I haven't read all the suggestions in here but I think being an uploader from 2009 - 2012 in the old format and looking at the new format I have some ideas.
Also this is the time to capitalize on that fact that there is NO GOOD AUDIO PLATFORM FOR UPCOMING ARTISTS THAT ARE ACTUAL MUSICIANS AND NOT CLOUT PRODUCERS. This community is by far the strongest and best community of people that I have ever worked with and got to know. They gave lots of people who have now made it in the industry a GREAT place for criticism and suggestions.
That being said, the weekly top 30 system that reset at Wednesday at 12AM i personally think really made the site great. Finding out who was very active and serious about making great music always hit the top 30 and really defined where to go to find the best music. Yea the system was a little flawed with 0 bombers right before the refresh BUT if you put time and effort into your music for your fans they rewarded you with the push you needed before the reset. Right now it seems like it is very hard to find up and coming people unless you fan them to see the new uploads. To re-implement a top 30 weekly chart per genre that people understand how it chooses the top songs and not hidden behind an algorithm would be great for everyone. This system really to me was a rewarding process to staying active. posting music and pushing myself to create content for the fans. To be able to say that you had real control of pushing your music to people and not uploading a song that get lost in the mix.
Secondly the drop down to sort music is not very clear. What is defined as an new song? How can a new song be properly and fairly pushed in a certain genre to your fans? How should a creater set up their uploads to make sure the fans see them and help push them to chart for others who don't have many fans? Is the recommended system working correctly? I think the best way to solve this is work on more details filters, that really spells out how it is searching for music. Maybe most comments in a day on a track, most votes, biggest improvement in plays from the last upload to the current most recent upload. I feel like having algorithms that are not transparent pose an unfair advantage to some and discourage use of the site in general. Obviously everyone isn't going to be making progress and killing it every time getting more popular but to be able to fully understand why this track did worse than another track through analytics is HUGE. I think that's why soundcloud got as big as they got, and people paid to see these stats, they paid 200 dollars a year at one point. It is totally a marketing strategy soundcloud used as well as youtube.
I think as a creator these are the main questions and concerns. To take youtube as an example, people who upload videos that work with the you tube algorithm get pushed, yes this can be very bad for people who don't know but very good for people who do know. And not to compare platforms since some people just make videos that don't work with the algortihm, for example making a 10 min vlog is much easier than making a 10 min animations and animators get screwed (which is why they should stay here) Just to note youtube is alittle bit of a bad example because I think this scruity of the algorithm is so widely important because of the potential to make ALOT of money while on a platform like this, i'm assuming monetizing content is not the goal and shouldn't be the goal.
I also understand from Tom that this is a business and he should also be thinking how he can get bigger corporations to recognize that great talent that exists on the site to make it thrive. I know you are NEVER about that and the community has been self supportive of the site to keep it afloat WHICH I WANT TO STAY IS AMAZING. But it is safe to say that I personally want this site to be the go to place for people to find music like how people will use buzz words like Spotify and I would say soundcloud about 6 years ago as a up and coming platform. If this is not the intent I completely understand and respect that. I feel like there could be a very successful middle ground for the site if this is something you have been trying to do.
All the framework is here and has been here, time to refine it and get artists back on this site. I personally have no problem reaching out to artists that are more "mainstream" but started on this site and ask them if they would be interested and bringing back the music to be featured on newgrounds to really sell this platform as a place to be. I would never want to see this platform die even tho I personally have been SO inactive that I almost sound like a hypocrite at this point. I really have not worked on music in the past 5 or 6 years that I would say I abandoned the site.
I feel a lot of artists look at new grounds as the stepping stone to better things, (I mean yea its called NEWgrounds) a place to start to get real criticism and find out how they can make music that people will enjoy. Then move to sites like soundcloud/spotify and further. I'm not sure if you guys want to change the distinction and create an audio portal that people can stay on and actually be rewarded to sticking to (like youtube has become for many people)
To sum it up the site needs to be focused to being transparent with the user and offer a real way to test music with more analytics, see if its good and interact with the fans like other sites can not do. Ill give another great example of a site that was one of the best platformed i used. It was called turntable fm where you would go into a lobby as an avatar and there were 5 dj booths. It was a virtual club where people would create rooms based on whatever they like, each person would play a song for people and the crowd would up vote and down vote a song like Reddit then that person would hop off and open a spot for someone else, everyone had a playlist and was there own DJ. There was a feature to add the song playing to your own queue. A really great tool to grab music quickly you never heard before, they offered uploading tracks so producers with totally unreleased music could play it out, get a reaction and hopefully have other users pick up the track to play. It was a exponential way to get your music around. I used it and it jump started my career as i made personal connections to people that loved the same music i love. I was posting to new grounds at the same time and the two combinded made me addicted to creating music. Obviously that is a completely different platform than here but the idea of playlists, adding music from the site to peoples own playlists and being able to share those playlists (spotify does this) is something this site can really incorporate.
Changes that I love is the collaboration sections. LOVE IT KEEP THAT A FOCUS.
I'm gonna wrap this up because its a rant but finally I want to personally Thank Tom Fulp for this amazing site that is still going strong with so many other sites coming and going. This site still has the same atmosphere, momentum and quality it had over 10 years ago. I seriously want to commend you and everyone else that has dedicated time to ALL the different categories of content on this site. The fact that this site has survived and Tom is listening to the people that made it this great place only solidifies to me that this site can SERIOUSLY go WHEREVER the vision is.
I really would love to reunite some of the original creators here in the audio portal who have went off to have successful carers in an effort to make the site known for its quality source of people. Also if any discords exist for the audio portal, please PM me as I would love to get involved. I'd seriously rather do music specifically for new grounds to help jump start the platform if that is the intent. I have spoken to OG newgrounders about this and they all seemed to be onborad.
I would love to hear from Tom and everyone on my thoughts. Love you guys keep it going.