Research Proposal

Title of the project: A web and android based music streaming platform with a focus on
community and genre-based classification of music.

Team Members:
Rifat Hossain, 1520827642
Ahmed Aziz Nahin, 1520476042
Md. Enamul Haque Imran, 1520581642
Name: Shirjoy Malek, 1511321042
Department of Computer Science and Engineering.
Problem Statement: The music industry in Bangladesh is now in a bad shape. Though the world
has moved on from physical discs, to digital platform like Spotify, Pandora or iTunes. In 2016
the half of all the revenue in U.S.A for music came from streaming. Which continued through
2017 and the revenue increased 43%. Which is about over $5.7 billion [1]. Where physical
revenue declined by 5.4% in 2017 and now physical revenue accounts for only 30% of the global
market where streaming accounts for around 54% of the revenue [2].

Fig 1.1 (Units show millions of subscribers. Image: RIAA) [3]

Bangladeshi music scene is still far behind. The lack of interest on the listeners’ part to buy
discs and the lack of a digital platform both for downloading and streaming has contributed to
the lackluster sales for music.
People are downloading and listening to the music from various pirate sites. The bitter truth is
that these sites are perhaps the easiest way for people to get the music they love. Not only the
availability but also the advertisement of the music albums is also an issue. There is not a single
platform where music lovers can get the latest information regarding the latest releases and the
music industry in general. There is an audience for the music and also a very talented group of
artists working in the industry. But the lack of a unifying platform that provides easy access to
music has led to the current state of decline in the music industry
.

Literature review:

As our project is a web service there are no research papers available but there are some famous
similar services available and we will discuss which features these services provide

Spotify:
Spotify features shuffle play, mixing up which song will play next from the playlist. It gives the
users power to create their own library with all their favorite songs. It gives the users the ability
to download the songs and listen to them offline at a later time and also features many kinds of
podcasts. Daily mix is also one of its significant features where it introduces new music daily
according to the users test and also show some recommendations. Also, it enables the user to
make their own play queue and the users can see their past records to find songs that they might
have liked but forgot to add to library. These are the most significant features of Spotify [4].

Pandora:
Pandora’s service is a little different compared to Spotify. Here the songs are played according to
the station which is selected. A station is set by specifying an artist or song, or a combination of
multiple items in a single station. Users can tune into established genre stations, other users'
stations or create their own stations based on their musical interests. Users can give either
thumbs up or down to the music which determines if the song will be played again to the same
user or similar classed songs would be played for that user. Disliking the song will cause it to
skip and Pandora gives a limited number of skips to free user for a given amount of time. It also
offers option to buy the song users like from online retailers. It’s free service depends on adds
which occur after every couple of songs and the premium version has no adds. Number of replay
or skips also depend on which plan the user is subscribed to. These are the prominent features of
pandora [5].

Overall objectives of the project: The goal of the project is to create a smart, innovative, user
friendly music streaming platform for the music loving populace of Bangladesh. And as it will
not only be a place just for music streaming but also a social platform. It will bring the mutual
music lovers together and provide them a platform to interact with one another. This will help to
grow the music scene in Bangladesh and also play a part in promoting music. The project also
aims to minimize the gap between the artists and the fans. Artists will have dedicated pages
featuring their discography, this will make finding their works easier on the listeners ‘part. Also,
they will be able to interact with their fans in the site and promote and share their works. A
genre-based tag method will be deployed to better categorize the music as to make it easier for
people to find the music they love and enjoy. Also, a feature will be implemented to promote up
and coming musicians, where they can upload their music for the listeners.
Solution:

Target population: The projects is aiming to be a platform for Bangladeshi music lovers. The
main target will be people between age 13-40 as they are more tech savvy and is more likely to
use the platform. Though the platform launches as a streaming site for Bengali music only it will
expand to have music from different language.

Output of the project: The project will have the following outcomes.
1. A music streaming platform for Bengali music and Bangladeshi music lovers
2. An easy to use and interactive web and android presence.
3. Complete discographies of artists including their upcoming music albums, tours and live
performance.
4. A social hub for music lovers and a platform for artists and fans.
5. A showcase for up and coming music talents
Brief work plan: The project development will be conducted several phases. They are planned
as follows.
Phase 1: Study AWS, JavaScript and various other languages and framework for the project and
coming up with a plan to build the site
Phase 2: Research on multimedia content to and classify them according to genre and store
them, making them stream ready.
Phase 3: Developing the website and android app
Phase 4: Connecting the multimedia server to the web site and android app
Phase 5: Deploying an analytics solution for measure and analyze user data.
Phase 6: Testing the system and release beta for public consumption

Major milestones: The proposed research and development project is expected to achieve
following milestones.
1. Project proposal report preparation and presentation.
2. Getting songs and classifying and storing them according to genre.
3. Creating the web based streaming site as well as the android app for the users
4. Building the forum section as well as artist section of the project.
5. Beta release getting feedback from user, modification of the system and content
6. Final report on effectiveness of the project
 Major Milestones Mont Month Mont Month Mont Month Mont Month
h1 2 h3 4 h5 6 h7 8
Project Proposal
Website and app
development
Building the forum
and artists section of
the project
Classifying the songs
and storing them in
server with approval
Beta release and
getting feedback and
modification of
system
Final Report

What makes the project an innovation: The streaming platform aspect of the project is not
innovative in the sense that it adds new ideas in the mix for streaming music. Rather it takes the
existing ideas by various streaming platforms and combines them together. The unique features
will be the social aspect where music lovers and artists will be able to interact and discuss music.
Another unique feature of the project is highlighting up and coming music talents by letting them
upload their works for listeners.

