Our New Homepage and Music Videos Section

A few months ago I posted on our release of the beta version of our new Homepage and Music Videos section. Today I’m excited to announce that we’ve exited beta and have made the new site available to everyone who visits music.yahoo.com.

WOO-HOO!!!

As I mentioned in July, this is the first significant change that we’ve made to our site since 2001. Since then, a lot has changed on the Internet, but our music website has remained the same, almost attaining the kind of affectionate status you reserve for an old sweatshirt that is incredibly comfortable but makes your Significant Other cringe every time they see it.

When we started this project many months ago, we had little idea of what the site would look like when done, but we had some pretty clear ideas about where we wanted to go. We’d spent some time talking to people who use our site and assessing opinions through surveys to determine where we wanted to take the site. I dug up some of my old documentation to remember what the heck I was thinking when we started this project, and thought I’d share what we wanted to do and how the end product stacked up:

Editorial Voice: A while back, my colleague Todd Beaupre did a great presentation on the need for more editorial voice on our site. The challenge is that while people who use our site love getting context to better understand the music they hear and the videos they watch and often appreciate the recommendations of our editorial staff on what’s new and worth a listen, we cater to 25 million people each month and finding an editorial voice that appeals to everyone and turns off no one is pretty impossible. So we decided to create several editorial channels and let our users pick from among them.

We ended up developing two editorial placements on our new Homepage: one is the large module in the upper left-hand side of the page that showcases our best picks of videos, music, photos and lyrics. The other is our Music Blogs module, found at the bottom of the page, that lets our bloggers communicate their favorite music, playlists, great (or truly horrifying) moments in entertainment and everything else you need to know about the wide world of music. The bloggers are really an exceptional group, including our own Dave DiMartino and Lyndsey Parker; bloggers from some great publications and sites like MOJO, Arthur, NME, URB, Spin and JamBase; and other fine folks from outside of Yahoo! who are sharing their playlists and observations about the music scene. One great find here is a blog that we recently kicked off on hearing that Led Zeppelin is getting back together. Our Executive Editor Dave DiMartino will be posting some great, exclusive stuff in the coming days. The best part of the blogs feature is that we put our users in control of what they see: if you click through to our main blogs page you can select which blogs you want to see, and screen out the ones you don’t like.

I have to say that since we released our site in beta, the blogs have become one of the most popular areas of the new site, as well as one of my personal favorites.

Personalization: Ever since we created LAUNCHcast Radio back in the dawn of (Internet) time, our team has spent a lot of time investing in better ways to get you the music you like and not waste your time with music you don’t dig. We’ve now taken the same technology that powers LAUNCHcast and Yahoo! Music Unlimited (YMU) recommendations and brought it to our site. The middle of our new Homepage page has a section with Videos, Songs, Albums and Artists, all personalized to your tastes. You’ll also see a similar module on the new main music videos page that’s focused on music video content.

If you haven’t started rating music, click on ‘Improve My Recommendations’ and start telling us what you like. The music you rate will also influence your personal radio station and your YMU recommendations.

Live Music: My love for music got re-awakened four and a half years ago at the Coachella Music Festival in 2003, so I have a deep appreciation for live music. We’ve partnered with Yahoo!’s Upcoming service to bring you information about music events around the country, anything from large concerts to shows at your local neighborhood bar. Check out the module on the lower left-hand side of the Homepage for a snapshot of concerts, and click on ‘View more concerts’ for a longer list of shows. The events on Upcoming are submitted by users such as yourselves, so please click on the ‘Get Started’ button on the button of the module to tell us about concerts we’ve missed.

Video Playlisting and Stations: One thing a lot of users told us during our research is that they wanted to more easily queue up a bunch of music videos and play through them. We created two ways of doing this: one is video playlisting, and the other is our music video stations. Video playlists are accessible through the My Music bar on the right-hand side and allow users to set up a list of videos and play through them. Music Video Stations are available from the main Music Videos page (click on the ‘Videos’ tab in the navigation bar) and are programmed by our editorial team to reflect the best music videos from different genres, eras and our original programs.

