I decided to go all-in on #faircamp for https://kidlightbulbs.com. It's now just a simple little place to listen to everything I've done and a few links (oh and a couple of li'l tweaks that were surprisingly easy to make)
Looks good, I think
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brandon aka kid lightbulbs
@kidlightbulbs@musicworld.social
mastodon 4.7.3Music maker, product leader, writer & tinkerer based in central MA, USA. Tinkering with the internet in pursuit of creative independence.
Currently doing product strategy at Buffer, slowly building Unstream, making music as Kid Lightbulbs, and keeping my daughter alive. My latest album is INFINITE NORMAL.
138 Followers
117 Following
50 Posts
Joined August 17, 2025
adding artist bios to #unstream soon! if you have claimed your page & added one, it'll show that; otherwise it will pull from bandcamp or wikipedia (plus other sources if folks have suggestions!)
Unstream has been free (minus my time) to keep running, but as it grows in usage & features I’m bumping up against some of the limits of free services.
So I set up a Ko-fi page to make it easy for folks who want to help keep it alive (and/or support other things I do). If you like what I’m doing, I would be grateful for your support: https://ko-fi.com/bgreenlol
Very excited about this: #faircamp 2.0 is out 🎉
Can’t wait to update the lightbulbs archives (my self hosted music site) and play around.
#unstream took a back seat this summer, but once my kid is back in school I'm going to pick it up again a bit.
The releases feature is a bit buggy but getting close, and I'm thinking of adding a way for artists to set a preferred store. I'd still like to add a patronage feature.
I also need to be better about promoting it & such. It does seem like the browser extensions are being used though which is cool!
Hey is anyone here using #unstream still? What would you want to see me add to it?
I have ideas
#fairtrademusic #indiemusic #supportindependentartists
Finally got most of the pieces in place to turn #unstream into a proper progressive web app: logins for non-artists, saving functionality, eventually release notifications. It works nice when you add it to your phone Home Screen. Kinda obviates the need to deal with app stores.
More to come: https://unstream.stream
It's fun that #unstream is kind of becoming a trusted directory for independent artists and the best ways to support them.
This is part of the vision I have for the thing: to make it as clear and easy as possible who know you are listening to, the fact that they're a real artist/band, and that they deserve your support if you like them enough.
70 artists are here already! Consider looking yourself up and claiming your own page: https://unstream.stream
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@Abhorrence@metalhead.club thanks - this is great. The divider thing is a no-brainer, I'll put that on my list.
I used to use song.link a bunch, I can look into that! I was also considering some features to make *releases* more of a 1st-class citizen on Unstream, to replicate a bit of what odesli can do but in more of a direct-support twist that aligns to what Unstream is all about. Curious if you'd find that interesting?
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@theargentgrub@mastodon.social thank you! Yeah, I've started to realize that search itself is really suffering, so I'm going to invest in improving that first.
On artist stats, I did build some lightweight anonymous search & click tracking into the logged-in artist dashboard. It looks something like this (these are my all time stats):
Decided to get a li’l punchier with what #unstream is all about
#indiemusic #FairTradeMusic #faircamp #bandcamp #indiedev #marketing
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Any other ideas to make this better as an artist or a fan, let me know!
Also in v2.0 👇
- Support for the new verified artist pages in search/playback results
- Built-in Bandcamp Friday awareness
- Improved playback detection in the browser extensions
- The Mac app now detects playback in Parachord and @Radiccio music apps
- You can set a global keyboard shortcut to pop the Mac app from anywhere
- The Mac app settings are a bit better organized
Who's gonna be the 50th musician to claim an Unstream page???????
#indie #music #fairtrademusic #faircamp #bandcamp #supportindieartists
I’ve got a beta version of Unstream on iOS, anyone want to try it out? https://testflight.apple.com/join/er87G4kc
It’s a bit different than the Mac app / extensions because detecting music playback is unreliable on iOS. Instead, you can share any song/artist/album from your streaming app to Unstream to save the artist and preview where that artist can be supported. The app puts your saved artists & release alerts front and center 😄
#music #indiemusic #fairtrademusic #faircamp #bandcamp #mirlo #streaming
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@RobertaFidora@mastodon.social @deeeyewhy oh that's a good one!
I see that "dee eye why" does turn up the Mirlo page, but I suspect it's not turning up bandcamp because the release is nested under your (Roberta's) bandcamp page. Two options:
- For now, you could claim dee eye why's mirlo result, set up a page for it, and manually add the bandcamp link
- otherwise, I'll start thinking about an ad hoc "create artist" flow. I've been hesitant to do this because verification is a nightmare but might be the time
Throwing in some basic support for Subvert.fm into #unstream. I need to chat with them about exposing an artists API, but for now you’ll be able to add Subvert links to your verified artist page (or the musicbrainz database) and Unstream will recognize it
unstream v2.5.0 for chrome and firefox rolling out imminently with some improvements to music playback detection across more websites!
check it out at https://unstream.stream
Unstream for Chrome v2.0.1 is out with some improvements to music detection on #bandcamp and YouTube. Grab it if you like this little thing I built and/or want to find ways to support the artists you listen to:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ghoiopeidkganjdebkgkehaofnmjofkf
@RobertaFidora@mastodon.social @limebar@mastodon.social found a quick way to add peertube detection in Unstream :) it's rolling out to web now, will have an update for the apps soon
turns out there is a peertube search engine that already exists, I had not seen this before: https://sepiasearch.org
Oh this is super exciting!
