movementsixtyone.com

Owner of Cherrypeel.com contacts M61; New users settling in at Uvumi.com; TheSixtyOne.com filters out user comments on Facebook page

Bo Claypool of Cherrypeel.com has opened contact with M61, looking for feedback on how Cherrypeel and sites like it can encourage “the return of music to an art form, rather than an industry.”

Cherrypeel.com was originally the brainchild of two college students in Toronto. Claypool bought the site last year.

“I have a passion for music and the Internet, and Cherrypeel is, in many ways, beyond just a hobby; it’s a way to help Austin musicians really showcase their music,” Claypool told the Austin Business Journal in September 2009.

Responding to Claypool’s inquiry, M61 said that maintaining a communal aspect to music was key.

“The community that detached from T61 did so primarily because the community aspect was ripped out of the format,” M61 said to Claypool. “From that large group of people, many listeners loved communicating with the artist and vice versa. When that was taken away, a lot of the ‘heart’ of the site was lost. At a close second was the lack of respect and communication that James and Sam showed to the community. By not communicating any changes and not including documentation on how to use the new design, they alienated their customer base further.”

“The community aspect of music will likely be key to capturing music as an art form,” M61 added.

An interview with Bo has been requested to get his take on Cherrypeel.com and what independent music means to him and his site. Stay tuned.

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As the first wave of thesixtyone.com refugees settles into Uvumi.com, new artists and listeners continue to show up there. Meanwhile, Marshall Stokes continues to respond to community requests and minor site load issues. In a comment on this site’s third blog post, Stokes reached out to a user from India that complained that he was “blocked” from accessing the site. It’s unknown if the issue has been resolved, but as the user indicated that he had to use a proxy to access the site, it’s possible the user’s ISP may be partially responsible.

Meanwhile, users are encouraged to give a little leeway to Stokes while he and his team addresses issues. As forum user PaulNZ explained: “The team at Uvumi have shown themselves to be open and responsive to ideas (but lets not swamp them too much right now, I imagine they are busy enough dealing with the sudden growth!)”

M61 is reaching out to Stokes for an interview about the site’s design and inspiration behind it. More news to come.

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In a move that alienated thesixtyone.com users (past and present) even further, owners James and Sam have filtered user comments out of the main stream of their T61 Facebook page and have defaulted all comments on user posts in the user stream to a hidden status. Additionally, they disabled the ability to make wall posts, even in the user stream.

The last accepted user comment was at 5:56 p.m. on January 26. Since then, users have been posting comments in that post listed as “Charlie Pattinson – How do I… CALM THE F— DOWN?!”.

“Wow… just wow. Instead of fixing problems, they’re attempting to stop us talking about it?” commented user Joel Rich.

“[H]ow is censoring your (rapidly decreasing in number) fans going to help your already crappy rep right now?!” asked user Tammy Tamkin.

It’s unknown whether T61 will ever open up commenting again on their fan page. However, it’s clear that the owners are attempting to perform some sort of damage control in the wake of their highly unpopular changes and avoidance tactics. Others have noted in the past that James and Sam have been unresponsive to most communication attempts and have ignored users in the past.

“It’s bad enough when you ignore your users — it’s even worse when you can’t take responsibility for it,” said forum user xyresic.

Shawn Douglas general news Bo Claypool, cherrypeel, cherrypeel.com, Facebook, m61, Marshall Stokes, movementsixtyone, music, t61, thesixtyone, uvumi, uvumi.com