Anthony, Zoya, Scott and I are reading everything you are saying. We definitely appreciate all the constructive feedback regarding the music player. Don’t worry, we love and use Hype as much as all of you so we totally understand how you feel.
We will post updates as often as we can while we work on the feedback you all are giving us. In the meantime, you guys should check out some of the new user features. We want to hear what you think about stuff like favoriting songs and creating a custom stream of new music (aka Love Feed) updated constantly. Both are on your profile page that you can take advantage of even as a guest.
We’ve blocked lolcatz on all our machines till the new Hype is setup just the way you want it. If you know us personally, you will know this won’t be easy 
Anthony Volodkin
Taylor McKnight
Zoya Feldman
Scott Kidder
John Schimmel
Hey Hypers,
Well I’ll start here. I do like the new features regarding customization, and think that direction makes sense. But I do have to agree with the comments about the current listening situation. I’m on a Mac using Safari 3 and haven’t had much luck so far. I start a song, and a few seconds later it skips to the next one, and then when I try to stop or pause that song, it doesn’t work for quite a while. And yes, volume or seek controls, and a way to keep the song playing while browsing around, would also be appreciated.
I think if the music playing part works the way it should, then some of the freakouts about missing the old player would die down. (I personally love it when people complain that the free service they are using isn’t exactly what they want, but I can see how that might get old for others.)
Anyway, 2.0 looks promising but we may need a 2.01 fairly quickly. Thanks -
October 18, 2007 @ 11:15 am
What was wrong with the old site?
If it ain’t broken don’t fix it!
October 18, 2007 @ 11:53 am
I actually really like the
October 18, 2007 @ 12:39 pm
Interesting… if you type a less-than symbol in a comment, everything after it disappears. Here’s what I was trying to write:
I actually really like the [heart] dashboard, especially since I can [heart] certain blogs (although it’s kind of tricky to do this — to find a blog I subscribe to, I had to search for a recent song it posted). I used to use a combination of Google Reader and delicious to duplicate this kind of functionality, so it’s nice to be able to have it all in one place.
October 18, 2007 @ 12:41 pm
chris - you can also go to the blog list (http://hypem.com/list) and heart them right there
October 18, 2007 @ 12:45 pm
The new features on hypem are s’awesome! I’ve been loving tracks, blogs, and people all over the place. Now, my love feed is chock full of only more and more of the good stuff I’m also sure to love. The new player options are working just fine for me using Firefox on a PC. I do sort of miss the ability to launch the homepage tracks into my own media player, but now that I have the love feed, I could care less about the homepage. Also, having the first few lines of the blog is great, oh and also, the Popular section is rad.
One thing: sometimes I need to return to the page for the player to start playing the next track. For example, if I have the popular feed playing in a different tab, then after one track finishes, the next one won’t start automatically. I have to switch back over to that tab and then it starts up. Odd.
The value of new features far outweigh any minor details with playback. Great job! I’m sure the buy-out offers from Google, AOL, Yahoo, or Microsoft will be coming soon.
October 18, 2007 @ 3:05 pm
How do we submit blogs to be included? Don’t see thepunkguy.com on there …
October 18, 2007 @ 3:05 pm
Well i’m on a mac and using safari 3 and i’ve had no problems listening to tracks in fact I think it’s better than the old player, I found the old player a bit hit and miss. Keep up the good work
October 18, 2007 @ 4:30 pm
I used to use Hype to discover new music actively and listen to music passively. The passive part seems to have fallen off with the music player not being available…..as everyone and their mother has mentioned. I will say though, I am digging the format now. I find myself paying closer attention to each song and artist and blogger. It is hella frustrating though that your music may suddenly stop playing if you try to navigate the site.
I know you guys are getting a lot of flack for the player thing so I hate to add…but it seems like the new format is actually better suited to old player and vice versa. I don’t mind listening to one song at a time with no playlist or time bar or next or repeat….F all that….functionally I just want a new frame where I can navigate the site without stopping THE CURRENT song…ie….a new frame at the bottom of the screen that persists even when I click blog list or radio or popular or search. I don’t care if it just stops when its done playing….but I hate having to start a song over from the beginning every time I try to explore the new site.
does that make sense? Just give me the currently playing song and blog text in a frame at the side/top/or bottom of the page.
