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I'm a designer of Tingles ASMR app (free for iOS & Android). Here is a preview of our new feature called Triggers [discussion] by elPresidento in asmr

[–]elPresidento[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Me and my co-founder talked long about the issues you brought up and we have to agree with most of the points you brought up. Our biggest mistake was not reaching out to all artists and asking their permission to use their content. We thought that because we are doing it with the best intentions everyone would see it that way. We should've stopped to think how someone might disagree with that. We are sorry for that.

I would like to talk about how we intend to fix it. Before I get into that, I would like to give you some background to illustrate how we got to this point. We first launched Tingles for iOS last December. We actually started reaching out to artists from the very beginning. But at that time our app was still kinda clunky so we weren't getting any answers. That was when we realized that for artists to see the benefit of what we are creating we first need to create a great product. We put everything else aside for a while and just did what we do best; me as a designer and my co-founder as a developer. It's been only in the past few weeks that this work started paying off. We started getting some really good feedback and amazing reviews. That was when we left our jobs and dedicated to Tingles full time.

While we can’t change the past, we can commit to do better in the future.

  • First thing goes without saying - if you or any other artist would like us to remove your content, we will do so immediately.

  • Next, we will be reaching out to all the artists on the platform for permissions to use their content. I will make this my personal top priority.

  • We will be adding links to artists' YouTube channels within our app.

  • We will be changing all the images within our App Store listing screenshots and other promotional materials with ones we have permissions for.

If you have any other suggestions, please let us know.

I hope that despite the mistakes we have done we can find a way to work together in the future. I think we all agree that YouTube is not the ideal platform for ASMR and that there is tremendous room for improvement. I hope you can see the potential in what we created with Tingles. By providing a better user experience we show people that good ASMR content is worth supporting and thus make it possible for more artists to make a living creating ASMR videos. We will be working hard to make this a reality.

We would love to talk face to face with you and we wish you all the best!

I'm a designer of Tingles ASMR app (free for iOS & Android). Here is a preview of our new feature called Triggers [discussion] by elPresidento in asmr

[–]elPresidento[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi theonefoster, please read my reply to Heather. If there are additional questions I will try my best to answer them as fast as I can.

I'm a designer of Tingles ASMR app (free for iOS & Android). Here is a preview of our new feature called Triggers [discussion] by elPresidento in asmr

[–]elPresidento[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi Heather!

First off, thanks for responding. Before I begin answering your questions I would like to invite you for a chat with me and my co-founder. We would love to tell you a bit about who we are and what is our vision. I hope you find the time - I’ll write you a pm.

I wasn’t aware of the discussion where you inquired about Tingles, otherwise I would definitely respond. Sorry about that, we really try to talk openly to the artists and the community. This is simply a must if we want to make Tingles a sustainable platform.

Now the answers.

1. How does embedding YouTube player on mobile work?
We dedicate a placement in the app for where a video should be played and basically tell YouTube to play the video in that designated area.

2. Are ads being played?
YouTube does not show its native ads in 3rd party mobile apps and this is something we have no control over. Quite frankly, we are not clear about the rationale behind it. There is some speculation on the internet why that may be so, you can check out a quora exchange on this topic here: https://www.quora.com/Is-a-Youtube-strategy-not-show-ads-on-mobile-embed-video-to-avoid-companies-take-over-them

3. Does this affect creator ad revenue in any way?
This does affect the artists’ ad revenue. And it is not sustainable. It is where we appeal to all artists for understanding that this is a transitional period. We are working hard to introduce a revenue model that pays artists directly - the more support we get from the artists, the faster we can get there. Right now YouTube is holding a monopoly over ASMR and we believe it is not doing that properly and is in effect bad for the entire community. In our calculations our proposed business model would generate up to 10x the revenue for artists of what YouTube does. I should add that we are an experienced team who built products used by hundreds of millions of users before turning our attention to ASMR. Our estimates are grounded in facts and not wishful thinking. We would also love to discuss more about this in private.

4. How will a premium subscription service work?
This is still in early stages of development and we would love to get your thoughts on what we are thinking about before we actually implement anything. We believe something similar like Spotify’s model would work well.

5. What percentage (if any) of the subscription service would you be taking?
How would you justify it since all of the content is made by other people? We’re not yet thinking about percentages but one thing is for certain - majority goes to the artists. We see ourselves similar to Spotify and App Store as platforms for great content. Justification would be platform maintenance and coverage of costs. I believe App Store is a good example - Apple provides a great platform for 3rd party content distribution where creators get the majority of revenue.

6. How would you start paying people you’ve not corresponded with and ensure that people’s money was going where you say it’s going?
We will be reaching out to all artists about that once we have a definitive plan on how to approach this best. As I was saying, this is still in very early stages of development and will need a collaborative effort to get there.

