5 hours writing the vocal melody and lyrics and recording them.

I love to write music, but haven’t been blessed with a very good singing voice or skills as a lyricist.  I’m hoping that as the social networking features in Scratch Audio mature, I’ll be able to meet up with some folks whose strengths compliment my weaknesses and we can do some killer song collaborations.

]]> http://blog.scratchaudio.com/2010/11/25/this-months-featured-artist-mike-muretisch/feed/ 3 http://blog.scratchaudio.com/2010/11/15/html5-flash-silverlight-which-one-is-dead/ http://blog.scratchaudio.com/2010/11/15/html5-flash-silverlight-which-one-is-dead/#comments Mon, 15 Nov 2010 15:18:28 +0000 admin http://blog.scratchaudio.com/?p=270 There’s been a lot of talk lately about HTML5, Flash and Silverlight. This is a discussion that I’ve thought quite a bit about over the last few years. The first decision we had to make when we started building Scratch Audio was which of these tools to use. It wasn’t an easy decision and we went back and forth on it for a while. So, with all the talk around these platforms recently I thought I’d chime in with my own two cents.

But first, let me tell you a bit about me. In the last two years I’ve written production code in C/C++, C#, Java, Objective-C, PHP, ActionScript and Javascript. I’ve worked on projects ranging from Riot Games League of Legends to the popular iPhone/Android app Golfshot. I daily work on both Mac and PC. So hopefully what you’re about to read is a balanced, well reasoned and non-religious viewpoint.

FLASH
A lot of our competition is built using Flash including Myna and Soundation. When Flash came on the scene it really revolutionized people’s ideas of what was possible on the web. For a while, EVERYTHING on the web was Flash based. However, people quickly realized that Flash wasn’t searchable by Google. “Oh crap” people said (yes, that’s actually what they said). “If Google can’t read our content, it’s like not having a website at all!” And so the use of Flash quickly died off. But it didn’t completely go away. It turned out there were still some things that Flash could do pretty well. Specifically, Flash based video games became big and a little company named YouTube found Flash useful too.

Flash forward a few years (pun intended) and suddenly Flash is the webs favorite wiping boy. Much of what I’ve read lately would have me believe that Flash is the malaria of the interwebs. The complaints include

1. Not Searchable by Google
2. Annoying Banner Ads
3. Resource Hog
4. Constantly Causes Browsers To Crash
5. Security Issues

My 2 cents

1. Yep, we know. Google can’t search Flash. Don’t put text content in Flash. It’s a bad idea. But there are things that do make sense in flash (mentioned above)
2. Yep. We’ve all seen nasty Flash ads. But, annoying ads aren’t going away if Flash goes away.
3. Yep, Flash can be a resource hog. So are many video games, video players, and a host of other apps. I’d prefer apps use fewer resources, but if the app is awesome I don’t really care.
4. Have I ever had Flash crash my browser? Sure… but not THAT often. I’m not sure where this comes from, but I have some suspicions. I’ll elaborate in a bit.
5. Frankly, I’m not qualified to speak to the security issues in Flash.

So why all the Flash hate? I’m not 100% sure, but a lot of it seems to be coming from Steve Jobs.

Don’t get me wrong, Steve is awesome. His technical brilliance is surpassed only by his marketing genius. Seriously, if they gave out Grammy’s for best marketing not only would Apple win, all 5 nominations would go to Apple too. Oh, and their products… beautiful! No one builds a laptop as beautiful as my Mac Book.

I know there are legitimate concerns at Apple around the performance and security of Flash. I also know the best way to build a constituency is to rallying people around an enemy. I think Steve’s turned Flash into a convenient enemy (and solved the problem of getting Flash on the iPhone to boot).

HTML5
HTML5 is freaking awesome! It’s a much needed leap forward. In 5 years we’ll laugh at how quaint the apps we used to build were. I’m really excited about it and can’t wait to start using it. That being said, the reports that HTML5 will replace all existing computer applications, cure cancer, feed the hungry, and cause the Buffalo Bills to stop sucking seem… optimistic.

With Scratch Audio we didn’t go with HTML5 for three reasons. First, it’s not far enough along yet. Writing cross browser sites is hard enough in HTML4. Tools like jQuery have made things better, but equivalent tools don’t exist yet for HTML5.

Second, maintaining a code base of this magnitude in JavaScript seemed daunting.

Third, the performance of JavaScript is not good enough yet to run our application. I fully believe these issues will be resolved in the years to come and we’re carefully watching to see what happens. The day may well come when it just doesn’t make sense for us to NOT use HTML5. But, there’s no way we’re going to sit around and wait for that day. We’ve got to use the best platform available to us TODAY. Today it isn’t HTML5.

But wait, there’s more… Most people aren’t trying to build an online multi-track recorder, and much of what stops us from using HTML5 doesn’t apply. However there are still some things that I think many people are forgetting. For one, while the new <canvas /> tags are pretty awesome, they’re no more searchable by Google then Flash is. I bet we’ll see a bunch of stellar looking sites popup using HTML5, but the fad will slow down when people realize their sites aren’t showing up in Google.

SILVERLIGHT
We ended up writing Scratch Audio in Silverlight. The reasons include (in order of importance)

1. Great performance
2. Great programming language and developer tools
3. Multi threading

I must say we’re VERY happy with the platform, but there are undoubtedly some drawbacks. First, the number of users with Silverlight installed is a huge concern. One of the best reasons to pick Flash over Silverlight is that almost everyone already has it installed. However, we’re seeing over 76% of our users already have Silverlight installed or downloaded it to use our site. Yes, that means we’re losing roughly 1 out of 4 visitors. Yes, that really sucks. However, I think we’ll bring that number up in time. I also believe that number’s better then what we’d see with HTML5. Only one third of our visitors have an HTML5 capable browser. If it’s hard to get users to download a plug in, it’s got to be even harder to get them to download a different browser.

Another issue we knew we’d be up against was the… urm… distaste? for Microsoft that many people have. This has been a bigger issue than we originally anticipated. We recently had some early discussions with a big name in the music industry die because a technical lead heard the word “Silverlight”. That’s pretty disappointing. Religious battles over software are silly. Microsoft, Apple and Google all suck in their own special ways, but I just can’t afford to avoid all of their platforms. I honestly don’t believe the average user of our site knows or cares who makes Silverlight. But I do think users are more likely to install a plug in (that’s also used by Netflix, SNF and the Olympics) than to download a desktop application (which is what most of our existing competition is). None the less, we’ve removed all mention of the fact that Silverlight is a Microsoft product from our install process.

Another concern is that Silverlight is still a young platform with an uncertain future. This concern is even more poignant in light of recent events. However, the Microsoft bloggers have responded that there is no lack of commitment. The most compelling of these for me is Tim Heuer (who I’ve met and is a really cool guy). He points out that he’s confident enough in the future of the platform that he’s moved his entire family to the mother ship.

So what do I think of Silverlight today? I love the platform. I love the tools. It’s a great solution for us at this point. Would I build another app in Silverlight? Sure, if it makes sense. I’ve definitely told people not to build their apps in Silverlight when I didn’t see what they stood to gain over a standard HTML4 site. But, if we were starting Scratch Audio from scratch again today (pun intended) I wouldn’t hesitate to use Silverlight again. It makes sense for us.

CONCLUSION
Flash is not dead. Silverlight is not dead. HTML5 is in utero. There are good business cases for each one. Pick what makes the most sense for your project. Don’t hate. If something’s cool, use it. Check out Scratch Audio.

]]> http://blog.scratchaudio.com/2010/11/15/html5-flash-silverlight-which-one-is-dead/feed/ 87