October 18, 2007 @ 4:33 pm
The new site is off the hook.
All the stuff you’ve added blew me away and I like the old player much more than the old one. The new one is consistent with the design whereas the old was just the default look of the XSPF player.
The design is great as well. It’s one of the only sites with Trebuchet that actually looks good.
Basically, great work guys.
October 18, 2007 @ 7:27 pm
The new look is starting to grow on me a bit, now that there’s artwork and I’ve realized you can click the “2 more tracks in this post” to expand that. However I still think the fonts are too big and wish that I could see more tracks on a single page. Maybe an option to see more per page?
October 18, 2007 @ 9:47 pm
in my experience of the new hype, i have to tab back to your page to initiate each song - wowsers! invariably, i go through long stretches of silence, which adds up to less exposure to new music! The automatic player was so simple - I really don’t get it.
October 18, 2007 @ 9:56 pm
I would just like to remind you guys that we really appreciate the service the site provides. It is my favourite website on the web and I’m sure once we get used to the new setup will learn to love it. Some of the comments on the other page were excessively harsh and I wouldn’t blame ye for telling all where to go and with this in mind I am impressed that you are, well, not telling us where to go.
Thanks for the work!
October 18, 2007 @ 10:35 pm
The new design is nice, and putting the blog content right there in the track listing is a good touch, but it is a deal-breaker for me that you don’t have the m3u playlists available anymore.
I used to load up the a playlist in Winamp and if I didn’t like a song (90-95% of the time), I’d skip it with keyboard shortcuts. If I did like a song, I’d go to the blog and find out more about the band.
At least if you had some sort of provision for skipping songs on the website, that would be a start.
October 18, 2007 @ 10:48 pm
Still the RSS feeds are broken….they just come up blank with no xml.
October 19, 2007 @ 2:48 am
something that i think many people might have missed, but i think is very important is a volume control.
i’ve voiced my opinions at the beginning of the week. after a week of toying with the website and trying to master this new structure (did you really beta test this?), i have to just say that i am frustrated and will most likely come back and visit on a daily basis, but will not use the site until i see either a flash player or a way to play the songs in an external media player.
based on the drastic changes made to the site, i can only deduce that many visitors/members of hype machine were not using the site in the way you wanted them to. perhaps you felt they were abusing the system you created?
while i can appreciate having a vision and staying true to it, i feel as if you may not understand what a wonderful service you provided (perhaps unintentionally). people had an alternative to commercial radio, satellite radio, their overkilled cd’s, etc.
i really loveD hype machine and have to say that i used the site daily since i discovered it earlier in the year. in a way, i feel a little betrayed as if my home team is moving away to another city. and that’s what you were, you guys were my home team, my staple for getting great music, one of the (if not THE) first websites I would go to once i started my computer and the only one i would leave on the entire day (other than my email).
again, i will still be visiting the site, but only to check up to see if any changes were made. no hard feelings, i do like the look of the new site, but its identity has completely changed to me and it will be missed.
- steve
October 19, 2007 @ 9:08 am
An addendum:
I love the fact that you’ve implemented the ability to “love” blogs+songs, but it would best to have a “hate” as well, therefore having a neutral class.
The list of blogs I want to pay attention to and listen to tracks from is comprised of blogs I haven’t heard before and ones I like.
Right now the only way to do this is to set every single blog to the loved status and take that status away once they fail me.
October 19, 2007 @ 11:13 am
I’m haveing trouble re-[heart]ing and item after I’ve un-[heart]ed it. Ex: Searched “Weakerthans,” clicked [heart] for the search, went to dashboard, clicked the [heart] for that in the right sidebar. Now, even if I re-search “Weakerthans,” the “[heart] this search” icon doesn’t get it to go back to my dashboard. (If there’s a setting I’m missing, please let me know!)
Also, +1 for smaller fonts.
Overall, still loving it! Plus I get to see the picture of Bruce more than ever. Thanks guys!
