Web Site Idea - Suggestions Welcome

[pianoperformer]

I've been considering this idea for over a month now, but just haven't found the time to plan it out and start yet.

Lately I've been posting a practice journal on my blog. I log the start and end times, comment on what I accomplished or had trouble with, and have a media player where one can listen to the session. I do a similar thing for piano lessons. I then calculate statistics for my own use to see how I am doing.

I thought, though, that other musicians may be interested in doing something similar. I find that a practice and/or lesson journal is quite useful for me. It helps me to set goals for my practice, and keep myself motivated to practice enough.

So I thought of making a web site to make this capability possible, which would then make it easier for me too since a blog is definitely not the ideal platform for such an undertaking! I hate manually calculating the statistics, and fear miscalculating.

But I thought of making it for multiple users so that other musicians could do the same thing. I suppose they could enter the pieces they are learning. There would by default be a practice journal, but they could create journals for any number of things, such as lessons like I am doing. They can set goals, and specify the goals they are working on during each practice session. They could set time goals for themselves, too, either daily or weekly (e.g., 5 hours a day, or 30 hours per week). They could attach a recording to any journal entry. They could set any journal to be public/private or viewable by friends. Having a friends option would increase the social aspect of it.

I have many many ideas to expand the above, but these are the basics that I would like to get first. I am even thinking of eventually adding a forum to it, if it is successful enough.

I have searched, and have found nothing comparable on the web. That of course is a huge opening for me, if people are interested.

Two questions therefore arise:

• Would people be interested?
• How can I make this profitable?

As for profitability, I am thinking of either putting up Google Adsense, or, I don't know. I don't know if I could charge for such a service. Someone suggested certain features being free, but requiring some sort of premier membership to get additional functionality. I still don't know if it would work, or where to cut off the free functionality.

I am looking to try to help other musicians, but also definitely to profit. I'm in college and I have student loans. I need say no more, I think. My current income consists of only SSI, and though my mom will help, I don't want to put so much of the burden on her. so, I'm looking to do all that I can do to help.

[DavidDavidDavid]

Your questions are the two most fundamental business-related questions of a website (well, anything we do in life, if you think about it, including living a life!). Thus, they are naturally the hardest ones to answer -- because such answers only reveal themselves with time.

There's simply no way to gauge interest. People have made money off the web in so many crazy ways (some kid makes $1K a day with a free breast implants site), you simply can't predict what's The Next Big Thing. In hindsight we think we see previously unrecognized signs of promise, but the truth is that nobody knows because there never was anything to know -- the present is fleeting, and thus decisions, which can only be based on the present (present feelings, present ideas, present outlook, etc.), will not have the solid basis they appear to.

Likewise, there's no way to forecast profitability (I mean, come on, free breast implants???). This is proven by the fact that you can analyze anything to death because there's just no way to ever have enough data to take a perfectly well-informed course of action. So the key is to minimize risk, right? But the more minimal the risk, the less likely the profit! Not that lots of risk means increased chances of a profit, necessarily, but less risk does correlate very strongly with less reward.

Now, having said all that, here's what I would would guess....

Yes people would be interested, especially if the benefits are expanded to somehow include useful diagnostics based on the statistics...though I'm envisioning some kind of "widget" to enable all that, of course, whereas you sound like you're relying on self-reported stats.

As for profitability, other than Adsense, which seems to only pay off with insane traffic (thousands [that's plural] a day if you want to see "real" money), your best bet would be some kind of referral service for your visitors...say, based on their IP addy, your site would make an educated guess as to their zip code, and pair that datum with any list of local music teachers, or instrument tuners -- shops, etc. Also, of course, Amazon Associates, for any books, etc., that happens to fit your service ("Appegios for Smart People DVD").

Your biggest immediate hurdle will be the programming involved...unless you plan to hire someone to do it -- which, of course, means at least a thousand, even if it's a friend majoring in Computer Science....

[pianoperformer]

Thank you for your reply.

I do agree. I think I will go forward with it, then.

As for the stats, well all they have to report is the time that they practice, and the stats will be calculated. I have to calculate them manually right now only because I post my practice journal on my blog, until this site is complete.

As for the referrals, that's an interesting idea, but then wouldn't I need to have such teachers, tuners, etc sign up for them to be found? Given the wide area that visitors could come from, it seems like it'd be a while until there were enough teachers etc who signed up to be able to make recommendations for most visitors. Unless, of course, I misunderstood your recommendation.

As for programming, I'll be doing that myself. I've been a programmer for roughly 7 years, and have plenty of experience in it.

My difficulties right now are:

• Thinking of a domain. I have musicalprogression.com, but that seems a tad too long.
• Finding a designer that I can afford. Wish I could find one who accepted payments, lol. I'm on a limited income as I mentioned so paying a good designer tends to be difficult.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[DavidDavidDavid]

Re: referrals -- yes, you'd have a whole heap of work involved trying to find local folks and then convincing them to sign up with you (pricing breaks usually work)...but though it would take time to organize all that, hey, guess what, that time is going to pass by anyway; it's just a question of what happens while it's passing by...another idea would be to offer your own expertise, on a one-on-one basis somehow. Also, don't forget hard-goods: you can always become a Value-Added Reseller of, I dunno, environmentally-friendly keyboard polish and ear-plugs and q-tips, or glow-in-the-dark metronomes, LOL...you can represent instrument-makers, you can make your own DVDs maybe, etc. But I think instead of wondering how to profit from the site, you only really need to consider how to make the site useful...I believe monetization options will naturally present themselves as a consequence of your mission, as it actually is at that time....

Re: site design -- not sure why you feel you need to pay for a custom design...there are many free drop-dead gorgeous templates floating around on the web (and even more for a small fee), not to mention any that might come with your webhost. Besides, you can always draw visual inspiration from a site you admire.

Re: domain name -- don't worry, you'll think of a good one. It simply happens. You know what I'm talking about. We've all had that experience of inspiration just suddenly striking out of nowhere. It's just a matter of time.

[pianoperformer]

True, there are templates. I will have to try to find some and see if any would fit. As for visual inspiration, well actually I'm totally blind so any kind of design doesn't work out too well for me, lol. I could see getting a template though and paying someone for a logo perhaps.

As for the domain, I suppose that is true. I sometimes hate getting started until I know what to call it, but I suppose that is stupid. Everything decent I come up with is already taken.

[DavidDavidDavid]

Sorry, what do you mean by "totally blind"? Do you mean it literally??

If that's the case, you can simply have a trusted friend advise you, is all, as to which of the free templates look good -- and which look better.

[pianoperformer]

Yes. And that is true; that's what I will probably do. It seems the easiest way right now.

[DavidDavidDavid]

Not only a trusted friend, but your music professors...basically, anyone whose general judgment you might respect.

Same thing with a domain name, for that matter -- ask around! You've got nothing to lose by asking. What does your mom think? Etc.