Announcing Sing! New Terminology
Announcing Sing! New Terminology
It has been a while since we reviewed our terminology. What once worked for a budding karaoke app, is no longer serving us as we’ve grown into a global music phenomenon. Our features have expanded, our user base has exploded, and our terminology has fallen behind. Time has come for a freshen up, to make Sing! more open and accessible to new users. We’d like to thank the many of you who provided feedback throughout the process. First-time users, recent users, long-time users – we thank you all! Your input was instrumental in making these changes and giving Sing! a more modern and user-friendly tone.
Hundreds of thousands of users download Sing! everyday, and they have to make sense of confusing terms such as Open Call and Open Mic. As old timers, we take these words for granted, but our research showed that new users have no clue what they mean. So we investigated, listened, and tested alternatives. This terminology update is an effort towards making Sing! more user-friendly and less intimidating to new users. As you log in, you will discover new terms such as cover, freestyle, collab, etc. Don’t panic; it’s not a new app! The features you love have not disappeared. They’ve just gone through a freshening makeover. We created a User Glossary to help you navigate your way through the new terminology.
Highlights of the Changes
- To avoid confusion, the word song is now solely reserved for songs in the Songbook. Your recordings and song performances are now called covers.
- If you want to “Start a new song”, we invite you to “Start a cover”. Cover was found more exciting than recording, and less intimidating than performance, according to the feedback we received.
- If you are looking to express yourself freely without using lyrics or prompts, we invite you to start a Freestyle (formerly Open Mic).
- If you want to “Sing with others”, we invite you to “Join a collab”. Collab is a new term for creating collaborations inside Sing!, such as duets and group songs. We hear it loud and clear, singing with others is what you do most and love most about Sing!, and so naturally it needed its own word. Shorter and punchier than collaboration, collab adds a modern spark to the app that mirrors the way you speak.
- The list of recordings on your profile is now your channel. Rejoice, you can now tell your friends that you have a channel on Smule! 🙂
- We also let you build playlists by favoriting covers. Your list of favorites will now appear on your profile as a playlist.
And more to discover in the app… We know that adjusting to change is difficult. We created some links (below) to help you navigate through the changes. As always we appreciate your feedback, support, and enthusiasm in helping us improve the app you love – and have fashioned in so many ways. Your input was instrumental to this update, as we thrive to make Sing! easier-to-use and more accessible to new users. Thank you.
Additional Links
Unclear out a particular term? Look it up in the User Glossary.
Questions? Please consult the FAQ or contact Support.
Feedback? Click here to drop us a note.
Happy singing!
The Smule team