October 19, 2007 @ 12:02 pm
Really glad that you added the “[number] more in post,” although I’d rather see the tracks themselves listed, since that line of text just doesn’t jump out at me when I’m scrolling. By the way, in Dashboard, clicking on that text does not expand to show more tracks, but takes you to the actual blog instead. (On Safari 2.0 or Firefox 1.5 on a Mac, at least.) Maybe it’s supposed to? I wasn’t sure.
I’d also like to see more listings per page in slightly smaller font. And I’m also having problems with the hearting: it doesn’t always register on my Dashboard and I have to go back to re-heart. Other times, it’s a bit slow–like it’s thinking about whether I REALLY love an artist or if I’m just pretending to.
Thanks for all the work that you guys do.
October 19, 2007 @ 1:07 pm
Bring back the old design. ‘Nuff said.
October 19, 2007 @ 2:42 pm
I never used the flash player, and I’m glad you’ve decided to put the focus on blog posts. I don’t really get why everyone seems so outraged — I quite like the new Hype Machine.
October 19, 2007 @ 2:45 pm
Is there a way to see every song? I liked going through a whole day’s list of every song posted, to see what grabbed me. This new site doesn’t seem to list every song posted in each blog.
If this is the case, it would seem I’ll be stumbling across FAR fewer songs.
October 19, 2007 @ 2:46 pm
i’m getting used to the new look. : )
what i wish was that the blog name was bigger–maybe the artist/song title could be smaller. it used to be all the same size and it was much easier to see which blogs had recently updated. i tend to look for blogs as much as artist/song.
i also really, really wish there was a way to search by date. and that there were skip-to-page buttons at the top of the page as well as at the bottom.
October 19, 2007 @ 2:51 pm
Now that’s its been about a week, I’ve actually started gotten used to using the new format. My favorite thing has to be the ability to heart songs and the “spy link”. And if you guys can somehow get the songs to play one after another(this is why so many of us liked the flash player), that would be great.
I’ve been reading a lotta blogs that’d id skip b4, so ur plan is working;).
October 19, 2007 @ 3:09 pm
I think I have come to terms with all my gripes from above. I like it, a lot. Less cold and more friendly. I don’t mind being forced to pay attention to more via the lack of external media player. I dig it.
Thumbs up!
October 19, 2007 @ 3:12 pm
Actually, I take that back….I want a NO FLASH version so I can use it on my iphone….like *cough….seeqpod
October 19, 2007 @ 3:13 pm
I like the new look. a lot. I think it was a needed move forward.
However, I think you really missed the boat by thinking that taking away the one feature that we all knew and loved (the one that set you apart from the rest)was a good idea.
In the fast paced world of the internet, giving up your competitive advantage and your positive differentiation for a small gain, is like coke changing to new coke.
October 19, 2007 @ 4:11 pm
one last thing, I also think it is misleading to post media quotes that boast about a feature that you no longer have.
“It’s like listening to the iPod shuffle that the zeitgeist carries around in his pocket”
— Downhill Battle
“A live index and music-streaming station consisting of whatever’s being talked about on MP3 blogs”
— Eliot Van Buskirk for Wired
October 19, 2007 @ 4:26 pm
Yeah, I was just thinking about it, and I just want to say that although I have griped a lot about the new stuff, I really appreciate the work you all put into this site and want to overall keep sending a positive message in your direction.
October 19, 2007 @ 5:37 pm
i used the flash player to listen to the range of songs the singer/band has put out and find out if i liked them or not and then read about them in the blogs. thats the way i discover new music.
now i’m stuck with only what radio 1 has for me.
the design is fine but you no, taking away the best feature from the sight is total murder-suicide.
October 20, 2007 @ 12:06 am
now that’s what i call service! thanks for making those blog names bigger so quickly. that’s great. : )
October 20, 2007 @ 6:00 am
- can you make the tracks play continuously without having to return to the playlist window …. or is this a “feature” of the new Hypem ?
- can you add an option to skip the blogs we don’t like ?
keep on the good work.