Sharing Tools: Music is an inherently social experience, so we’ve taken some first steps to let you share your musical tastes with others. If you click on the link for a music video, you’ll come to a page that will show you the embed code for the video.

If you copy and paste that code into any HTML page, the video will appear in an embedded player. This can be used to include your favorite music videos on any website or personal page. One note is that not all of the record labels have given us rights to have embed codes for their music videos, so there may be some videos that we don’t let you share. We are working on trying to get rights for all of our videos as fast as we can.

This embed code functionality is just the first step in making the music experience on our site more social. I recognize that this is an area where we’ve really lagged in the past couple of years, but we’re committed to changing that. In the next several months, you’ll see us add a lot more features to make the idea of music community on our site a lot stronger, culminating in what I think are some very innovative ideas in this area. So if you’re looking for more social tools and sharing functionality, stick with us and I promise you won’t be disappointed!

Music Playback: One thing we didn’t plan for in the beginning of this experience but incorporated along the way is better playback of songs. If you click on any play button for a song (but not a video) on the new Homepage, we’ll play back the song in a very slick new audio player that slides out on the left-hand side of the page. If you’re looking for some selections, try the Charts module on the left-hand side of the page and select ‘Songs’ from the drop-down, or click on the Songs tab in the recommendations module in the middle of the page. Most users will get 30-second samples, but YMU subscribers will hear full-length tracks, just like in the Yahoo! Music Jukebox. This is a little gift to our subscribers, and a taste of more to come next year.

User Suggestions: During the time when we were out in beta, many users gave us feedback on what they liked and didn’t like about the new site. While many users were very positive, some told us things they wanted to see improved. There were three main comments:

• My Videos: users wanted easier access to the videos they’ve rated so they can play their favorite stuff. We added a link to ‘Videos I’ve Rated’ in the navigation bar, under the main ‘Videos’ link, to provider easier access to this content.
• My Radio: some users have had trouble finding their personal radio station. There are two ways to access it in the new site: hover over the ‘Radio’ link in the nav and click on ‘Play My Station’, or look on the Homepage (or any of the pages with the new design, like blogs, concerts, charts or the music videos section) and you can see a link to play your personal station on the right-hand side of the page. If you don’t have a station, just start rating some music and one will be created for you.
• Videos by Genre: our old site had a link in the videos nav to videos organized by genre. We’ve moved that navigation to the main Music Videos page with a navigational system that we think is easier to browse. We’re looking at some ways to make this more visible to help out those of you who are looking for quicker access to this feature.

Well, I think I’ve said enough about the new pages. I hope you all are happy with the new Homepage and Music Videos experience. We’ll be updating the features as we go along so stay tuned for more improvements in the coming months. We also recognize that some major areas of our site, like the Artist section and the Radio section, have not yet been redesigned. Tackling these pages is next on our list, so look for improvements early next year.

And PLEASE feel free to give us your thoughts and opinions on what you like and what you don’t like. We really do read that stuff and use it to make decisions. Just click on the ‘feedback’ link in the footer and send us your comments.

Enjoy!

Michael Spiegelman
Product Guy
Yahoo! Music

Help Write Ne-Yo’s Next Hit

This one’s for all the haters that blogged about my hip hop speak in the Sansa Connect post a few months back…

“Yo, son, you’re a beast on the mic. Why don’t you put down that broom and take it to the stage?”

“Man, I been hustlin’ in this small town for ten years, ain’t nobody ever given me a shot.”

“Dude, have you seen Yahoo! Music LyricMakers? They’re giving some lucky ghostwriter-in-waiting the chance to pen Ne-Yo’s next joint.”

“Word?”

“Straight up, son. Get over there and get yours.”

“Aight. Hold this broom. I have to get over to Yahoo! Music.”