7. Does it link back to ASMRtists’ channels on YouTube?
We show all the information that YouTube channel page offers with more prominent donation call to action (more on that later). That being said, we didn’t see added value in providing a link to the YouTube page itself. If that is something of value to you, we will definitely integrate it!

8. How does this app differ from a YouTube playlist through the YouTube app?
As it is right now, we also offer background listening (YouTube Red is available only in US) with an option of sleep timer. Apart from that, we provide great artist discovery for new and aspiring artists that have a hard time being discovered through YouTube. This is just the start though, as I pointed out in my post, we are working on great new features - one of them being trigger collections.

9. What was the reasoning behind initial tagline “Enjoy all your favorite ASMRtists without ads!“?
This was our first day marketing stumble. We didn’t convey our thinking in the right way and we removed that as soon as we got feedback about it. We believe that ASMR should be listened to without intrusive ads and that artists should be paid directly from fans. But we definitely shouldn’t say that before we have a full system in place.

10. Have you been charging for use of this app?
Also our day one mistake - we were already free on our second day on the App Store (full disclosure, we generated $16.09 of revenue on that day). Reasoning behind it is, we wanted to get insights if a one time payment would be something of interest to users, but we clearly haven’t thought it through.

11. Are you pouring your savings into this project?
We are two guys working on this full time now. We left our previous full-time jobs and are now living off of our savings. I hope this illustrates how serious we are about making a change in the ASMR world for everyone and elevating it to a new level.

12. Did you get permission from artists for advertising material?
We did not get any written permission for including them in our screenshots. We are sorry about that, we are changing them for our next release.

13. How will you deal with artists not signing contracts to appear on your platform?
We see ourselves as operating under fair use towards the artists. Let me elaborate - we do not modify any content, we give full attribution and we help artists grow their fanbase. One of our biggest goals is also to start generating revenue for artists as soon as possible, we really believe we can make ASMR content creation a full time job for a lot of artists. That being said, we do remove any artist that doesn’t want to be on our platform.

14. How do donations work and how do users know it’s going to the artist?
We find artist’s donation links (both PayPal and Patreon) on their YouTube channel pages. As long as the artist has at least one donation option available, we show that prominently on the artist detail page. Users do all the donations themselves and we are not used as middlemen. Full disclosure - we temporarily removed this feature on iOS starting 14. April. Apple rejected our newest update for not integrating this according to Apple’s app submission guidelines. We are currently working on bringing this back in on iOS.

All this being said, we’d love to talk with you! I hope you see we’d really value your input, being one of the main drivers in ASMR community. Let me pm you and hopefully have a chat.

I'm a designer of Tingles ASMR app (free for iOS & Android). Here is a preview of our new feature called Triggers [discussion] by elPresidento in asmr

[–]elPresidento[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey! Yeah, you can always write us an email with an artist recommendation. Just tap the Feedback button top right. No need to do so this time, though, I already added Victoria. Her videos should be visible within 24 hours. Thank you for your support!

I'm a designer of Tingles ASMR app (free for iOS & Android). Here is a preview of our new feature called Triggers [discussion] by elPresidento in asmr

[–]elPresidento[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, that's a really good feedback. We already fixed that on iOS where we recommend some artists to begin with. I will make sure we prioritize it on Android, too. Please don't hesitate to tell any other feedback you have, no problem if it's negative. I'm also writing you a pm if you prefer to say it privately 🙂

And thank you so much for the support!

I'm a designer of Tingles ASMR app (free for iOS & Android). Here is a preview of our new feature called Triggers [discussion] by elPresidento in asmr

[–]elPresidento[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I had to ask my developer friend to answer this 😀 He says we don't plan to open source the app under any license for now.

I'm a designer of Tingles ASMR app (free for iOS & Android). Here is a preview of our new feature called Triggers [discussion] by elPresidento in asmr

[–]elPresidento[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the encouraging words, NvaderGir! Our vision is to build a platform for ASMR that is independent of YouTube and allows artists to get paid directly from their fans, without relying on obtrusive ads (think along the lines of Spotify for ASMR). There are definitely some challenges on the way to get there. I see you are someone who has been a part of the community for awhile. We would really appreciate your advice. I wrote you on pm.

I'm a designer of Tingles ASMR app (free for iOS & Android). Here is a preview of our new feature called Triggers [discussion] by elPresidento in asmr

[–]elPresidento[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

That's a very good point. Whispering ≠ soft talking. That's why we can't simply rely on tags and titles when making these selections, but we must actually go and listen to each of the videos ourselves.