October 20, 2007 @ 6:04 am
a volume control of some sort would be helpful…
October 20, 2007 @ 12:40 pm
honestly, most of the reason why i never really checked out the blogs behind the mp3s was because most music blogs that feature mp3s are really poorly written. the music bloggers i read are writers first, and if there’s an mp3 shared, whatever, i probably downloaded it from a p2p thing first.
i used the flash player to check out the most popular tracks (or things that i wanted to search for), and now that that’s gone, what we have left is a cutesy and aesthetically pleasing site thats bland and vanilla and great for corny hipsters. if thats not bad enough, the “hot” section is shrinking and shrinking.
October 20, 2007 @ 7:26 pm
The site design looks great. Very appealing.
The functionality of the site however, just took a big old pooper. I host a radio show, and this site was a massive resource for me. For discovering new bands, easily and quickly. For finding all kinds of new music. This site was a massive and amazing resource. Functional. Clean.
Now, ask yourselves guys. Is it easier for people to scan through and find new and exciting music, or is it harder?
I think you could have found a much better medium between a nice fresh new site design, some of the blog content, and still kept the flash player and the playlist/searching functions.
The site looks great. The functionality of it, has taken a big downgrade. Perhaps you were worried about getting sued or something. You just should have offshored the hosting to Sweden if that was the case.
Anyway, hope you fix it, in terms of returning the functionality. Looks great. But looks are about 3% important when it comes to a tool. This was a kick ass tool. Now it feel like a marketing site.
October 20, 2007 @ 7:46 pm
You did it! The track expansion! My heros!
Now just do the posts…
October 20, 2007 @ 9:37 pm
About the comment I made on tracks not playing continuously. They do play continuously using Internet explorer but not with Firefox.
October 21, 2007 @ 9:01 am
wow. This new format is awful and impossible to use. Why go and f up a good thing?
October 21, 2007 @ 5:23 pm
I would be really interested in knowing something.
You see, the hype machine use to work as the starting point for discovering all kinds of music blogs. In return, the music bloggers worked harder and harder at providing better music blogs. It was a positive and democratic cycle. People listened to the music through this site, without the hype and promotional bullshit, and gave songs and bands a chance they would never try. Once they found something cool, they would go to the blog, research the band, find some more tracks.. and so on and so forth.
I wonder, and I would love to hear from people hosting music blog sites, since the redesign of the hype machine, have you seen a traffic increase, or a traffic drop?
please reach me through my site. I will be talking about this issue on my show this week.
October 21, 2007 @ 8:48 pm
probably too pie in the sky, but it’d be cool to tie in hype tracking with last.fm tracking. plug in or something.
one stop place to see all listening habits, both on hype and last.fm.
October 22, 2007 @ 12:21 pm
drfreedom … it still works this way…?
October 23, 2007 @ 12:32 pm
I hate to be a downer, but I have to agree with the folks saying that the old way was better. Was it cuter? Hell no. However, I don’t really care about the cuteness of my favorite place to go online. The Hype Machine was all about functionality. I dug that. It feels like a lot more work to scroll through all these pages full of giant print, the first bits of a blog posts I probably don’t want to read, and pictures that may or may not be album artwork but is often a cat. I still love the Machine, but if I may, I suggest a “no frills” option, which resembles the old layout.
October 23, 2007 @ 7:06 pm
Why doesn’t the music play on my hype machine anymore.
October 30, 2007 @ 3:07 pm
Would it be possible to restore the old RSS feeds (in particular http://hypem.com/playlist/posts_time/today/rss/1/feed.xml). It was the aggregate feed for entire blog posts and it was my lifeblood for new music. What we’re left with (hypem.com/playlist/time/today/rss/1/feed.xml) is both too much and not enough. The music-only feed generates an entry for every track, not every post, which is a killer if you can only check a couple of times a day and the tiny snippet of text attached (repeated over and over and over if someone’s posted a lot of tracks) is usually not enough to get a feel if I should be interested in a name I’m not familiar with.
October 31, 2007 @ 10:40 am
Great stuff! I was looking around to see what others had written on some of the bands whose songs I just mentioned on the Artists UK blog under my own section and came across your blog. Maybe you could direct people to your downloads etc from my article.
December 1, 2007 @ 12:32 pm