Yahoo! Music, McDonald’s, Ne-Yo. Ne-Yo makes the beats, you write the lyrics, Ne-Yo records the song.

When you think lyrics, think Yahoo! Music.

ian c rogers
Yahoo! Music

Playlists, new samples player, web subscription playback

Continuing the torrential pace of new software, we have released a playlist page, a new player for thirty-second samples, and the ability to play subscription tracks in the browser. All of this software is somewhat beta.

Until a few weeks ago, when you opened a playlist created in Yahoo! Music Jukebox in the browser you were likely to get a nearly-blank white page that looked like an error message. No more. You will now see a full-featured module which includes the ability to play tracks and to comment on playlists. You can browse playlists by creator and you can browse playlists which a person has commented on, so there is a content-focused social network.

Play buttons will give you full songs if you are a Yahoo! Music Unlimited subscriber, and 30-second samples otherwise. The player is now rendered in the page rather than in a pop-up window.

Here are some playlists to help you get started:

• The Big Takeover by Ian Rogers is, I think, about exploring fresh releases, and has tunes from Dizzee Rascal, Pharoahe Monch, Bad Brains, and Betty Davis.
• My Acid Soul playlist is instrumental soul jams.
• Ilianna Car Songs by Adam Brett is music for his baby daughter. This is a fun theme, and if you have another playlist like it you might want to leave a note on Adam’s playlist.
• International Lounge Music by Steve Raymond is a playable version of a text-only playlist published in Food and Wine magazine.
• Ode to Rubber playlist by the great Robert of the Radish. See also his personal blog entry about this playlist.
• Over In About An Hour: Volume 8 (dishwashing music) by Johnny O’Brien.  See also his personal blog entry about this playlist.
  

We hope you’ll dig it.

Release notes

• There isn’t yet a convenient way to look up a playlist URL or to your find your own playlists in the browser. If you have Yahoo! Music Jukebox you can open it up, navigating to a playlist, copy the link to the clipboard, then go to a browser and open that link. In the browser you can submit a comment on a playlist, then click on the link to your playlists in the posted comment.
• Yahoo! Music Unlimited playback only works in Internet Explorer on Windows. In Firefox you can either use the IETab plugin or wait for our own plugin to be ready.
• Many alpha users had to upgrade or rebuild their Windows DRM setup.
• Sample playback works on the Mac if you have Flip4Mac installed. We could only deliver subscription tracks if Windows DRM was supported, which it isn’t, so this is blocked on the same old same old. About Linux support, we’ll do samples if we can find a reliable way to do WMA in the browser.
• The new player is only used in the playlist pages for now. We will hook it up to the rest of the new pages soon.

Another Week, Another Launch: New Music Videos Section!

Howdy folks,

Another week, another launch of new features here at Yahoo! Music. This time, we’ve revamped our Music Videos Section. If you go to the new Yahoo! Music beta site and click on Videos you can see the brand spanking-new pages, fresh off the presses.

Some of the highlights include:

• Featured Videos, bringing you the newest, hottest videos courtesy of John Lenac and his crack team of music programmers.
• Personalized Video Recommendations, based on your tastes. A whole section devoted to the music videos we think you’ll enjoy the most. Looking at mine right now: Groove Armada, Chemical Brothers, Basement Jaxx, Moby…right on algorithm!
• Video Charts, showing what you all have played the most each week, every week.
• Video Stations, giving y’all a way to play great videos in your favorite genres with one click of the mouse.
• Video Playlists, my personal favorite. The new playlist builder tool (accessible from the My Music bar on the right-hand side of the pages) lets you easily build and edit your own video playlists.

Please check it out, and let us know what you think! We’re here to build great stuff for you, our users, so your feedback is always welcome. Positive feedback is even more welcome!

Cheers, and happy Video watching!

Michael Spiegelman
Yahoo! Music

New Yahoo! Music Homepage is LIVE!!!

