I was wondering if you had considered the possibility of AI companies using the recordings for voice training and faking. Good to see that you made an attempt with https://www.crowdwave.com/robots.txt but a couple suggestions.
Some robots.txt validation tools include the query string and since you have Disallow: /*.mp3$ a URL such as https://audio.crowdwave.com/DhERq8HaTKupuN5DVohWDQ/19985/CM4... might be allowed because the URL doesn't end with .mp3
Consider using
Disallow: /*.mp3
Interesting project. It'd be nice if you could trip off the few seconds of silence that is in many of these
The ability to listen to all the messages in a channel without tapping, as if I’m listening to the messages on my answering machine, would do be nice.
There is something strangely compelling, to crib from another commenter, about this site, its throwback UI, and general “this seems like a good idea even if no one really uses it”actually potentially useful art-piece-ness.
I tried both recording something on the site and uploading a file (all from an iPhone), but neither worked.
Regardless, kudos on this project. Hope Bob gets his milk.
Hello I'd like to help you with recording - would you mind please emailing developers@crowdwave.com describing what went wrong when you tried to use the microphone, and what device you are using Thanks!
Love it! Getting an error on playback now, though -- just says "4". Odd! Console reads that "A resource is blocked by OpaqueResponseBlocking". I'm on Firefox.
Same. I could play msgs on the first page I landed on, but not on any subs
Super cool. Love the interface, was not expecting to be thrown back a few decades!
On mobile, I tried recording to /c/PepTalk, but after recording my voice, none of the buttons ('save', 'play' or 'stop') did anything. So I wasn't sure if it had actually uploaded.
Then when I went back to the /c/PepTalk channel to check I had a popup saying something like 'failed to fetch waves' (sorry, I don't recall the exact error message!).
I'll keep an eye on this ongoing though, as I adore the concept.
Sorry to be that guy. But the UI is more Windows 95/2000 (minus the Icon in the leftmost side of the title bar).
Win3.1x just had a little dash at the far left, and simply an Min/Max on the right.
I love the look btw
Brilliant execution, congrats!
I saw the note on your about page that says "crowdwave was written in a weekend" and I was blown away by the polish for such a short project... and then only afterwards read the post text here that actually it took months and was a rabbit hole. It shows though, well done!
Did Bob eventually get the milk? People are getting worried
Bob has gone missing.
I was similarly inspired by afterthebeep, but didn't get anywhere. It'll be interesting to see if different niches/metas build up over time.
I had fun browsing the different topics, and could see myself using this as a way to have "slow" social media usage.
This is amazing. I vaguely recall seeing this long time ago (may be here on HN) and people were having fun and submitting new audios. It's not a new project right?
Update: you have linked that project in the about section of your site.
Yes! It's explained in the blurb above......
Oh Sorry, the HN client I am using on phone didn't show the blurb.
Nice work Andrew. Nice experiencing something new on the web with simple old school cool.
I read significantly faster than people speak, everything in voice would be immediately frustrating to me.
Though I think there may be a target audience in the blind community; who could find the demi-organic nature of recorded speech more conducive to genuine conversations than their standard text-to-speech conversion software.
(Which I think there's a good chance a lot of them are using for one of their primary social networking interfaces anyway).
You should add a talkboy[1] inspired voice changer to make it less intimidating to leave a message
I'm surprised nobody mentioned Airchat yet. It's already a social site where every post is a voice recording.
I want to like Airchat, but I find the UX to be horribly confusing. Maybe it’s intentionally that way, much like how Snapchat supposedly started out?
Love the idea! Awesome execution, I just want to see it in a future evolution of twitter like UI, so it becomes easy in my head to keep, access and listen. Keep building what you love.
This was tried: Odeo was more or less this, and it became Twitter because people preferred text.
and now my Twitter feed is dominated by video
maybe it was a matter of cost. over time the cost of storage has gone down, and people are more engaged by richer forms of media. video > photo > text
Or people are increasingly illiterate / disengaged. Video is a medium that requires minimum effort to consume.
Seems chicken and egg to me.
