4 Shots of Espresso

I enjoy music. I’ll admit it, I cannot rattle off song names, bands, or artists from the last 25 years, but I know what I like. My favorite is that one that goes like do doo da dat dat and that other Desperado song, sung by Linda Ronstadt… not the one by that flying bird group. Oh and I like Bonnie Raitt’s I Can’t Make You Love Me.

My sad musical taste aside, I loved using the Lala music service that closed at the end of May. I’d call myself a moderate user. My iTunes library was synced with the service, so I had access to all of my music while away from my personal computer. To tell you the truth, that was the key selling point for me. From there I could connect with other users with different tastes. I found myself listening and discovering more music then at any other point in my life. Most of this discovery was spurred by the social features integrated with Lala. Apple’s purchase and eventual closure of the service left many wondering what is next. It is easy to assume that Apple will introduce their own version of Lala but in what timeframe and with what revenue model?

We many need to wait only a few days for Steve Jobs to announce a new Lala-esque service during his keynote on June 6th. In the meantime (and over the last month since the closing was announced) I have had an opportunity to explore the other options in the online music space. There are quite a few good services: Mog, Rhapsody, Pandora, etc. These sites all offer some free or trial experience alongside their paid subscription plans. Lala took this model a step further and offered free access online to any song I had in my iTunes library. They gave me 50 credits to add songs to my online library, and once those were exhausted I added real money into the system. At that time I never would have paid a monthly fee to use Lala. Now that the product is gone, I realize that it successfully created a need where one previously had not existed. Because I have had easy access to an essentially unlimited collection of music, I now need it. I am willing to shell out $5 per month for similar access.

The Opportunity

Now that I’m willing to pay a minimal monthly fee for access to music online, I’ve joined Mog and plan to try Rhapsody. Why not? These services could not really compete against Lala when the site offered a free play of every song in their collection and unlimited plays of any song that I already own (legally or illegally). In Lala’s absence, these sites have had an incredible opportunity to attract many new users to their services. The question is: Have they been spending the money needed to grab the attention of these listeners? In short, no. I’ve seen no PPC bids on searches like lala shutting down, lala closing or even just Lala. I’ve seen no ads on Facebook or PR placement in traditional media. A solid month and 4 days of opportunity have passed. Apple will release an option that will undoubtably have a better user experience then Mog and Rhapsody. That UX and Apple brand will attract users. Sure other companies will be able to lure music lovers that don’t want to pay into Apple’s corporate pocketbook, but those companies will merely survive, not succeed.

For now I’ll get my Mog on.

The Overview

• Lala shut down
• A need was created for this type of service
• Mog, Rhapsody, & Pandora are the current available options
• They failed to take actively take advantage of the opportunity
• Apple’s product will be sexy, cool, and easy-to-use
• And they will likely have a new subscription model
• And it will have majority market share
• I’m getting my Mog on

Today we documented:

• Back-end Code - Ruby, Rails etc
• Front-end Code - CSS
• Product Vendors - Companies we’re in bed with
• Common Internal Terms - Nicknames for features
• Site Processes - Getting from A to B
• Subscription and Billing Information - greenbacks
• Administrative Considerations - How to manage users
• Typical Support Issues - How to manage users’ problems
• Development History - Where we have been and where we were going
• Known Bugs - Yes, they exist, they were just low priority
• QA Testing Environment - Change your host file
• Paying Customers - They need some love… they do pay for it
• Marketing & Sales Tools - Know what we said, where, and to whom

Yesterday I put the final touches on the product documentation. It really is less product documentation and more a “how to use administer” the product guide. Today I arrived once again to empty offices. My only task was a meeting at 11am for the official handoff to the person who will be supporting our paying customers. I was surprised that someone who worked physically so closely to the product, just in the next room, had no idea what it had become. He was impressed, and it felt good… and sad. After an hour of discussing the ins and outs of the product, common support topics, and our development history (on the off chance they would pick it up again in the future) the meeting ended, and I was finished. As I packed up my things, the new person managing our product ran in, frantic, a trial user was ready to pay and he wasn’t sure how to walk them through it.

At least it ended with a positive.

Today is our Senior Software Engineer’s and company President’s last day. The Jr. Software Engineer and designer moved to new offices. This afternoon left me alone in the “south wing” of our two room office. I was left to contemplate a thought from our senior engineer:

When we’re working with the code every day it flows and moves; it’s very much alive. Once we all leave, it will get brittle and fragile.

Found a few last bugs this morning. They are easy fixes that will drastically improve user experience. It is funny how a small change can completely remove confusion. Or further how presenting a feature in a slightly different way can significantly increase it’s visibility.

With QA completed and the team’s sign off, our Sr. Software Engineer deployed one last time to production. At his side was our Jr. Software Engineer. The Jr. Engineer will stay on with with our investor’s other company. The moment was a quiet passing of the baton. This is, in my personal opinion, is one of the most stable releases we’ve made, but then again, it had to be.

The testing: complete, the production push: successful, the site: live, and  best of all, customers are already using the new features. There is something therapeutic about checking off iteration use cases.