My thinking is that karaoke has largely stalled, or to put it another way, it's awaiting some new idea, or event, or catastrophe or threat to inspire it or turn it in a new direction. I thought computer karaoke would be that crunch, but we've managed to stifle that and keep karaoke in the hands of the existing operators, more or less, so computer karaoke appears to have largely been folded into current operations rather than spawning a whole new era. I think W2S is partly responsible for sustaining the status quo, and that's one reason I think it's time to break apart the data from its usage.

The trouble is that the data could easily sit there in a separate website, available to everyone, yet only W2S making use of it. So I wonder if having the data available is enough, or whether it needs to be more of a 'platform' where anyone with a bit of enthusiasm can put together a website (or page) reflecting what they want - but make too 'good' a platform, and you're back into controlling the types and functions of websites that people develop.

If the communication drives the society, having a general website like W2S has kept gigs together in style, or, rather, prevented the natural fragmentation of gigs into everyone's separate idea - you mention how W2S may have encouraged certain expectations of quality, and I think another way of putting this is in discouraging diversity of both quality and style. Obviously we need the basic data, but we also need the diversity, and splitting the data (and perhaps the platform needed by people to easily create websites based on that data) apart from the usage of that data may be the way forward.

I see: One website that has the data, and supplies it to anyone who cares to link to it - part of that link would be the returning of new data to the database, providing the give&get of data that's currently built into W2S. I then see websites such as W2S Mk III taking a piece of that data, for W2S that would be data on karaoke gigs, and providing a platform on which people desiring their own website could easily make it, so W2S might list all the 'pages' that people have made and which cover specialty areas. Another person may make a mobile app to plot the data on a map, perhaps even showing the location of logged in singers to encourage groups moving from gig to gig.

So singers would still come to W2S, unaware that the data is housed elsewhere in a separate website, until some website developer comes along who thinks he can do better than W2S and finds that the opportunity is open to him to build his own platform. For others, W2S would list all the pages made from it and serving different interests, obviously as a searchable and sortable list, but perhaps also with a Top 10 of pages most visited and as an encouragement for people to publicise their own page. If a page were removed, or not upkept to a level that retained people, they would simply head back to W2S in search of some other page.

In this way we could have the size of database we need, but with the fragmentation by way of myriad websites that would support a more diverse industry - you could make a (website) page that allowed people to quickly separate gigs by type of song, MB could cover country Victoria gigs from his local knowledge of the one-offs done by Wolfie, etc. and with that information returning to the main database to encourage others out of the city for a look, and Vic could make a (website) page that focused on high-decibel Brisbane gigs that allowed old people to get to bed by 10pm.

And when someone had a better idea for a platform that supported these kinds of (website) pages, they could compete with W2S Mk III by plugging into the same basic database.

In its role as a platform, W2S Mk III could then indeed cover generalities such as where a singer starts in karaoke, perhaps an anonymous upload facility where people comment on samples of singing so that a person is no longer reliant on their family's flawed assessment of their talent, and maybe host columns by those who have been longtime in the industry and have some expertise to share.
Submitted by David on 30-09-2012

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