New! Improved! Better than Ever!

July 17th, 2009

It’s been a while since I’ve updated the MixTape.me blog, but the site’s been undergoing fairly regular improvements over the past few months that I wanted to share with my fellow MixTapers. So let’s dive in!

Add Custom Album Art to Your Playlists

Several of my friends use MixTape.me to embed their (band’s) music on their web sites—something I’d always hoped users would do with the site. The problem is, when you’re not U2, fetching album art from Amazon can be problematic. Sometimes the player would simply display no album art; other times, it would make it’s best guess and end up with something completely off the mark. From now on, though, users can upload custom album art to any playlist so it displays the same art for the whole list.

You can see it in action on my friend Paul Rust’s web site. Good times!

SkreemR is the new SeeqPod


When we’re unable to find a song you search for in our database, we used to hit up MP3 search engine SeeqPod for more results. SeeqPod is no more, so we’ve now upgraded to the (even better!) SkreemR.

It’s got better results, fewer dead tracks, and way more bats on it’s homepage!

More Social than Ever

We’ve also updated your profile page to help you keep a closer eye on what your friends are listening to and liking on MixTape.me. Just log-in, head to your profile page, and see what everyone’s up to under the Activity tab. You can still check out your playlists and friends by clicking on the appropriate buttons while viewing your or anyone else’s profile.

General All-Around Improvements

From the trust-us-stuff’s-happening department, we’ve also rolled out various bug fixes and improvements all over the place, all aiming toward making MixTape.me a nicer, friendlier, less buggy place to enjoy your favorite music. So enjoy, and if you’ve got any questions or suggestions, let’s hear ‘em!

Playlist Search, Remember Me, and More

March 31st, 2009

We just pushed out several changes to MixTape.me—two of which you’ll hopefully appreciate very much: Playlist search and a fixed Remember me.

Playlist Search

playlist-search-remember-me-1That’s right, you can now search the entirety of MixTape.me’s playlists to find exactly the right playlist for your mood. Our search engine indexes the the playlist name as well as every song title, artist, and album name for every track inside that playlist, so you can find playlists that satisfy your hunger for a playlist with both Bob Dylan and Colplay with a quick search.

Remember Me?

It’s a feature that you’ve come to expect from any web site you’ve signed up with, so we’re not bragging here. Instead, we’re just letting you know that, in case you were burned by the non-working Remember me functionality for logins, you’ll be burned no more.

Anything Else Good?

Sure, but you’re unlikely to notice it on your end. We’re continuously working hard behind the scenes to improve your experience at MixTape.me, and this update included several of those small tweaks and improvements.

Exciting First Week

March 27th, 2009

Our expectations for this little site were greatly exceeded in this first week. Not only did we register over 5,000 users, but we also got nods from some great publications—like this great writeup from Wired.

We also ran into a few bumps in the road. On Wendesday, SeeqPod—the web site whose API we use to find some of our songs—completely changed their API, leaving us scrambling to update our site to comply with the changes. The fixes have since been made, deployed, and we’re hoping we’re back on course.

Naturally, we’ve got all kinds of features we’d like to add to the site, and now that we’ve got the SeeqPod kerfuffle taken care of, we hope to focus on those features in the future.

The first major change we’re making to the site relates to the Popular Playlists page. If you haven’t noticed, the same playlists have been dominating this page day in and day out. Not very useful, right? We love great playlists, but we want to encourage users to discover new music—something they can’t do with the same few playlists dominating the popular page. From here on out, the popular playlists page will be limited to playlists created within a specific time period.

And remember, if you don’t want to lose track of a playlist you love, you can always add it to your favorites!

MixTape.me Launched with a Bang!

March 27th, 2009

MixTape.me was released into the wild on Thursday, March 19th to a great reception! Thanks to everyone for taking the time to try it out.

You can always check up with MixTape.me here at the MixTape.me blog, or over at our Twitter page. Thanks for joining us on this crazy ride!

Coming soon…

March 2nd, 2009

MixTape.me let’s you create, listen to, and share playlists with friends over the internet in a heartbeat, and it’s coming to a browser near you very soon…