So Ruckus has finally died. Apparently no one really knows why they are gone, they went down for an update and a while later it shut down, seemingly for good. This article gives the most information I was able to find about the subject.
Personally I was never a fan of Ruckus. Switching from Napster to Ruckus was like being kicked out of your suite at the Plaza and being moved into the Motel 6 in a bad neighborhood. Napster was streamlined and allowed you to access new music and the ability to listen to that music in the same program without being required to go through your browser. Ruckus was stepping down in technology and ease of use. The search function of Ruckus was particularly horrible and would not even provide options for incorrect spellings. Also, the selection Ruckus offered was minimal and spotty.
Napster might have cost the university money but at least people were satisfied. Ruckus was free, after a while, and ran on annoying pop up adds that routinely interrupted my homework. These ads clearly did not work and were a distraction to the user and lowered the quality of the Ruckus program.
My question is what will Penn State do next? Will they return to Napster? Or will they try to find a new provider?
Personally I hope they return to Napster, it is a no brainer for me. Their selection is better, their program is sleeker and more user friendly, and they don't bombard you with pop up ads. As far as I have seen Penn State is not even aware this has happened. There is nothing on PSU Live and nothing that I have been able to find through google. Step up Penn State, don't leave your students without music. Don't leave your students the excuse to start pirating music, again.
Imagine this design problem
16 years ago
I agree with your entire blog. When we got switched to Ruckus, I was extremely hurt and dissatisfied. I gave up downloading music for several months, because I could not stand the layout and quality of Ruckus.
ReplyDeleteNow that they are shut down, I am sad because now we have absolutely nothing to even think about downloading safely from. That is, free downloads. As college students, most of us cannot afford I-Tunes or Napster on our own.
I hope that Penn State will soon realize that students need a music forum to download from, or else a lot of people are going to be pirating. However, I doubt they will do anything that will cost us money because we did just get about a $20million cut in funding.