Howdy folks,

Many of you may have noticed that our beloved Yahoo! Music site, though rich in content, has become a bit outdated in look and feel. Ok, I’ll admit it: the site looks like something out of 2001. That’s because we haven’t changed it much since, well, 2001.

We’ve finally decided to change that. Today we’re launching our new Homepage in beta, with a new feature set that we hope you’ll love as much as we do. Some of the new goodies include:

• What’s New Today: the top module on the page will bring you the best picks from our editorial team, served up twice daily. Ranging from the popular to the brand new and from beloved to the bizarre, we’ll be showcasing the most interesting stuff the Music world has to offer.
• Personalization: If you’re like me and the editorial selections will seldom appeal to your off-beat tastes (ok, Lyndsey has promised to feature the new Chemical Brothers album this week! It’s pretty great, I highly recommend it), never fear! One of the most exciting features in my opinion is the new Personalized Recommendations module, which will provide recommendations of music videos, songs, albums and artists to check out, all based on your ratings. If you haven’t rated any music with us, now would be a great time to start.
• Charts: Everyone wants to know what’s popular, right? We’ve expanded our charts to include songs and albums, in addition to videos. If you click on ‘View All Charts’, you can drill down and see charts by genre, so you can dig in and check out the most popular indie rock songs, jazz albums or blues videos (yes, we really do have blues videos. Who knew?!)
• Blogs: We’re marching boldly into 2006 by embracing this whole blogging thing. I think it might be big. Seriously, I’m very excited that our editorial team has pulled together some great writers who will be taking on different beats, talking about everything from the week’s best new releases to the hip-hop scene to music from your favorite reality TV shows. We’re going to be adding more bloggers in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.
• Concerts: Ok, this is one of my personal favorites. We’ve done a mashup with Upcoming, a user-generated events site that Yahoo! owns, to bring you listings of concerts happening in your local area. The Concerts page also includes a handy map. If you know a show is happening but can’t find it, just go to upcoming.yahoo.com and add it.
• My Radio: This is a preview of things to come, but we’ll be giving you persistent access to your personalized radio station throughout the new pages. This is something we’ll be rolling out across the rest of the site.

This re-launch of our new homepage is only the first step in our efforts to bring our site up to date and provide you with a much better user experience. Over the coming weeks, we’ll be revamping our entire site, adding new features, changing the look & feel, improving performance and adding fresh content. We hope you like it. If you want to make sure you see the brand new Homepage, just go to music.yahoo.com/beta. Please check it out and click on the ‘feedback’ link on the page to send us your thoughts. We’d love to hear from you.

One more thing: I want to publicly thank our very talented design, development and QA teams who make this all possible. It’s really a pleasure to work with smart, creative, energetic and passionate people. You guys really make it all possible. Thank you.

Go check it out!

Cheers,
Michael Spiegelman
Yahoo! Music

Kelly Clarkson Is The New Alanis

Recently I made a mix for one of my friends who had just parted ways with her man. It was easy to create, although picking between Kelly Clarkson must haves was a bit of a challenge. Of course there is the ever powerful “Since U’ve Been Gone,” except not a lot of time had passed. Then there was my favorite “Low,” as well as “Walk Away,” and “Because of You.” Once I heard “Never Again” there was no question it had to be on there.

Remember the first time you heard Jagged Little Pill by Alanis? Ouch. Then she went and got all happy on us. Kelly Clarkson, on the other hand, proves you can be a positive person, but that doesn’t mean rolling over when you get burned.

Now it’s your turn to show your inner Kelly. We’ve just launched our 10th Fans-Only video, giving you your chance to show Kelly how you work it to “Never Again”. Check out the special message from KC herself, and send us your video!

