What is Daytrotter?

Daytrotter is a commercial website for the recording studio Horseshack. There main focus is to host recording sessions with both popular and up and coming indie artists. It was founded by Sean Moeller in 2006.

Daytrotter logo (sourced from https://www.dailydot.com/upstream/seoul-band-montreal-daytrotter-free-session/)

What is Daytrotter’s Role?

Using Chaffey & Ellis Chadwick (2016) theory on what the role of a website is, it is clear to see that Daytrotter doesn’t just fit in one box.

Firstly it is transactional as there is a membership fee for signing up as well as a recurring monthly fee to listen to the recorded sessions.

Second it is service orientated as it is providing the service of live recorded music sessions to its users. As well as this it can be said to be relationship building in terms of building relationships between new artists and its users.

Thirdly and finally it can be argues that it is brand building in relation to both itself as a music streaming site as well as the up and coming artists are using this platform to build their own brands so it is mutually beneficial to both Daytrotter and the artists and amongst all else it is a form of a community.

Applying The online consumer’s hierachy of needs to Daytrotter

Valacich et al (2007) tried applying two popular motivation theories (Maslows Hierachy of Needs, Maslow (1943) and Herzbergs two factor theory, Hertzberg et al (1959)) to the online world. They recognised that there were three macro-categories within this new theory, these are shown below:

The three macro-categories recognised by Valacich et al (2007)

Structural firmness is the most basic need required from the user, functional convenience is the primary concern and once these two are met representational delight then becomes the primary concern. Looking at the above table, Daytrotter meets these needs and in the correct order. Concentrating on structure and function before before ‘smashing it’ in the representational delight department.

Comparing to Herzberg et al (1959), Valacich et al (2017) say that the hygiene factors for a website are what makes the website useful and the motivation factors add value to the site beyond the hygiene factors. This contributes to online users overall satisfaction. Again Daytrotter ‘nail both of these on the head’ striking the perfect balance with both factor categories.

In terms of what sort of website Daytrotter is, I’d say it is a hybrid, although on the surface it may seem purely and entertainment site as security, copyright etc. is of utmost importance whilst also offering beautiful visual design.

Does Daytrotter offer good user experience?

This was my first time using Daytrotter and I have to say I am very impressed. From the get go you are greeted with great imagery of artists that the site hosts in a signature style, which is extremely eye catching (hugely playing on representational delight concept mentioned above). In terms of use it is extremely easy to navigate and I did not once find myself frustrated whilst on the site. I believe it meets each macro-category from Valacich et al (2017) article and they target each macro-category in order of relevance to the site itself and their consumers.

Is there room for improvement?

I find myself scratching my head to find an area for improvement whilst writing this. I cannot think of any particular improvements, all I can do is offer a suggestion. This suggestion is that perhaps Daytrotter could branch off into different music generes, as at the moment they are targeting the niche indie market. However branching into different genres could take away from the overall feel and uniqueness of what Daytrotter have already done so in that respect it is truly a double-edged sword.

The takeaway

Overall I would say that Daytrotter is a truly unique and pleasant website that I am glad that I stumbled across whilst finding a website to evaluate. It seems to know exactly what it is doing and is executing this well and as I have said before there are no improvements that I can suggest that would dramatically improve the website.

Thanks for reading,

Haydn

References:

Chaffey, D. & Ellis Chadwick, F. (2016) Internet Marketing: Strategy Implementation and Practice. 3rd ed, Harlow: FT Prentice Hall

Daytrotter (n.d.) Daytrotter [Online] <http://www.daytrotter.com/> [accessed 25th October 2017]

Herzberg, F., Mausner, B. & Snyderman, B.B. (1959) The Motivation to Work. 2nd ed, New York: Transaction Publishers

Maslow, A.H. (1943) A Theory of Human Motivation, Psychological Review, Volume 50 (Issue 1), p370-396

Valacich, J.S., Parboteeah, D.V. & Wells, J.D. (2007) The online consumer’s hierarchy of needs, Communications of the ACM, Volume 50 (Issue 9), p84-90

Wikipedia (n.d.) Sean Moller [Online] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Moeller> [accessed 25th October 2017]

Wikipedia (n.d.) Daytotter [Online] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daytrotter> [accessed 25th October 2017]