Thanks to everyone for the feedback you’ve given us over the past few weeks.
We’ve taken a close look at what was and wasn’t working and are excited to share this new update with you!
All Hype Machine pages are now using a new flash player (based on the JW MP3 Player, for those who want to know). It’s also active inside the popup windows on the site.
Here are a few of the things that have been fixed in this update:
- Volume and seeking controls in the player
- Issue where the player would mistakenly go to the next track when it would encounter buffering
- Issue where the player would not advance to the next track if in an inactive tab in Firefox/Windows. Note that this is still an issue in Safari
Just like with everything, would love to hear what you think, so feel free to write.
Anthony Volodkin
Taylor McKnight
Zoya Feldman
Scott Kidder
John Schimmel
It’s fantastic for it’s usability.
The black stands out pretty badly from the rest of the site’s themes.
But I like the feature.
November 12, 2007 @ 4:49 pm
Getting closer. Much closer. I really wish the pop-out player included a list of all the songs that appeared under a query for an artist or song. I think it would be slick if the song that was playing in the player had an expanded view that contained the blog information, but the tracks/artists preceding and following the currently playing track (from a query or what-have-you) just listed the artist and track in a simple font. Expanded while playing, reduced when not. Clean and effective.
Just my 2 cents.
November 12, 2007 @ 5:28 pm
I think the old version where we could use Windows Media player was better.
November 12, 2007 @ 5:31 pm
It’s fantastic! I think the black adds a tasteful trim to the window. It looks good!
November 12, 2007 @ 5:51 pm
Loop option? Please bring that back!
November 12, 2007 @ 6:11 pm
Exactly what we needed. You guys have brought back a lot of the functionality of the original pop-up player, and of course, unlike a lot of ridiculous other sites out there, you stuck with the choicest flash player out there. Thanks for not going proprietary.
November 13, 2007 @ 12:53 am
Maybe not the best place to put this, but there’s a teeny bug with the links:
If you go to [ http://hypem.com/list/240/ ] for example and scroll to the bottom to go to the 2nd page, it links to “/list/2/” and not “/list/240/2/”, it looks like your link is relative to /list/ not the current page?
November 13, 2007 @ 2:23 am
Not only does the new player look nice (Black + overall design of player), it works beautifully!
Thanks so much for continuing to refine the site, and - first and foremost - for all you do to help get the word out about good MP3 blogs and music.
November 13, 2007 @ 4:10 am
Its nice you walking the road too experimenting whats working and whats not - now im back at hype for good….But I throw the same 2 cents as Krëg mentioned earlier in this post. All the best,
November 13, 2007 @ 6:49 am
huuuuuuuuge improvement. loving the new player.
one gripe, though… please have the player buffer before playing. i can hear 1-2 seconds of audio every 4-5 seconds, making my listening experience really frustrating. i’ve been pausing every single track (that’s not an exaggeration) for a minute or so before letting it play.
actually, does this player slow down the connection? it’s really horrible the way it cuts into and out of the songs. actually, i can’t stand it… it’s making me want to throw this laptop against the wall. please fix!
November 13, 2007 @ 9:44 am
i know i JUST posted, but thought you might think that my connection might be too slow, but this is just ridiculous. i’ve never encountered such bad buffering levels. it literally won’t play more than 20 seconds of audio before it starts to clip and it’s driving me crazy.
begging you to please have a look into it. if it can’t be fixed, i’d rather go back to the previous popup player just before this. although this player looks great, it just doesn’t play the music continuously. been in the office over an hour now and i still haven’t heard an entire song play yet.
November 13, 2007 @ 9:57 am
I agree with scubaSteve above. I depend on the clear streaming of boredom-bombing beatz to keep me working at work, and every 1-2 seconds I literally want to throw some heavy office supply at my computer. Any chance you could fix the buffering?
November 13, 2007 @ 11:40 am
We’ve tweaked the buffer size. However, do keep in mind that if your net access is slow or is on a loaded network, like a university connection or a small office, this may not resolve the problem.
November 13, 2007 @ 11:43 am
It’s a step in the right direction but it’s not there yet.
Why are you against a song list?
The current player is less convenient than the original one as we have to cycle through songs chronologically. I want to look at the entire list and then choose.
Bring back the tidy list sans blog snippets.
Please.
November 13, 2007 @ 1:24 pm
What Gilles said, re. “tidy list,” and being able to choose songs from a given blog playlist rather than having to cycle through them in order.
Other than that, things are looking good - though please, no more LOLcats on the list! (Or on blog pages.) I liked the screen caps of the blogs much better than your current graphics. But I also know that it’s your site, not mine.
Best!
November 13, 2007 @ 3:01 pm
anthony,
what will resolve this problem? i’ve been on a bunch of other sites today that stream music, and none of them have the same problem i’m having here.
November 13, 2007 @ 5:04 pm
I agree with bobby bring back the windows media option PLEASE!
November 13, 2007 @ 5:50 pm
Very cool.
Are you going to remove the stop button next to songs?
Great work, keep it up. :3
November 13, 2007 @ 6:35 pm
Will probably leave it - it’s nice to have as you are scrolling around the page.
November 13, 2007 @ 7:52 pm
Safari crashes when I navigate away from HypeMachine and a song is still playing. In theory, I should 1) stop using Safari just because I have a Mac 2) ask you to ‘fix it’, but I think the real solution is to NEVER NAVIGATE AWAY FROM HYPEMACHINE.
Your ‘Sycophant,’
Carles
November 14, 2007 @ 8:12 am
VAST improvement, much more functional. Having the player on top of the blog in the pop-up player really is much better - lets you see the blog post, which is really cool, but also lets you have a useful music player.
