There’s now a new way to add stories to Harkive, which has been built by the very clever Nick Moreton, who also built the Harkive Data Explorer. At the moment (until we can come up with a better name for it), we’re calling it the Harkive Platform.
It’s still very much in BETA at the moment – which means it’s far from the finished article – but if you wanted to play with it and add a few things, please feel free. You’ll find it at http://www.harkive.com (as opposed to .org, which is the project site).
It looks like this…
The Idea
The idea behind this platform is to enable people to talk about their music listening at different times through the year, as and when the mood takes them, and not just on the annual Harkive days.
Equally, and because this is our own platform, we will have much more control over what is collected, something we don’t always have when pulling in data from third party social media sites and elsewhere.
By having this information (the formats people use, the time spent listening, and so on) we’ll have the option to organise, analyse and display data in some interesting ways. As well as being something we hope you enjoy being involved with, Harkive, ultimately, is an academic research project, and such things require a robust approach to data collection.
Using this data, we’ll be able to add some additional features to the platform as time goes on – and mainly these will be focussed on you being able to access and interact with the data and stories that the project collects.
By starting with a fairly basic interface, one that simply provides a mechanism for people to talk about their listening and provide some basic information (format, time, location), we can add functionality as and when we discover what people would like to see.
In short, it’s not so much that we have no idea whether people will use this platform (although we hope you do), but more that we don’t yet know what people will use it for. It will therefore evolve in line with both the needs of the research, and the requests of those who use it.
The Data
A lot of the data collected about music listening by the online services that many of us use is hidden away (because it’s valuable, essentially), so one of the things we’d like to do with the Harkive data is make it available.
There are limits to that, of course, particularly when it comes to personal information (email addresses, and so on), but we hope that, within those limits, we’ll be able to show you some interesting stuff and let you play with it.
We will not share, distribute or lease your personal data with third parties without your consent, unless we’re required to do so by law.
Instructions
We’ll be providing more detailed written instructions and help documentation as the platform progresses, but we hope we’ve made things fairly simple. Here are some basic notes to help you get started
1: Mobile or Desktop?
The platform is available on both mobile and desktop at www.harkive.com
If you are using an iPhone, you can add Harkive to your Home Screen in the following way:
a) Click on the icon in the middle of the bottom bar of your screen
b) Select Add to Home Screen
c) Click Add
d) The Harkive icon will now appear with your other apps.
2: Getting Started
WEB: Use the red navigation bar at the top of the screen
MOBILE: Click on the box with the white lines in the top right hand corner
Registering Your Account
Enter your email address, choose a password and a username
Logging In
Enter your email address and password
Edit Your Profile
Here you can add/change your photo, and a biog, location and other information.
NB: Only your name, photo and location will be publicly displayed.
Location
Depending on whether you are using the platform on your mobile or on desktop, you will at some point be asked whether Harkive can use your location. If you allow this, your posts will be tagged with your location.
3: Adding a Post
Clicking on the Add New Post button will take you to a new screen.
Post Content: Enter text here. You can include links and hashtags. You can write as much or as little as you like
Add an Image: Click Upload to add an image (on mobile you will be prompted to either upload or take a photo). This element is optional.
Format buttons: You must select at least one (but you can select more than one). For example, if you’re listening to Spotify on your phone, select Stream and Mobile.
Time Spent Listening: Use the slider to say how long you’ve been listening in this way. The default setting is 60 minutes. You can move this backwards or forwards from 60 minutes in increments of 5.
Include Location: If you click this, your location will be included in your post. You may be prompted to allow location if you’ve previously disabled this.
Submit: This will add your post to the feed. Once displayed in the feed you can Delete it, if you realise you’ve made a mistake (Editing will come at a later date)
4: Searching the data
The Search button will display three parameters: keyword; user; format – these can be used in combination to search the database.
Clicking one one of the format buttons in a post will automatically search the database for entries that have also selected that format. Clicking on hashtags in posts will perform a keyword search based on that tag, and clicking on the name of a user will show you their posts. Clicking again on the user will take you to their profile.
5: Reporting issues
If you experience problems, or would like to make suggestions, or report bugs, please email tech@harkive.com