Combo.fm for iOS

The best new music you probably haven't heard yet.

3 followers

The best new music you probably haven't heard yet.

3 followers

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Launch tags:iOS•Music•Tech

Launch Team

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Angel Insights

Hey Guys! Nice style and tone of voice. Obvious question... crowded market out there. What makes you different?

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10yr ago

Room Racer AR

Maker

@jdroutledge1 Hey James! Sam here, the dev. Thanks a lot - really appreciate it. We're taking the tone of voice to new places in the next version, so that's great to hear! Great question. Jamie (the designer) and I began building Combo.fm out of a personal frustration that on-demand algorithmic recommendation tools and services out there didn't really do it for us. We believe that a personal touch — even just a few exciting lines of context ; something like, “these guys started out of a Brooklyn basement”, — can be the difference between skipping a song after five seconds or really giving something a go. That’s really what we set out to create; a platform that feels like having your mate with outrageously good music taste right there in your pocket.

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10yr ago

@sam_piggott @jdroutledge1 As a copywriter, I always appreciate those subtleties in voice/tone, especially when it needs to be short and sweet on mobile. Language makes such a big difference, as you said—and so many companies rush through their product copy, when it's often the first impression users have with a product.

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10yr ago

Room Racer AR

Maker

@krisryanwhite Great to hear, Kris - we totally agree, the tone of voice and the way it's presented can make all the difference!

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10yr ago

Peach

I love it! So I need a Spotify or apple music account before I can listen to all curated songs in full length?

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10yr ago

Room Racer AR

Maker

@mariuschawa Hey Marius! Great to hear you love it 😁 And absolutely, that's correct. You'll get a nice little 30 second preview for free, but if you want to listen to full tracks (and save them to your Spotify or Apple Music playlists!) you'll need to connect with whichever service through the Settings page 😁

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10yr ago

Peach

@sam_piggott makes sense. It's seems like with every curated songs currently on Combo, you guys are just pulling from those sources in one centralize location?

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10yr ago

Room Racer AR

Maker

@mariuschawa Well, the content is curated - so there's no single origin location for the music. It's all dependent on where it was discovered by the curator! We are however trying to make it easier for users to discover music and listen the way they want; hence why we integrated both streaming platforms 😁

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10yr ago

Peach

@sam_piggott sounds good. Keep pushing it forward. Great work and good luck.

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10yr ago

Room Racer AR

Maker

@mariuschawa Thanks Marius! ✌🏻

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10yr ago

Sleek product, guys. Minimalistic and nicely designed - there's no doubt about what you are going to get on Combo. I have only one question: who curates the music? Can users become curators?

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10yr ago

Room Racer AR

Maker

@gp Thanks a lot Giorgia, really appreciate the kind words! Right now, we've got a line-up of experts submitting new music weekly for each channel. They're not identifiable at the moment, but we're trying to understand whether our users would be interested in knowing who's behind the selections. Out of interest - do you personally prefer the anonymity, or would you like to know more about where the curation's coming from?

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10yr ago

@sam_piggott Tricky question Sam. On the one hand I feel like as long as the music is good I don't really care where it comes from. At the same time I'd be curious to know who these experts are and what makes them experts, if you know what I mean - e.g. are they dj's, music bloggers, regular people with a great passion for music, etc. Also, at the moment, the only thing in Combo that tells me that the music is curated by actual human beings is the description of the songs. Maybe it'd be worth making the whole concept of human creation stronger by presenting the curators. What do you think?

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10yr ago

Room Racer AR

Maker

@gp That's really interesting to hear. I'm in the boat that I believe that a face to a channel can't do any harm. If the default mindset is that "if the music is good that you don't know where it comes from", then surely the additional information about who's curating it would only add to the experience for those who are wishing to learn more to the curator; the other camp could simply ignore that information. This is actually something my co-founder @Jamie_Shoard and I battle over a lot; he supports anonymity, and I've always felt passionately about getting names out in the open. He is, however, beginning to come around 😜 I agree with you; I think encouraging the "human" element by adding more information about the curators would only heighten the experience for the users that really care about where it's coming from.

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10yr ago

So I've been on this since the beta version & boy has it grown beautifully. I've never been too hot on music discovery, I usually just listen to what my friends recommend. That's exactly why I'm hooked on Combo...it feels like a friend bragging to me about the new track they found! The fact everything is hand picked & the descriptions are all personal makes me feel connected to Combo - like I'm having a conversation with a music nerd about what they think is cool as opposed to being told by a computer what I "should" like! Combo makers - what's the next channel you're going to throw in?

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10yr ago

Room Racer AR

Maker

@seffa121 Thanks Yousif! Really great to hear you've seen the product develop from the early stages. We ended up stripping back a ton of features from the early beta build to try to stick to the MVP principle, but we're slowly introducing them back in with small pools of users right now. We're now testing out a new little experiment @Jamie_Shoard's been designing; something called Special Editions. Effectively, these are guest spots that pop up on the front page for one week only; allowing curators to try the platform out, and giving us a little more room to experiment with different cultures and genres. So to answer your question; we don't rightly know right now...but if it were up to me, it'd be a K-pop channel. Going through a bit of a phase right now 😜

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10yr ago

SimpleBudgetForecast.com

Just plugged in and really happy with the tunes on FRQNCY so far. Any plans to have voting on tracks in the future or will you use metrics from saves to determine true popularity? Excited to watch the product grow. Im a definite music connoisseur so if you're looking for more beta testers shoot me a note!

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10yr ago

Room Racer AR

Maker

@bauermetal Hey Justin, really glad to hear that - FRQNCY and Soda are personal favourites of mine 😁 Voting's definitely something we want to experiment with in a coming build. We're quite apprehensive about introducing social and community features prior to having a large enough user base to support it, but as the product scales we're hoping we can try these out. We would absolutely love another beta tester! Drop me an email on sam@combo.fm and I'll sort you out - really appreciate it, Justin!

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10yr ago

Awesome product! Been looking for a service that curates great new tracks. Love the interface as well, very well executed! :) One thing maybe worth mentioning, perhaps a potential bug, I cant seem to connect my Apple Music account. Spotify connects fine but the Apple Music option seems to not do anything at all?

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10yr ago

Room Racer AR

Maker

@jordy_parks That's great - really glad to hear that, Jordan! And in regard to that Apple Music bug; can you possibly send through an email through the app by tapping Settings -> Email Us? That way I get a little bit more information that can help me identify the issue and get this sorted for you 😁

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10yr ago

Hey guys, really love the app, but I have to ask, why not just make playlists we could follow on Spotify?

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10yr ago

Room Racer AR

Maker

@dozens Hey Garrett! Great question; and in all honesty, we absolutely could (with the exception of the contextual descriptions per song). This version of Combo in its current form is a stripped-back version of the product (dare I say MVP?) we're hoping to create. In the future, we want to focus less on playlists in the future and more of a zine-esque approach, which has more curation and editorial than just a playlist.

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10yr ago

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