See ya!
Colleen
Yahoo! Music

Lyrics By The Pound

My earliest Internet music experiences were sharing lyrics on Usenet. Check out this now-embarrassing post from 1992 in rec.music.funky where I’m trying to decode the lyrics to “A Year And A Day” from Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique. I can still remember sitting in my walk-in closet, typing on an amber-monitor 8088, transcribing the lyrics to Diamond Dogs and Young Americans only to send them to someone I didn’t know so he could edit and post on Usenet (where are you, man? I think I owe you a cassette of that bootleg with SRV).

Until today, lyrics to popular songs have not been available legally in any mass capacity. The highly fragmented music publishing industry (not record companies) owns the right to publish lyrics and has been very slow to pull together and bless a way of legally distributing them on the Internet. As a result, lyrics have been relegated to rogue sites riddled with popup ads, inconsistent formatting, and often incorrect transcriptions. Every year we at Yahoo! Music say, “This is the year we’re going to sit down with the publishers and figure out how to offer lyrics to our users!” Unfortunately it’s proven to be an incredibly daunting task and we haven’t been able to pull it off on our own.

Today, however, we’re proud to announce that Gracenote has pulled together a comprehensive, consistent, and legal lyrics repository which we have licensed and integrated into the Internet’s #1 music site, Music.Yahoo.com. Now lyrics take their rightful place next to artist bios, discographies, videos, and downloads. All free to you, dear music lover. So check out the lyrics to hits like I’m The One, Start!, Freewill, or even Michelle (that’s right, we have The Beatles).

Also be sure to check our fancy Lyric Search, where you can search for songs by lyric snippet. What was that song that went …? Yahoo! Music can tell you.

Finally, thinking about those early Usenet posts got me all nostalgic so I decided to call professional lyricist Mike D from Beastie Boys and talk about lyrics for a minute. Here’s a snippet of the conversation, where he chides me for not knowing the lyrics to Brass Monkey (when he didn’t know them either), explains how the need for lyrics was the start of Grand Royal Magazine, and tells us that the lyrics for their new record (which they just finished last week) were “effortless”:

Download here

When you think lyrics, think Yahoo! Music. Or Rakim. But mostly Yahoo! Music.

ian c rogers
Yahoo! Music

Yahoo! Music Puts You On-Stage With Justin Timberlake at The GRAMMYs

Thanks to SNL, we know what J.T. gifted his girl for Christmas (Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, backstage at the CMAs), but what is he getting YOU? A chance to sing with him, live on The GRAMMYs, that’s what. Or if you’re not the show-off kind, Justin is giving you the gift of watching, voting on, commenting on, applauding, laughing-out-loud-at, or otherwise enjoying the performances of the contestants.

So here’s the deal:

• If you want to submit a performance for consideration, follow these instructions, but hurry, submissions end Jan 3rd, 2007.
• If you want to enjoy, rate, and comment on the submissions, check this page on Yahoo! Music daily. Help us pick the winner!

Oh and while we’re talking about you performing for us on Yahoo! Music, be sure to check out the latest in the Get Your Freak On series, Chingy’s ‘Dem Jeans”. Ish is funny, yo.

See you on the GRAMMYs,
ian c rogers
Yahoo! Music

Wrigley’s Extra Released on Yahoo! Music UK

There’s an old witticism about walking and chewing gum to describe a person who is, how shall I say, not the sharpest tool in the shed. But listening to music while chewing gum, now to me that’s a pretty smart thing to do and as natural a combination as Mick and Keef. There’s something about chewing gum that exudes rock star aloofness and detachment. And what dj rider would be complete without a couple of packs of gum? Our cousins at Yahoo! Music in the UK have just made chewing gum and listening to great music a whole lot easier (and more enjoyable) by partnering up with Wrigley’s to bring Wrigley’s Extra Venue to life. Do yourself a favour and check it out here.