I'm so much less articulate when I'm speaking than when I'm typing. I can't see myself ever having the wherewithal to use this,but u have to say it's an interesting concept!
The aesthetic is spot on.
What is the intro sound to each clip? Feel like I heard it before somewhere.
>> Feel like I heard it before somewhere.
Depends how old you are!
In the olden days when you had a "phone message machine" at home, you'd come home and press the play button to listen to your messages, then hear a beep between each message.
It's meant to sound like the click of the play button and the beep.
Cool concept! I think the main issue is that it's difficult to glean information from audio bits quickly. I can look at Reddit or HN's front page for example and quickly scan what I am interested in reading, but with audio that's not so easy.
Yeah audio is a different experience that's for sure.
I find it's the sort of thing I use probably at different times to when I might use Twitter - perhaps in bed before sleep listen to some messages, on the couch chilling.
this is pretty fun. - one suggestion auto-clip my millennial pause at the beginning
I thought I would hate it (voicemail is the worst thing ever) but this is strangely compelling
Glad to hear that! Judging from the comments here there's a few people who like it, but also a few who really don't. So it's nice to hear you got something from it thanks.
I really hope Bob picks up that milk
I believe he's quite busy.
Love the site dude! Feel glad to have been part of this transient joke with a bunch of strangers on the internet
Thanks yes I have to say it was a micro moment of fun.
probably the hardest thing here is people read faster than they write.
in the 1990s I helped build a dating site where people put their profiles on small voicemails. This is very reminiscent of that and I think the engagement was low because it was a lot to listen to
why does the username validation require it to end in a number? we all must 1337?
It's a good question.
Its really because on the back of my mind I was wondering if there's a way to have revenue without intrusive advertising or anything.
And, inspired by the games industry where people seem very willing to buy digital good to make their characters look good, I thought well thre are people on the internet who really value having exactly the username they want. And then I thought well maybe I should hold off giving away what might be a practical, non intrusive way to generate revenue. Thus I though, well the easy way is just to put a number on the end of the username. That's the thinking. If you've signed up, as an early joiner I'd be happy to give you your username without the number - email me at developers@crowdwave.com and I'll fix you up.
I personally think that's pretty cool. Also fixes the squatting issue that otherwise would undoubtedly happen.
I do wonder whether a big company could sue you to give them the account for free on the premise of this being 'blackmail'. Might be something to keep in mind. But once BigCo sues you for this, you probably don't need their money anymore ;)
dibs on 'root' ;)
Sorry about the dismissive comments you're getting. You hacked something up and I think it's pretty cool and surprisingly fun. You nailed it with the beep at the start of each audio too. Feels warm, like actual humans communicating with you (even if it's something silly) instead of cold usernames just sharing headlines and memes for karma points.
I wish the HN vibe was more like a digital makerspace and a bit less a tech business news. Sure, I don't think crowdwave will ever be as big as twitter or reddit, so what? That's not a bad thing! Reddit was infinitely better 15 years ago. Even if you close the site tomorrow, I already got some joy from it.
Anyway, I like it, really good job! (:
PS: Does anyone know about an online community similar to HN that actually has that digital makerspace vibe? I said that and know I want it to exist.
I'm always a bit shocked when I see people attacking other people's passion projects. I don't mean constructive criticism, but stuff like "why would you even spend time on this, *I* don't like [recording my voice/the programming language you used/whatever]".
+1 to the digital makerspace idea. I've also been looking for such a thing. Probably the closest thing I know is the maker side of YouTube where people show what they are working on. But obviously you're "encouraged" to "industrialize" your hobby and the barrier to entry is huge...
Would be cool to find a community that is very welcoming and non-constructive feedback is not allowed.
Thanks for the comments! Yeah I was a bit surprised that some people seem to really not like the idea, other have had a lot of fun and posted plenty of funny messages.
Regarding other online communities maybe IndieHackers?
Welcome to hell.
Don't mind the weird negativity you're getting from some of the comments, this project is awesome and very inspiring! It's amazing to see someone so creative and enthusiastic about what they do. The idea is great, and the execution is excellent as well. The UI is unique and charming, while being easy to use.
