Today, 19 September, marks the metronome's 2-month anniversary of its first public release. And this week, we crossed another milestone: the metronome has been used over 1000 times. That’s impressive considering it hasn't been marketed or widely announced on social media, only to Joe Filisko’s students. A small group of Joe's students use the metronome every day, and I am very grateful. It's given me the opportunity to respond to suggestions and requests quickly, plus build the infrastructure to understand how people are using the metronome and communicate with those using the app.
I’ve said a 'small group' of users, because I don’t actually know how many people are using it. The metronome does not use Google Analytics and tracking 'cookies'. I am a personal privacy advocate, and that's why there is no registration needed, no app store required to download, and no tracking cookies. Tracking cookies provide useful information that helps improve the product, but to start, I wanted to make sure I am getting the most from the anonymous information I can. I will likely enable tracking cookies for those that want to help in the future, but for now, I'm gathering enough anonymous information to keep me busy.
One such improvement has come from feedback from Donaleen Kohn and is the cornerstone of today's version 3.0 release: the Tap for Tempo feature. It's one of those features that many metronomes have, but I wasn’t sure how many people would actually use it; I expected people might just search the web for a song's BPM. But through Donaleen’s feedback, my examination of the metrics, and more research, I realised that the Tap for Tempo feature supports the core ethos of my goal to create a groove-based practice environment. Finding a song's BPM online is nice, but feeling the beat and determining it yourself helps develop essential skills. If you want to learn more about the new Tap for Tempo feature, click here.
Thank you to everyone who contributed and communicated with me about this project: David Barrett, Joe Filisko, Rick Shover, Donaleen Kohn, Richard Bennett, Barbara Payne, and Mortiz Wesendahl. I would also like to add a special thanks to Joe Filisko for the almost daily suggestions, encouragement and support he provided for over a month while I was refining the metronome.