Music Migration

So, let go, yeah let go
Just get in
Oh, it's so amazing here
It's all right
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown

"Let Go" by Frou Frou

If you visit music streaming sites, you may have heard about thesixtyone's re-design.  A few days ago, the designers revamped the whole site without letting users know ahead of time.  Thesixtyone is now flashier, features full-screen photos of the artists you're listening to, and roll-over menus all over the screen.  Some sites--a lot, actually--have written praise for the bold move.  TechCrunch and the Los Angeles Times have both commented on how much better thesixtyone is now and what a bold choice the designers made.  Many long-term users of thesixtyone left comments on those articles detailing what we lost in the re-design, most notably, the community features that made the site so unique in the first place.

Users e-mailed the designers to voice their concerns about the lack of features in the re-design, but the site owners aren't responding.  Meanwhile, browsing new artists and songs on thesixtyone is more difficult.  The site feeds you tracks to listen to rather than letting you hunt down your own music, as it was before.  The community features that remain are buried behind menus.  Artists can't keep in touch with their audiences and are selling less tracks since the re-design launched.  The new sixtyone may be a nice music streaming site to new users, but the creators of the site alienated the people who made thesixtyone so great in the first place.

Out of all of this, something beautiful and incredible is happening.  Thesixtyone's creators took away community features, but they can't kill the community.  Word spread around that people were moving on to another music site called uvumi.  Uvumi isn't exactly like the old version of thesixtyone, but it has a good community and independent artists who truly care about their work.  It is a social music site in the sense that artists and listeners have conversations.  All users talk to each other and discover music together.  That was the spirit of thesixtyone.  People aren't putting up with the overhaul (read: destruction) of thesixtyone, and we're gathering on uvumi.  (You can find me here.)  The site grew by 30% in the past week.  We're inviting artists to create profiles and upload their music on uvumi.  The staff have been very welcoming and wonderful in accommodating the rapid increase in site activity.

We're finding each other and sticking together, maintaining the community and enjoying our music away from thesixtyone.