People complain about audio being slow to listen to - I don't know, people do listen to hours of podcasts. People do spend hours on tiktok. With enough users and a voting system, the best content should rise to the top. With the playlist functionality, you'd queue the posts you want to listen to and listen to them passively, while cleaning the room or driving to work.
Recording little songs or super short flashfiction stories... With the right creators to make quality content, I totally see how this could turn into something awesome.
One bit of feedback - why require the usernames to end on a number? I want to use a username Im using everywhere else.
Also, uploading an audio file didn't work for me.
> Recording little songs or super short flashfiction stories... With the right creators to make quality content, I totally see how this could turn into something awesome.
Hmm. "Recording song" => copyright nightmare for all involved. Short stories .. well, do you know why youtube is banning ASMR?
>> Also, uploading an audio file didn't work for me.
Oh yeah oops! I need to fix that sorry. Recording via your microphone should work fine but I seem to have broken the file upload somewhere along the way.
> weird negativity
Nothing weird about that.
I can understand how some people might be vary of publishing samples of their voice on the internet after seeing what happend to authors and artists whose text and images found a way to the web, then got ingested and regurgitated by a multitude of LLMs.
I literally never want to hear other people's words as voices, or have my voice casually dumped on the Internet along with probably, over time, far too much reconstructable info about me.
I actually think some sort of tts angle would be a better idea
>> I literally never want to hear other people's words as voices
Radio and podcasts have been successful for hearing peoples voices, but its not for everyone.
Not everyone has to do it - I'm thinking that there's a group of people in the world who like talking and they're the people I'm hoping will enjoy it.
Radio and podcasts only work with a small group of people who are good at creating that type of content. They either write a good script or have a clear plan (and talent) for unscripted content.
That's far different from "Hey it's Bob, ehm, so, yeah about tomorrow, we need a place to grab beers with John and Alex. I was thinking it could be SomePlace at X street. What do you think?" which costs the listener much more time than just reading a text message.
But I think this site might be on to something with the voting and all. That should bring out the content that's worth listening to.
Right? I had a couple of friends switch over to voice messages on FB messenger when the feature was introduced. I don't talk to them anymore because I just never could be bothered to listen to that crap when they could have just as easily used the text messaging like a normal person.
It's faster for them to speak than write, and it's faster for you to read than hear.
Empathy equally applied would mean the message is never sent.
Sure. But it's less invasive for both. I can send a text on the bus without bothering anyone. I can read a text on the bus without bothering anyone. Time isn't the only reason that many people don't like voice messages.
However if one doesn't speak the language natively, text is far preferable because I can quickly translate. Can’t translate some long voice message.
I am in multiple group chats: Spanish, Catalan, English. And with quick translators, we can all communicate with each other. With voice, it would be impossible.
Or that dictation software exists…
Voice messages are very popular
And I ignore them like the GP. We seem to manage.
Huh, I didn't mean to submit, I didn't finish the comment. It was supposed to say "...in Asia, and there's a button that transcribes to text for the reader".
I think some data about how much usage the feature gets would be more helpful here than simple I do/don’t comments.
Just so you know, despite what might've been best intentions, your cookie banner is not compliant with what the law in the EU says. Consent for tracking has to be free, in other words, even if a user doesn't consent, they still have to be able to use the site. You don't need consent for functional cookies and never have.
I’m surprised by these comments and how much some people seem to hate audio.
Audio can be great for conveying emotion versus text (and without the awkwardness of video). It’s also 3-4x faster than typing out comments. I’ve seen stats saying it produces up to 8x more content because of how easy it is to talk vs type (especially on mobile).
Maybe if the posts were transcribed it would help (although that’s expensive at scale, especially for a side project without a clear path to monetization).
Regardless, kudos to the creator for trying something new and fun in such an apparently ‘controversial’ medium.
I don’t need 8x the content, it’s a benefit of writing that it forces writers to be more concise, Transcribe is not more expensive for the writer, the device can do it for hem. This message for exemple, has been transcribed by my iPad.