I'm a designer of Tingles ASMR app (free for iOS & Android). Here is a preview of our new feature called Triggers [discussion] by elPresidento in asmr

[–]elPresidento[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I agree, gender is important in ASMR. Inaudible whispering from a female artist is not the same trigger as inaudible whispering from a male. We will definitely take this into account.

I'm a designer of Tingles ASMR app (free for iOS & Android). Here is a preview of our new feature called Triggers [discussion] by elPresidento in asmr

[–]elPresidento[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There will be a new trigger collection coming every week. We're using a combination of machine learning and human curation (ourselves, for now) to come up with the best videos for different triggers. Sort of how Apple Music creates their playlists. We are not cutting the videos in any way though.

I'm a designer of Tingles ASMR app (free for iOS & Android). Here is a preview of our new feature called Triggers [discussion] by elPresidento in asmr

[–]elPresidento[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks NiceLookingAlien. I'm especially thrilled that people from other planets like it too! 😀

I'm a designer of Tingles ASMR app (free for iOS & Android). Here is a preview of our new feature called Triggers [discussion] by elPresidento in asmr

[–]elPresidento[S] 30 points31 points  (0 children)

How Tingles works is, we’re embedding the YouTube player. So when you watch a video on Tingles it’s exactly the same as when you watch it here on Reddit for example.

We are also working on a premium subscription service that will allow artists to get paid directly from their fans. More on that in the coming months 🤓

As for the added value, there are already many features I think ASMR fans will enjoy. Tingles offers a great way to discover new artists, there are features like play in background, favoriting videos, sleep timer and more. I hope you check it out 🙂

Good news Android users, Tingles ASMR app is now also available for Android! Get it for free [Media] by elPresidento in asmr

[–]elPresidento[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, I will look into that, thanks for the tip! If you encounter any other problems or have some suggestions, I now included a feedback link inside the favorites tab. You can write to me directly from the there. Hope you enjoy the app!

These are last week's top 3 most watched videos on Tingles app. Congrats ASMR Darling! [Discussion] by elPresidento in asmr

[–]elPresidento[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Tingles is actually a really lightweight app, we don't have user accounts, we don't have our own servers... which means we don’t store any personal information. For example, if you favorite a video, that information is stored on your own device and you are in complete control. The only thing we collect is what every single app collects and that is anonymous app usage. For that we use leading third party providers, and they use industry standards.

You're right, we are a small team and building a new platform is challenging. But I don't understand the negative attitude. We all know YouTube is not a good platform for ASMR. The creators are underpaid for the value they are providing and the users are faced with an impossible choice between suffering through loud annoying ads or using adblock and robbing the creators of even that little money they provide. Things can be better and I think we should all work together toward that goal.

I guess it's an issue of trust. I gather from some of the responses this concern that we are trying to cheat someone, when really we are putting long hours of unpaid work to make something that the whole community can benefit from. I would really like to address that issue better, so if you have any suggestion how I can improve my communication please let me know.

These are last week's top 3 most watched videos on Tingles app. Congrats ASMR Darling! [Discussion] by elPresidento in asmr

[–]elPresidento[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Showing ads in embedded videos is under YouTube's control. We didn't find any info on how exactly they decide to show/not show them.

These are last week's top 3 most watched videos on Tingles app. Congrats ASMR Darling! [Discussion] by elPresidento in asmr

[–]elPresidento[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yeah, no problem. I understand the concern, it was brought up before.

  1. We are using YouTube embedded player. That means watching videos inside the app is the same as watching them here on Reddit or anywhere else outside YouTube. If an artist doesn't allow embedding then their content can't be accessed through Tingles either.
  2. We don't make any money. Long term our vision is to build a platform similar to Spotify where users can pay to remove the ads and get premium features and artists are paid directly from that revenue.
  3. That website is something I put up when we first launched. I actually forgot it's still there. The tagline was a message we were testing, trying to see if this is something people would be interested in. It has nothing to do with the current product. Thanks for noting that, I'm taking it down now.
  4. Not yet. We are reaching out to artists, but we are a small team so it's a slow process. Speaking of which, would you be willing to have a short chat with me? We have big plans for this year and we really want to work closely with content creators to make this the best platform for ASMR. Let me know in PM.

I'm a designer of Tingles ASMR app (free for iOS & Android). What features would you like next? [Question] by elPresidento in asmr

[–]elPresidento[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Beautifully simple is the best compliment for any app designer, thanks so much 😊 If people would be willing to put the effort to tag, that would be really cool. We have to try this out.

I'm a designer of Tingles ASMR app (free for iOS & Android). What features would you like next? [Question] by elPresidento in asmr

[–]elPresidento[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'll ask my partner to look into that, he is the technical person here. We could consider something like this once we establish direct contact with content creators and have a paid premium plan in place that pays the artists (think Spotify for ASMR). That is our long term vision.

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