Extra Venue is our first original content program in Europe and it rocks. On the site you will find:

• Live and Up Close - From small gigs to bands playing one off performances in the studio, kicking off with The Zutons gig we filmed last month with 400 fans.
• All Back To Mine - Artists give us a tour of their hometown, giving you a behind the scenes look at some of their inspirations. Corinne Bailey Rae is up first showing us the sunny side of her hometown, beautiful Leeds!
• Queue Jumper - We offer fans the chance to jump the queues at some of the biggest gigs in the UK, and win extras such as meeting the band, provided they’re willing to humiliate themselves on camera for your viewing pleasure.
• Fansite vs Fansite - Fansites compete in a public vote to the death!
• Top Blogs - Taking a look at the best music blogs we can find.
• The Rant - Our weekly feature on the state of music from Yahoo!’s own editor-at-large - Jason Wolflover
• Buzz Chart - a look at the most popular artists on Yahoo! Music
• Messageboards - speak your mind and get involved in online musical mud slinging.
• Coming later in the year we’ll be handing some cash over to students and asking them to remake some of the greatest music videos of all time. If you have a famous music video you’d like to see ‘re-interpreted’ let us know.
• And today we’re filming The Feeling doing their cover version of Muse’s “Time is Running Out” for our Second Cut strand.

If you are a fan of fine British music like me bookmark this page and catch up with what’s happening across the pond each and every month. Enjoy.

Brian Boys
Yahoo! Music

“Who’s Next?” Updated! The Best New Music Platform on The Web

We just released a new version of Who’s Next?, arguably the best new music platform on the ol’ information superhighway since it was originally released a year and a half ago, featuring a sexy new look, more features, and (most importantly) MORE NEW MUSIC.
For those keeping score, Who’s Next? comprises three core features:

The New Now: Our marquee new-artist this-is-gonna-be-huge platform, which has showcased such artists as James Blunt, Mike Jones, KT Tunstall, Death Cab For Cutie, the Pussycat Dolls well before the mainstream got hip to their varied ways. Plus, there’s some strange thrill in being able to include the disparate sounds of Death Cab and PCD in the same sentence.

Critical Eye: Until now known as One To Watch, Critical Eye is where we get to slot in stuff that we know is just damn good, original, and potentially enduring—regardless of its relationship to sales charts and major-label priority sheets and all that mumbo jumbo. It’s good for the soul to get to spotlight such iconoclasts like the Bravery, Bloc Party, Aqualung, the Raveonettes, and Ed Harcourt. Personal favorite? Giant Drag. Quite a bit of noise from those two kids. Really.

User’s Choice: The feature that has the kids buzzing—our monthly beauty contest in which the public gets to help us choose who we bring into our studio. We’ve done pretty well here — winners have included My Chemical Romance, Hawthorne Heights, Jack’s Mannequin, Relient K, Eisley, and Anna Nalick. Collectively, that’s a lot of gold and platinum records and critical acclaim. No complaints there.

And now, Who’s Next? also features various sub-features that round out the experience. Among them Globetrotting, in which we span the globe to bring you the constant variety of popular music that might not be popular yet (or perhaps ever) to us Yanks; New & Approved, in which the Coldplays and Hoobastanks and Snow Patrols tells us what cool new music they’ve discovered recently; They Sure Sound Like links new artists with their like-sounding predecessors; and The Hit List offers MORE MORE MORE new music videos of all genres, because there’s never enough room to showcase all the good music out there.

On a personal note, as the new version of Who’s Next? splashes, I can’t think of anything better I’d rather be doing with my time. Where else would I get to witness first-hand such quality music? Where else would I get to stand literally five feet from My Chemical Romance as they blow the roof off our quaint Santa Monica studio? Where else would I get to go go-karting with My Chemical Romance, ballroom dancing with Anna Nalick, cake-eating with the Like, or tattoo-ing with As I Lay Dying? And, perhaps the piece de resistance, after having interviews CCM-pop outfit Barlow Girl, seeing my photo with the splendid gals on the Christian chart page of Radio & Records. The first time a Jewish kid has ever been featured there? Maybe so. Another cultural milestone!

Neal Weiss
Yahoo! Music (and Weedpatch)