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Site update, and what is coming next

31 Oct 2006, 14:33

Finally, we got the site update out.. Flash was causing us some last minute headaches and late nights. We still have some tweaking to do serverside but we are well on the way now. It is great to be able to listen when not at your computer, without the client.

Events are flooding in, i'm looking forward to going to an event i discover via lastfm and meeting other lastfm'ers there :)

The similar artists algorithm was changed for this update too - so similar artist lists on artist pages may be slightly different. I'd appreciate any feedback on that. (Use the google cache to check the old data if you want to compare)

Aside from the similar artist stuff, norman has cooked up some better data for the tastometer, including ways to slice and dice your profile against another and see what you have in common /different.

We'll be doing housekeeping and pushing out fixes/tweaks all week. Bug reports/feedback in the usual place please :)
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Comments

  • douglas_rock

    Awesome update!!! principally the events!! I just don't like the new artists layout, too much similar of myspace, and i not very fan of their design...

    31 Oct 2006, 14:52

  • douglas_rock

    and please enable de bbcode on About Me

    31 Oct 2006, 14:55

  • s3ntient

    Yep, great update! Love the Events, very useful, and the taste-o-meter is fun but it was better when it displayed how many artists were in common in my opinion.

    31 Oct 2006, 14:57

  • Adien

    events are great, and so is the 'taste-o-meter' ! but like douglas_rock said, i think artist's new page is too myspace-styled, that is to say neither efficient nor beautiful....sorry :p

    31 Oct 2006, 15:04

  • s3ntient

    Are there any plans for webservices for the Events?

    31 Oct 2006, 15:18

  • julians

    The events are all marked up with microformats so you can just use that as poor man’s API/webservice ;)

    31 Oct 2006, 15:26

  • RJ

    hehe julian taking any chance to pimp the microformats :) Personally, i'm in love with the bigger shoutboxes on music pages. I want to see what people say about the music.

    31 Oct 2006, 15:40

  • RJ

    Haha.. well maybe the name is misleading. The algorithm calculates People who listen to X, also listen to A,B,C... So although the artists might not sound too similar, there is a good chance that if you like one, you'll like the other.. if that makes any sense :)

    31 Oct 2006, 15:51

  • julians

    Well, that’s my new job title, ‘Microformats Evangelist’ ;)

    31 Oct 2006, 16:03

  • into-the-beyond

    You guys rock :D. The new event system is great :).

    31 Oct 2006, 16:12

  • tobymacfan

    I like the new look and the new features. It is really the best update that Last FM has did so far.

    31 Oct 2006, 16:14

  • TANK_Ex_Mortis

    Wow, this time everything is an improvement! Well done! Actually, the new artists page are offensively ugly. But I've expected most sites to become hideous since the rise of Myspace.

    31 Oct 2006, 17:03

  • scottwallace01

    Love the event calendar!

    31 Oct 2006, 17:05

  • reVipe

    Tasteometer is good but don't like the positioning. I'd prefer it not to take precedence over the shoutbox, as thats a more important and used feature to me. Besides, I can see if someone has the same taste as me by looking at their charts. Apart from that, everything else is fine ;)

    31 Oct 2006, 17:54

  • plattopus

    The taste-o-meter is fun, but events are the best addition EVER! There are a few bugs I discovered while adding a bunch of events/venues in Melbourne though, I reported some of them through the review procedure but is there anywhere else I should report bugs?

    31 Oct 2006, 18:03

  • gulmor

    nice work

    31 Oct 2006, 18:27

  • RJ

    yeah events seem pretty popular :) bugs in the forums please (see link in footer). We'll be pushing out fixes for events and other stuff all week, including some tasteometer updates too.

    31 Oct 2006, 18:29

  • lotrgamemast

    I love the updates, and the flash player is nice but you completely blew my online player out the water :( Ah well, i guess i can just pack it in, although i might release the version I have now for people who dont have flash installed. Also good if last.fm is blocked on their network...

    31 Oct 2006, 19:13

  • RJ

    wow, i never saw that - cool. Might still be useful for people without flash..

    31 Oct 2006, 19:15

  • MotherDear

    great updates.. I never did like that last transformation you did but now it's starting to look really good! the events thing was really good! congrats! oh.. I don't know if it was a coincidence but my stats got little boost and I don't know why.. some of the top artists got some extra points right when you changed this.. I guess it's just a coincidence.. :P

    31 Oct 2006, 19:51

  • OpalDecept

    This site was already the best one I had seen befroe the updates. Going from strength to strength, I see. Well done, RJ.

    31 Oct 2006, 21:06

  • RJ

    there is a rumour we're going to trial the daily overall chart updates tomorrow.. i will try and post about it. Will be nice to have faster chart updates again. (we're just getting used to our new compute-cluster for charting..)

    31 Oct 2006, 22:09

  • Kimik0

    Yay for new updateness! I'm not much of a concert/event goer, but I think I know someone who is. But wtf happened to the artist pages? Are they supposed to look like that?? The right sidebar fills half the page, and its contents are all in one long listing instead of properly separated. Please get the artist pages back into a Last.fm look as soon as possible. The taste-o-meter looks interesting. Looking forward to trying it out with different neighbors.

    31 Oct 2006, 23:31

  • mat35

    Nice work. I'm Loving it.

    31 Oct 2006, 23:54

  • vordul

    While I do like some of the updates, all the pictures on the Artist pages and stuff (and the way it's layed out in general) make it irritating to look at and pretty difficult to read. I don't think album purchasing should be so large that it forces you to scroll way down to get to the charts, and why does the shoutbox take up as much room as the charts? It seemed far better laid out in the previous version. The recommended journals page is pretty difficult to sort through now, and is pretty unreadable as well. I'm not sure why the usernames and connections are really light coloured while the post title is bold and dark. Considering the titles of journals are relatively pointless, and the connections are what I look for, it doesn't make much sense to not be able to see that sort of stuff unless I'm making an effort to do it. While I'm sure there are some people who want a lot of pictures and stuff, I'm more interested in the information presented and don't want a whole bunch of album art and stuff making me scroll around. I'm also not sure why everything is laid out the way it is, making things incredibly difficult to read (especially the things that I imaging most people use this site for: the charts, statistics, etc.) Some things were quite nice, like the little updates to the dashboard, the flash player, etc. and are generally moving in the right direction. Of course, the worst thing is the new No user picture selected user picture, which is really, really poorly done. Why did it need to be changed? The old one didn't look so terrible, but this one... (insert sad emoticon here)

    1 Nov 2006, 01:37
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