@miclgael@hachyderm.io just shipped v2.2 of Unstream which includes Plex server / Plexamp support!
I miss the time when we talked about space as “the final frontier” instead of “the lowest cost way to generate AI compute”
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@benpate yes that is the goal! The displayed percentages in the app aim to convey which platforms the artists make the most money. The BC Friday awareness simply updates BC’s take percentage on those days :)
Thank you everyone who checked out the new #unstream features yesterday! It was really helpful for pressure-testing the flows. I have more work to do but I'm glad folks seem to be excited about it
For now I'm focused on improving the polish and accuracy of the flows for artists. I also think I'm going to de-paywall features and switch to free/donationware model, at least for a while
I appreciate the boost @RobertaFidora!!
In an attempt to be helpful and distract myself from *waves arms around* everything going on, I wrote 1900 words on how I use @buffer, the product I work on for my day job.
I share a lot how good I think Buffer is for virtually any #creator, #artist or #smallbusiness, but I often find myself realizing that folks don't always immediately see how useful it can be (even for free). I thought it would be fun to speak to that – not just features, but how I use the features.
Ok ok but have you listened to my music yet? It's all here for free
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@miclgael no prob! You’ll need to set your plex server url and token in the app settings for it to work, but it should also pick up playback across other players as long as the plex API is detecting playback! Let me know if you hit any issues :)
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Check out my latest album!
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@wjmaggos @fairplayer @radisolar @blankfosk @helenbellmusic @maciac @sofisoft @aymanhamad @laribal @txels @james @Omar I love that. I started building out https://auxpack.club to help on the patronage side, by enabling artists to band together and reduce exposure to processing fees
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@gahlord much appreciated! I’m hoping to refine a few kinks and roll it out more widely soon.
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It's basically a recurring payment system you can easily plug into your existing site, as another way for people to support you & the artists in your community. Ideally these artist "packs" can support each other more sustainably than everyone having to do this on their own.
This is a really early experiment, so I'm sharing it now to gauge interest and try it out with a few fellow artists, then see where it goes.
Made a vegetarian risotto for dinner
Surprise: I made a cover
"fruit is year 3" by my internet friend Honeycrush was in my head for much of 2024. I wanted to give it a different treatment, honoring the tension of the original but leaning a bit more into its intensity, and Alex gave it her blessing.
Now it's out on #bandcamp, in time for Bandcamp Friday tomorrow.
Listen now at https://kidlightbulbs.bandcamp.com/track/fruit-is-year-3-honeycrush
All proceeds from sales will benefit the various orgs supporting Minnesota during their 🧊 occupation.
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@strypey good idea, let me add it to my list
It seems that Bandcamp has changed something on their end which is blocking Bandcamp artist pages from showing in Unstream’s search results (unless you’ve verified your page or have data listed in the Musicbrainz database).
I’m investigating some options to resolve this. Stay tuned.
imagine if someone was like "I'm an AI parent, I imagined everything about my child and had AI give birth to it and raise it into adulthood and I'm so proud of them and I'd love for you to meet them"
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@jaypeach53 Hey sorry just seeing this! Can you check your spam folder to make sure the sign up link didn't end up there?
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Artists can offer some kind of bonus content to pack subscribers, the patron pays once monthly (ie one Stripe fee), and Auxpack divvies the rest among the artists via a weekly payout. Artists can *optionally* put aside a small % of their choosing to support the platform.
The important parts here are *community* and *simplicity*: I didn't build this to be another streaming platform or major toolset. Instead,
Something new for #BandcampFriday: a double feature from me
One is earnest lo-fi acoustic pop, the other is sludgy industrial satire.
Free / pay what you like, also available on Subvert or my #faircamp site.
https://kidlightbulbs.bandcamp.com/album/any-day-now-wireless-area-network
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@jaypeach53 great! Sorry for the trouble there!
Why did I build this? Because I can. But also hear me out:
Lots of creators have Patreons, a Ko-fi membership, or something. But often those come with stakes, since processing fees make it impossible to offer a really low membership price. So you end up charging $5-10/month as a single artist, effectively *requiring* you to offer more than you might be able to produce. Hard for artists, subscription fatigue for fans.
But some patrons do *want* to support artists. We should make it easier.
Happy belated lagwagon day to all who celebrate
Sports
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@osiris@mastodon.nu thanks! I'm going to work on some performance improvements, the app has gotten slower over time (that's my bad!)