Music on your webpage?

[kellylindseyphotography]

What are your thoughts on music on business webpages?

 

[ssalulu]

I love the idea. I plan on having music on mine when I go live.

 

[quickshot]

I think it's classy, though it bothers some people. I was looking at a woman's photo page, it was the portrait section and had great pics of little kids. The song she used was "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by Israel Kamakawiwo Ole. It was PERFECT for the shots.

 

[saltface]

As long as it doesn't restart when you move to the next page.
Use a pop-under, go old fashioned with a frame, or make it all one page with flash.
Or use a different song on each page.

 

[Bevel Heaven]

bad idea. let your work speak for itself and don;t bring in another subject for someone to either love or hate. you may LOVE a piece of music but chances are someone visiting your site might HATE it.

Or the biggest problem is someone visiting your site just after they got their baby to sleep or whatever, and the volume is up because earlier they were jamming on iTunes or whatever........ and your music blasts out waking their baby.

If that happened to me I would never call you for work etc, I would be too pissed about it.

 

[kellylindseyphotography]

^^ good point.

 

[quickshot]

Bevel Heaven brought up a good point. To avoid those issues, you could use a media player that doesn't play on it's own-the internet user who is viewing the page should have the option to hit "play."

 

[kellylindseyphotography]

I think I'm pretty limited w/freewebs for right now. I think you can either play a song in the background or not.. you don't have control over volume or stopping it or anything.. so maybe I should skip it.

 

[astrostu]

I'll be the big-mouth rude guy on this thread.

BAD IDEA​

Personally, if I navigate to a site that has sound, I immediately close it. Period. I don't even bother to look at it. I think it's one of the worst ideas. You may think it's cutesy and fits your theme, but if I wanted to listen to music, I'd have my own playing; I also normally am listening to the latest Judge Judy clip on YouTube when I'm online, so I want to listen to that and NOT your music. By forcing the user to listen to your music when they're on your web page, you are imposing your tastes onto the user, which is rude.

Oh, besides this, it also could be considered copyright infringement since you are publicly playing a song without paying royalties.

There, I've said my piece. Please continue with your regularly scheduled reading. (Note I said "reading," not "listening.")

 

[One Sister]

I agree with Bevel Heaven and astrostu. Sound is intrusive and just adds another element by which you can be judged. If one is insistent upon having sound please, please provide a readily accessible button for users to turn the dang thing off. And by the way I often shut down a web page with sound...I suspect I'm not alone.

 

[craig]

If I hear music on a website I close the page. Not sure about retail photography, but I get the feeling that in the commercial/editorial end it is frowned upon.

)'(

 

[Chris of Arabia]

Definitely a bad idea - don't do it.

 

[doenoe]

i hate it when people use music on the website. Often i got my Itunes or Winamp on and then the music of the site is just annoying. So usually i close the site as soon as i can....dont even bother looking for a stop/pause button anymore.

 

[CanadianMe]

I dislike it when it starts automatically but you do have the option of giving the choice to the user. Rather than have it start automatically have something telling your viewers that by clicking here you can enjoy the music with the site. As long as it is user choice it is a good idea, when it starts without user input I also just close the page and on I go.

 

[kellylindseyphotography]

On my website, it gives the option to look at the gallery as a slideshow. Since i put clients work up in different galleries, I thought it might be a neat idea to ask the mom to choose a song to go with the slideshow.

When opening the gallery, you just view it as an album. You have to physically CHOOSE "view as slideshow" and then the music would start. And there is a big button with the music symbol to turn it off.

What say you on that idea?