Would You Ever Add a Music Player To Your Forum?

[Ravenfreak]

Every once in a while I'll come across a forum hosted on Forumotion and the community has a music player in the header that would immediately start playing as soon as you visited the site. I'm sure it was more of a popular feature back in the day, it's one I don't see often anymore. Would you ever add a music player to your community? It would be cool to visit a gaming forum that had video game music that played as you browsed the forum. Though if I'm being honest, I usually listen to my own music on Youtube in another tab. xD

 

[Tracy]

Wasn't that a thing back in the MySpace days?
I know that there was some site that was known for their "creators" to have crap playing when you visited, along with all the sparkly graphics.
It may have also been GeoCities... been a while and I honestly try not to remember those sites.

 

[Shortie]

I always remember this being a big thing years ago, most sites would have some kind of music player either on the homepage or on their profile.

Nowadays I don't see it as much but I do think it is a nice feature to have on a forum if the autoplay can be turned off or if it can be set as muted so that it can be unmuted if someone does want to listen to it without it being something that jump scares them when they visit a site.

 

[veloman]

I think that playing music without prompting is a big no-no in website design these days. I would personally immediately back out of any website that did it. It just comes across as rude.

What if, for example, the user is somewhere quiet and their phone or browser starts blaring out music. Embarrassing or upsetting users can't be good!

I know a lot of websites (especially news sites) have autoplay videos - but even they start muted, so they must know that it scares visitors away.

It certainly was popular back in the day. Bebo I think had it, and a lot of early websites. I'm sure it fell out of fashion quite quick.

 

[SDL]

I remember those sites and I’d instantly click off it. It’s especially annoying in the middle of the night and my phone/laptop is on full blast without realising!

 

[Tracy]

Nowadays I don't see it as much but I do think it is a nice feature to have on a forum

What I find rather ironic.. there are users pushing developers/3rd party add-on developers to add this to scripts.. I realize that we all have "flashback Fridays"... but some things simply need to be kicked to the bit-bucket.

 

[Shortie]

I remember those sites and I’d instantly click off it. It’s especially annoying in the middle of the night and my phone/laptop is on full blast without realising!

Those late-night jump scares from those players were the worst for sure! It's even worse if you have it turned up somewhat and you are using earbuds or headphones and it happens.

What I find rather ironic.. there are users pushing developers/3rd party add-on developers to add this to scripts.. I realize that we all have "flashback Fridays"... but some things simply need to be kicked to the bit-bucket.

I agree with you. As much as it was a good thing way back many years ago, now with the use of apps where you can play your own music now, something like this is not needed as much as it was all those years ago.

 

[veloman]

What I find rather ironic.. there are users pushing developers/3rd party add-on developers to add this to scripts.. I realize that we all have "flashback Fridays"... but some things simply need to be kicked to the bit-bucket.

Things change for a reason - progress happens with a purpose! Whilst we can all reminisce about "the past", sometimes it's too easy to view it through rose-tinted goggles.

I certainly wouldn't want to go back to pop-up ads, toolbars you can't uninstall, hours to download a file, dodgy websites, no SSL, browser hijacking, lawless websites, and so much more. The stuff that was worth keeping is still available (even if just on archiving websites), whilst the awful stuff is rightfully consigned to history.

 

[SDL]

Things change for a reason - progress happens with a purpose! Whilst we can all reminisce about "the past", sometimes it's too easy to view it through rose-tinted goggles.

I certainly wouldn't want to go back to pop-up ads, toolbars you can't uninstall, hours to download a file, dodgy websites, no SSL, browser hijacking, lawless websites, and so much more. The stuff that was worth keeping is still available (even if just on archiving websites), whilst the awful stuff is rightfully consigned to history.

I agree, things evolve over time and what used to be cool back in the earlier days of the internet, aren’t so cool now.

 

[Reverie]

I remember the days of music players and I loved them back then. I think if they were safe to use they would be great for certain niche of forums. Game specific forum - perhaps a soundtrack for the game! For a movie forum, perhaps movie soundtrack and even a poll to allow members to decide. I think it would definitely help a forum be a bit more personable that way.

If it was safe for a forum to use today, I would definitely not have it set on autoplay and it would need to be started when the member so chooses. I could imagine it as a playlist widget type thing.

 

[veloman]

If it was safe for a forum to use today, I would definitely not have it set on autoplay and it would need to be started when the member so chooses. I could imagine it as a playlist widget type thing.

As long as the user has to start it, I wouldn't see a problem with it. It's no different from embedding YouTube videos that requires the visitor to press play.

From a security point of view I wonder if it is even safe. Can/could malicious code be contained within a music autoplayer?