Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%

quantcast.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 175 posts

Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%

#81

Post by devanti »

bichiliad wrote: post #69
benologist wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I greatly prefer AZLyrics - they give me the lyrics on a page with just the lyrics, that's all I want nearly 100% of the time. It's not even a contest: http://i.imgur.com/H1QixcN.png

Don't forget that rap genius didn't / doesn't want to just be a lyrics site, they also do the whole "what do these lyrics mean" deal. I'd have no idea what 2 Chainz was going on about half the time were it not for RG.

Then people should stop claiming that RG is the best "lyrics" site. Lyrics are simply lyrics and RG does no better than AZlyrics in that regard. They can claim they're the best annotations or song meanings site instead.

Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%

#82

Post by ars_technician »

kunai wrote: post #16
michaelrbock wrote: post #14

Hmm... "This site reaches over 24 million monthly people, of which 12 million (48%) are in the U.S.The typical visitor watches Nickelodeon, visits pbskids.org, and listens to National Public Radio."

All I can glean from that is that the typical visitor to RapGenius can't be bothered to set up a separate user account for his/her children. This brings up an important point: hardly anyone knows how to configure or troubleshoot their computer. This is by far a more important point than some arbitrary "learn to code" movement that doesn't teach CS, and does NOT teach programming – it's like giving somebody a hammer a…

You bring up an important point. The people pushing code.org assume people have the same 'operational' level of knowledge that a standard power user has.

We should be teaching people how to run virus scans and backups before writing an application that prints a colored letter to the screen.

Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%

#83

Post by mikeg8 »

sejje wrote: post #71
jonknee wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is RapGenius the best result for Google searchers? I just want lyrics, if Google can get me to them I am happy. RG has a ton of bloat that I don't want or need.

Because when you google for "rapgenius" the best result is unquestionably rapgenius.

That's true but that is just one query, I'd assume an overwhelming of RG's organic traffic didn't come from searching the company name.

Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%

#84

Post by devanti »

If RG thinks they're so great (and all the bandwagoners on HN), then they should prove it by playing fairly.

My suspicion is that the vast majority of people who search for lyrics don't care about song meanings or annotations. Azlyrics does just fine, which is why they've always been at the top. If people wanted song meanings they would search for song meanings.

My theory is that RG wasn't able to grow as fast as they hoped and have to resort to these methods. How else can RG justify a $15 million investment? Their biggest competitor, songmeanings.com, is bootstrapped with only a couple employees, which shows the true market size of the song meanings / annotations market.

Remember that most consumers want things that are insanely simple and give them immediate satisfaction. I'm not surprised that most people on HN think otherwise as they tend to be deeper thinkers than the average consumer.

Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%

#85

Post by mikeg8 »

I wonder if this penalty would have been this severe if their "apology" was an actual apology. If I was in Google's position and had waited to see the RG response, I would have been less forgiving after the tone of that letter. But that is just my opinion...

Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%

#86

Post by pastpartisan »

It started out as rap genius and now its extending its tentacles to all types of music and even non-music related subjects Eventually, it would become just another annoying agitator website that clutters the search results with less than helpful results, so this was a good move on google's part.

Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%

#87

Post by arrrg »

kunai wrote: post #34
KC8ZKF wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused. Do you think RapGenius visitors are children or adults?

RapGenius visitors are probably adults or young adults, but the fact that the average "visitor" visits NPR and pbskids is indicative that the visitor has children or siblings, which means that a child and an adult are on the same browser on the same user.

And that is relevant … why, exactly?

There often is simply no need at all for separate user accounts on a family computer.

Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%

#88

Post by k-mcgrady »

rgbrgb wrote: post #33
dylandrop wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think that RapGenius' punishment is pretty harsh, but I don't think Google's behavior is "absolutely ridiculous". RapGenius did some shady stuff and they should be penalized for it so that this stuff doesn't pervade the web. I also don't think Google is acting like a cartel, in that they aren't extorting RapGenius or killing family members. But maybe Google should've laid off the crusade after a week or so.

I mostly agree with you. However, I think the parent comment was referring to the economic sense of "cartel"[1]. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartel

I haven't that read much about cartels in a long time but Google's behaviour here doesn't seem to fit that of a cartel based on a quick reading of the wikipedia page you provided.

Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%

#89

Post by ugexe »

bichiliad wrote: post #69
benologist wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I greatly prefer AZLyrics - they give me the lyrics on a page with just the lyrics, that's all I want nearly 100% of the time. It's not even a contest: http://i.imgur.com/H1QixcN.png

Don't forget that rap genius didn't / doesn't want to just be a lyrics site, they also do the whole "what do these lyrics mean" deal. I'd have no idea what 2 Chainz was going on about half the time were it not for RG.

You'd have no idea what 2 chainz was saying, or the meaning of what he is saying?

Which begs the question: if you don't know what 2 chainz is going on about half the time why do you listen to him?

Re: Rap Genius Traffic Has Dropped By Over 80%

#90

Post by tzs »

Microsoft should jump on this. Run ads promoting Rap Genius as the best lyrics site on the web, and noting that you can find it easily with Bing, but not with Google. Kind of like those Visa ads that highlighted some cool place and then said don't bother of you use American Express, because the cool place doesn't take AmEx, it takes Visa.
Post reply on HN