Re: Muse.ie: your Auntie's favourite site?

That review is class.

Oh and Steve, I wouldn't boast about being the editor of a magazine that lasted only a few months.

Re: Muse.ie: your Auntie's favourite site?

Hehe Eoghan,

You're certainly on the ball - we've only been live a week and already several of the many changes we've been making have been noticed ;-)

We do think it is important to allow users to review music alongside our own reviews which will now appear in 'Muse Reviews'. Expect this to grow over the next week or two as we roll out changes to that section. In any case, there is a 'Comment' function below each user submitted review - so if you have something to say about it, you can do so using that comment yokey. We may implement an approval system for the user generated reviews - we can get this coded in a few hours, but there is no harm in seeing how it goes in the meantime.

In any case, the reviews section is just one part of an already content-rich site. We currently have (to my knowledge) Ireland's only free breaking music news service with tons of new stories daily, backed up by regular features, and (like yourselves!) blogs.

The profile page / video / social networking element of the site is not the main focus of our offering and never will be. It is merely an extra feature we feel is important to have at this stage.

Thanks for your positive comments about the richness of the functionality of the site - there is much more yet to come.

Hugh

Re: Muse.ie: your Auntie's favourite site?

wow, eoghan, theres a lot of bitterness in your blog there. both towards the original muse and the new muse. live and let live, man. i'm just amazed you didnt point out how similar Muse 2.0 is to Cluas - all those boxes at the top of the page, same bad writing etc etc

Re: Muse.ie: your Auntie's favourite site?

Rockchicklet, I think you're being a bit harsh there - even Hugh from the Muse site (in his post above) took Eoghan's comments in the spirit of friendly rivalry in which they were clearly intended. It'll be like Melody Maker vs NME (sorry for the painful reference, Mr Muse!).

BTW the only sure way to solve this 'bad writing' issue on CLUAS is to submit some of your own (good) writing! (your posts on the discussion board are usually good reading, IMO)

Re: Muse.ie: your Auntie's favourite site?

i'm glad to see that you have qualifed who is the target of your smugness in your blog post.

i was a fan of muse 1.0 and it has never - never - been bettered. cluas borrowed a lot of ideas from it but never quite got the same mix as muse had before it was killed by rondorondorondo.

muse 2.0 is atrocious. yes, i know its early days, but it is atrocious. i give it six months (longer than nme ireland)

Re: Muse.ie: your Auntie's favourite site?

thanks for the offer but, to paraphrase michael jackson, i'm a reader not a writer

Re: Muse.ie: your Auntie's favourite site?

I don't see what the fuss is about Eoghan, the thing about user generated content is users will generate content, some of it good, much of it rubbish. Look at the amount of crap on ewetube, myspacker, bebo and all those trendy "web 2.0" sites "the kids" are into these days.

Re: Muse.ie: your Auntie's favourite site?

Hi guys,

Thanks for your ongoing comments.

Rockchicklet - might it be possible for you to expand on your view that the site is 'atrocious'. As you have already seen, we act on constructive feedback very quickly, so if you have any thoughts on how we could improve the site, please do make them known to us.

Thanks,

Hugh

Re: Muse.ie: your Auntie's favourite site?

if you are willing to pay me a consultancy fee, I'd consider it. why should i give you valuable constructive criticism for free? i know that web 2.0 is all about user-generated content, but i dont necessarily think i should spend a load of time giving you my views for free which you can then use to con advertisers and sponsors.

Re: Muse.ie: your Auntie's favourite site?

In terms of news coverage and how fast it reaches the Irish music loving public, muse.ie has done a good job so far- just look at how fast the news stories for the Electric Picnic and Oxegen line ups hit the site. They delivered the line ups within hours of them being announced officially. I don't think that that would ever have happened as fast on hotpress.ie or cluas.com. I think that both cluas.com and hotpress.ie would have published speculated line- ups days before or the official line ups days after they were first announced. So you can't really fault them on that side of things. But I agree about the reviews section, it needs some serious fixing fast. Their events section is good too, you'd have to admit. I mean seriously Eoghan, cluas has for 'gigs of the fortnight', a total of four listings- all of which are in Dublin. Muse on the other hand has listings for all four corners of the country- north, south, east and west. How is cluas 'lending an ear to the Irish music scene' when cluas is ignoring the fact that any gigs outside of Dublin exist!!!

I think that if ever there was proof that we live in the land of begrudgers and cynics, this blog is probably proof of it. I agree with rockchicklet, there seems to be some bitterness between Eoghan and those at muse- whether it is Rondomondo or not. Why can't everyone just get along?!! I think that both muse and cluas are trying to achieve the same thing- a music website by Irish music lovers, for Irish music lovers.

Eoghan, you could do worse than look at the picture on the front cover of today's Irish Times.

Re: Muse.ie: your Auntie's favourite site?

Starstar,

I write the CLUAS gigs of the fortnight section every 14 days or so. It is not and has never been written with an aim of listing every gig going on in the country in a given period. It lists the gigs that I myself am going/would consider going to with occasional concessions to things that I think aren't up to much but figure lots of folks would want to go to.

I do check the listings for Cork/Derry/Galway/Belfast/Limerick/Dundalk/Waterford (a.k.a. the circuit) in addition to Dublin when compiling the guide it just so happens that, as I noted in the blurb about Joanna Newsom, that there isn't much going on in the next couple of weeks that I find in any way appealing. By the way, last time I checked Speakeasy where Amusement Parks On Fire are also playing isn't in Dublin.

If you want to make a more general charge about the guide in its entirety being Dub-centic then I would respond by saying that if a band tours through Ireland then they will almost always play a gig in Dublin but may not venture further down the country. If a band doesn't play The Spirit Store or the Roisin Dubh or The Savoy or Auntie Annie's or wherever then I'm not in a position to list it.

Ian

Re: Muse.ie: your Auntie's favourite site?

Hi guys,

Rockchicklet - 'con advertisers sponsors' is a bit of a weird thing to say? How and ever...

Starstar - thanks for your comments about our breaking news service. It is the backbone of the site, hence the space allocated to it on our homepage. Our listings will also improve, as we do not have proper search functionality yet, but that will arrive in the coming weeks. Feel free to drop me a line if you have any further thoughts on how we can improve the site.

Eoghan - As you can now see, we have totally separate sections for review content: Muse Reviews and Your Reviews. Also, we don't have an 'expense account' ;-)

Re: Muse.ie: your Auntie's favourite site?

"Muse on the other hand has listings for all four corners of the country- north, south, east and west."

Which are uncannily similar to entertainment.ie's..

Re: Muse.ie: your Auntie's favourite site?

Well they're hardly going to be completely different, are they?