Expected results of the project: Improvement throughout the music industry can be expected.
The expected results are as follows.
1. 1.The platform will provide music lover easy access to their favorite music.
2. Social platform will lead to widespread appreciation for music
3. Decrease in piracy as this will provide easy secure access to music.
4. Increase in music sales as people can listen to music easily and thus a core listener group.
5. As artists will be compensated for their work, they can focus more on creating amazing
music without worrying about finances.
6. An easy way for budding musicians to showcase their talent and find an audience.

How the project will become sustainable?

The project will first run by grant. After the initial research and development, the project will
adopt a freemium model. With some features like early access, unlimited skipping will only be
provided to the premium customers. The free tier users will have to listen to ads. The revenue
earned from the project will go towards paying royalty to the artists and the rest to acquiring new
artists, music and building and maintaining system and infrastructure.

Do you need financial support for future extension? Please explain:

At first, we will use the fair usage policy to stream our songs but as our userbase grows we will
need to strike deals with the proper owners for copyrights and we would need proper financial
support to do that. If we get enough financial support we have plans to partner up with singers
and bands to release their songs earlier on our site to bring in more users. Furthermore, we have
plans to include foreign music as well in our service if proper financial support is gained

How people will be benefit from the project? Explain:

Currently the music industry of Bangladesh is in a dire state. Very few people know when new
songs of their favorite singers are released and most tend to rely on pirated methods to listen to
them. Our service will provide a platform for singers to share their work with their fans along
with their schedules and release days and as it is freemium everyone can listen to their favorite
songs in high quality without having to go to shady pirated sites. Also, our platform supports can
help new and upcoming singers to upload their work and reach a broader audience and get
recognized for their talents

What are the risks? How the risks will be managed?

Every project has some challenges and risks. This project is not any different of that. The risks
and how they will be managed are as follows.
1. The songs that we will be streaming are all copyright protected and initially we won’t
have the financial backing to buy the songs from respective companies. So, we will
design our service in such a way that it falls under the fair usage policy so we don’t get
sued

2. The major risk of this project is revenue generation. As our service will be freemium we
will have to gather a large enough user count so we can generate enough ad revenue to
support the service. We will also have to do social media events to increase our user
count

What is the poverty relevance?

Our service is freemium so people from all backgrounds can enjoy the music equally. And our
service can also help kickstarting the career of some under privileged artist who don’t have the
money to go to big producers.

What is the value for money?

There will be a premium version of our web service which will be accessible for a small monthly
fee. By spending their hard-earned cash, the customer would be able to enjoy ad free content and
also the ability to skip songs from their automatically generated playlists. We will also have
some promotion functions for music producers where they could spend some money to promote
their songs in the home page of our site and to higher preference on the suggestion tabs of our
users

Is there any opportunity of income generation from the project?

After the initial phase there is potential for earning music. An assumption if 100,000 songs is
listened to in a day. And if we provide an ad for every 5 songs that 20,000 ads. And if we charge
500 per ad that’s 10,000,000 takas and that is not counting the revenue generated from premium
customers. Though in the initial phase the income will be a bit scarce as time and advertising is
required to attract that level of users.

Budget:
Required budget (including breakdowns and shared cost):

SL# Item Description Amount

1 Research on streaming platforms 2000
2 Computers, laptops, smart phones, tabs 400,000
3 Web based system design and development 300,000
4 Mobile apps development 300,000
5 Server procurement / rent 100,000
6 Partnership with bands and artists 1,000,000
7 Partnership with music producers 3,000,000
8 Advertisement through newspapers and online advertisement 250,000
9 Final report on effectiveness of the project 10,000
10 Miscellaneous 500,000
  Total 5,562,000
 Procurement Plan
Procurement plan:
What Why When Amount
Description Type Reason Timing Tk.
Computers, laptops, smart Hardware For developing Within two 400000
phones, tabs and testing the weeks of
system project offering
(PO)
Web based System Software System Within second 300,000
development month
Mobile App Software Mobile app Within second 300,000
development month
Various Partnerships Content Content Within third 4,000,000
licencing month
Server procurement / rent System Deploying the Within second 100,000
system for month
target users
Advertisement through Media Not the In the seventh 250,000
newspaper facebook etc. mainstream month
functions of the
project
Feedback gathering and Software Getting ready In the seventh 20,000
further polishing for full for launch and eighth
release month

References:
1. https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/22/17152120/digital-downloads-cd-vinyl-riaa-2017-
report
2. https://www.ifpi.org/facts-and-stats.php
3. https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/22/17152120/digital-downloads-cd-vinyl-riaa-2017-
report
4. https://support.spotify.com/us/using_spotify/features/?fbclid=IwAR36gzdIdIeCixkMR-
0ERM3IHcZEs-GlEm8TP6j5zgWuU407cGMOePLEWLs
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora_Radio?
fbclid=IwAR3INHjSNhe9JJOSy7hixBwmL5_roLl9LWyc3KOnGzvK0NmNVDNweh8E
3tI#Features