New features and an apology

Ace Of Spades

Some of you may have noticed that following the deployment of our new code this afternoon, that you couldn't stream music, getting the dreaded "Cannot connect to We7 Server" error. 

For those of you who are interested in technical details, this was due to a problem with the requests we were making to our advert server (specifically that the URLs contained invalid spaces).

Our testing cluster uses a proxy which was fixing these URLs, whereas the live site is connected directly to the Internet. This is why this was not picked up until it reached you guys. The developer in question has of course been fined 1 pint of beer for this oversight, and written an automated test to prevent it happening again. We've also removed the proxy, to make the testing environment that little bit closer to the real site.

This bug has been now fixed and we are indeed sorry for the inconvenience caused.

On the plus side, the site has gained some new features as a result of this update. You can now embed a player for a single track into your blog or webpage just like the one here. You just need to go to the page of the track you want to embed, like Ace of Spades and the HTML is there for you to copy and paste.

You will notice that the search box in the top right of every page will now search as you type, making finding the artists you want even easier.
Please let us know if you find this useful.

Finally, you can now sign up to artist mailing lists. You will then be notified when new tracks or albums by your favourite artists are uploaded. To join, just click on the link to the right of their name that says "Join artist mailing list".

Comments

[jeremy]

Hi.
I am wondering why WE7 now has albums whose only function is to link to iTunes (for instance BADII). It is a great disappointment when ones is put on the front page as the laterst free album? Maybe it is due to international agreements (there were albums that indicated that they weren't available in this region) but this is not indicated when you get to the album page.
Thanks
Jeremy

[Gareth Reakes, CTO We7]

Hi Jeremy,

You are correct in your assumption that its due to the agreements we have with the record companies. Thanks for your feedback, I think its a great idea to explain this on the album page when you get there.

Cheers,

Gareth

[Tom Thompson]

The search feature is indeed a good addition!

Thanks,
Tom

[Mark]

Hi

I guess the feature to embed a playlist into a blog has been disabled?

and replaced by the feature to embed a single track.

Shame.

Regards
Mark

[Gareth Reakes, CTO We7]

Hey Tom,

The new release (due out this week) will introduce a new and nicer streaming widget for playlists and albums. If you get a chance to give some feedback on it that would be great!

[Mark]

Hi Gareth

Will do

Regards
Mark

[Mark]

Hi Gareth

I just tried out the new and nicer streaming widget for playlists and albums.

I think its pretty cool because of these features:

- rotation on tracks
- ability to close advert after its displayed via Hide Advert
- ability to look at track listing either rotation or scroll

Site is getting better and better, good luck

One thing you definitely need to do is advertise some of the nuggets in your ever increasing library.

Just today I discovered Roger Walters, some more Simple Minds, Bryan Ferry, Daft Punk

Regards
Mark

Regards
Mark

[Gareth Reakes, CTO We7]

Hey Mark,

Thanks for the feedback. We are looking at new ways to promote content to users. One thought is to make personalised recommendations in the weekly newsletter we send out. Would you like this? Any other ways you think would be cool?

[Mark]

Gareth

Personalised recommendations in the weekly newsletter sounds like a good feature.

You are already giving emphasis to different generes in the newsletter and on the site. So I guess is trying to match the we7 user to their music tastes, which could be based on what they listen.

Perhaps a weekly summary of new music added to your catalogue. Reviews of classic albums to reintroduce them to new listeners.

Regards
Mark

[Jeroemba]

Hello,

Living in France, i can't listen or download most of the songs on we7. I understand that this is due to the lack of agreements with Music companies in this region. No problem with that of course, but with the fact that i can't know what Music i can hear before trying.
I explain: more than often, when i click on an album that We7 "recommands", i found an album who's unavailable in my region.
So, my suggestion is: could it be possible to have a way to select the albums that are really available in my region?
Right now, i've almost stopped using We7 because i takes too much time to find something available: better to look for a needle in a haystack..

Kind Regards,

Jeroemba

[Gareth Reakes, CTO We7]

Hi Jeroemba,

If you search or browse for content then only the content that you are able to play will be shown. The editorial is hand written and we don't yet have the ability to customise that on a per country basis.

[Jeroemba]

Thanks a lot for your quick answer.

[Ryan]

Hello,

I'm just wondering - how do you do your persistent page with javascript and make it go to /#/page_here instead of #page_here?

Thanks
Ryan

[Sam Eubank, Software Engineer, We7]

Hi Ryan,

Our persistent page structure contains a player frame and a content frame. When your address bar says http://www.we7.com/#/page_here, the content frame is actually at http:///www.we7.com/page_here. As you browse in the content frame, we use javascript to update the URL in the address bar. And if you type in a different URL, javascript loads it into the content frame (after removing the "/#").

[Ryan]

Hello,

Did you custom code this? If not, it there anywhere I can get the code from? Also, are you thinking about releasing an API where people can listen to music via we7.com on their website?

Thanks,
Ryan

[channel crossings]

Hello
Thanks for the feedback. Actually We are looking for new ways to promote content to users. One thought is to make personalised recommendations in the weekly newsletter we send out. Would you like this?