Listening vs transcribing. No one has time to listen to a subreddit our eyes scan much quicker. Transcribing might be quicker for most (some of us type quicker than speaking). The experience is negative on the whole. Lucky AI can listen and put to words those voicemails.
> It’s also 3-4x faster than typing out comments
Yeah faster for you, much much slower for everyone who has to receive it and listen to you ramble incoherently. That's just selfishness talking, just like that friend who is always late for things making everyone wait. "My time is worth more than yours".
When will I get auto speech to text for all voice messages on all messaging apps? Or better still auto-decline all voice messages; "Sorry this recipient has disabled voice messages".
> It’s also 3-4x faster than typing out comments.
It's also 3-4x slower than reading, on the other side, and impossible to search (without some voice recognition tool slapped over it)
> up to 8x more content
So, you have to lose up to 4x8 more time to obtain the information you probably didn't need
Anyhow, using voice is sure often better, but in a call, where you can stop the interlocutor, and ask them clarifications or to get to the point...
Audio messages should only be occasional, in my opinion
Look, I appreciate the motivation, I love a passion project, and I'm happy you've clearly learned things and taken on new challenges, and I love that for you. I'm so happy you've had the opportunity to build a cool thing you like.
That said, "Twitter/Reddit but every post is a voicemail" is a dream I wake up from in a cold sweat. It is a thinly-veiled threat. If you were trying to keep a cool website from me, and you accidentally said the name and I asked "what's that," if you said "oh, it's twitter/reddit but every post is a voicemail" you would successfully hide it from me. I cannot imagine a concept less compatible with the way I desire to experience the internet.
I'm happy for you, glad you built a cool thing, and I'm hopeful you see all the success you want from it. I shan't be going there.
Funny reply. But consider that making twitter posts audible and experiencing the full rage is fundamentally different from starting with audio first.
The reason I say that is because I have frequently seen the same people who rage in text based media, have a very civil, even productive conversations on video (possibly because the human element is more obvious).
There is an open field out there for better functioning discussion sites, maybe audio/video micro-conversations could play a role (auto-transcribed as text is easier to skim and focus on chosen parts).
YouTube had video replies ages ago and it didn't take off.
The trouble with audio is the barrier of entry. By the time you've wrote your script and managed to record it and edit it you might as well have made a video.
As I remember it, the problem with video replies wasn't that they didn't take off, it's that they were mostly dominated by busty women making fairly low-effort content but whose thumbnails nonetheless drew clicks.
>> I'm happy for you, glad you built a cool thing, and I'm hopeful you see all the success you want from it. I shan't be going there.
I appreciate the well wishes even if its not your cup of tea thanks!
Can you integrate with I'll Scream Your Tweets?
Wrong domain in the post, crowdave when it should be crowdwave
i’d definitely follow Dave the Crow
It's at:
So not accessible. Not fetchable. Not searchable. Not indexed on search engine. I will not use it.
Non-searchable and non-indexed sounds like a breath of fresh air these days especially for such a whimsical project
Perhaps using speech-to-text to make it accessible and searchable would be nice.
The text wouldn't even need to appear on the site; it could be hidden in the accessibility meta tags.
Dang man, I just recorded a hilarious joke on there, and it blew up when I clicked save saying "ERROR: Recording over 1 minute long."
Plz bro. You cannot possibly even be serious with this.
There's like totally not even any such thing as in integer smaller than 1 bro. Did it expect a length of zero minutes? Is it like the Dirac Delta Eq where the timeframe is infinitesimal and the area integral is one?
Apologies for that - that's a genuine bug.
I left the one minute limitation in when I was doing some testing.
I've kicked it back up to 12 minutes which is what it should have been.
I mainly just wanted to help you by letting you know I encountered it that issue. People seem to be enjoying playing with that app tho. Congrats on creating something fun!
Not interested, but the name crowdwave is one of the most brandable I’ve ever run across
I picked up the domain for $10 maybe 5 years ago or so.
I was just casually searching domains and there it was, available for $10.
You would not believe how fast I reached for my credit card.
Crowdwave is definitely the perfect name for the app. Wave means sound waves, and it also means a "wave" hi. Perfect.
Yeah that was brilliant