What would be IDEAL - would be to have a button in the flash player that would allow the player to sort of drop down a scrollable playlist of all the songs queued to play over top of the blog post, so you could pick through, and then press the same button to have it go back up to the miniature player.
I’m sure you guys will figure it out. Thanks so much for the continuing improvements! I was unsure at first but this gives me some good hopes.
November 14, 2007 @ 9:46 am
On a different note, i was wondering you guys had created the hype machine widget for igoogle or if someone else had?
either way it would be awesome if it had more functionality, like personalization (so it can see your love feed) and maybe even the flash player! as of now all it does is show the popular list from the homepage….
November 14, 2007 @ 2:36 pm
i know it’s only been a couple days since you’ve implemented the new flash player, and i know i’ve voiced my gripes… but, it’s seriously unbearable. is there a way you could offer the previous 2.0 version of hypem w/ a link? one out of every 25 songs plays uninterrupted, and i’m not talking about a stop here and there. it’s REALLY bad how much the song gets cut off.
i’m convinced it’s the player itself because when i go to blog sites themselves, the songs get streamed perfectly fine. please HELLLLLLLLP!
November 14, 2007 @ 3:25 pm
I noticed the other day that the iPhone/iPod Touch doesn’t show the current song position without a tap on the screen. It occurred to me that I didn’t really always need to know the position of a song: if I want to listen to it I will. That’s not as true online (how do I know I’m not listening to the 20 minute extended edition of this song?), but I can understand why the timer wouldn’t have been included in HypeM’s last player.
I like the emphasis this iteration of the site is placing on the blogs that provide content for it. Better playlist interaction for the popup player is important, but it should be secondary to the post summary that appears there now.
November 14, 2007 @ 8:46 pm
Thank you so much for returning some of the functionality of the previous hypem player to this new version. THANK You for seek, volume controls, and the ability to quickly scroll through the list of available songs. Now if only it was in list format like before… Again, thank you for listening to feedback, this new player is a great improvement on the first iteration of the hypem2.0 pop up player. Keep up the good work!
November 15, 2007 @ 7:08 am
yay! go hype machine, i like the black makes it look real edgy and nice. this is defo a step in the right direction. i love the new player
November 15, 2007 @ 2:00 pm
w00t.
You know you’ve got greater user satisfaction when the number of comments (and thus complaints) per post is decreasing.
Awesome.
November 16, 2007 @ 1:57 am
Player is decent, but it pales in comparison to the integration available with Songbird (http://songbirdnest.com).
November 16, 2007 @ 5:18 pm
Guys you have it. For internet simpletons like me who love music and don’t want to have to jump through a million hoops to listen to it this website has achieved new levels of brilliance.
Don’t listen to the be-grudgers, some people are never happy unless they are unhappy.
Regards…
Lost in La Mancha
November 17, 2007 @ 11:07 pm
Please solve the buffering problems. I DO have a very fast connection and the player works as described by scubaSteve: it keeps chopping the sound every four to five seconds… it makes me nuts! Couldn’t you just cache a whole song in advance before letting it play? I don’t think that is very much of a programming issue.
November 18, 2007 @ 4:27 am
I can live with these improvements, thanks. I actually do read more posts on the blogs now, but all in all listen less music than with the old site. but it’s ok.
November 18, 2007 @ 7:48 am
@who cares - look into Songbird
November 18, 2007 @ 2:19 pm
i absolutely love the new player. it has _almost_ all the functionality of the old one, and it does a wonderful job of showcasing the blogs rather than the tracks. my only gripe is losing the ability to play all tracks, but being able to skip ahead song by song on the player, and skip to a different song in the search/playlist itself is a godsend. (plus, you guys fixed the bug where tracks stop playing if youre not using the window actively) i also enjoy that you can go to the blog directly through the player.
so a few questions/criticisms…
(Q)i was wondering, what is the playlist under the flashplayer on dashboard? for me, it seems that the first few are tracks that i favorited, but the rest seem to be a bit random
(C)please please please make the buttons on the player larger. mainly, the scrollbar. it seems impossible at times to click and drag it.
November 19, 2007 @ 12:02 am
nice job ! … just wish i could configure the player to automaticaly skip blogs that i don’t dig (a “not favorites” list?)
ps. who is that 404 drunk guy wasted on the floor ? Is that you Anthony after a hard day tuning up the Hype Machine (or reading all the comments) ?
November 19, 2007 @ 3:02 am
Player has been working great - ’til today, that is. Like some other posters, I’ve got a very fast connection but am struggling with so much clipping that I’ve given up trying to use this service for today.
I’m sure you’ve got plenty of bugs and glitches to troubleshoot, but thought you’d want to know about this.
Best!
spinning
November 19, 2007 @ 1:41 pm
youngasaurus - the dashboard has two sections: top is the recent tracks you loved (click view all, to see all of them) and bottom are the tracks recently loved by people you are watching, discussed by blogs you liked or ones that match your favorites search queries.
Tonio - nah that’s just a man from Flickr. Next time you see it click through the image to find out.
November 20, 2007 @ 2:01 am
ooo awesome. alot of the tracks seemed promising, but i had no idea where they came from
1 more teeny tiny gripe, the play button on the search results no longer lights up when playing tracks
November 20, 2007 @ 2:36 am
Tonio - I’m also jonesing for a not-favourites list. Seriously.
November 22, 2007 @ 7:12 pm
liked the old one MUCH better…
November 23, 2007 @ 8:19 am
What happened to the iTunes feeds (with attachments?)
November 25, 2007 @ 12:39 pm
Jesus this new version is useless…what are the material benefits even supposed to be, besides aggravation?
November 25, 2007 @ 6:04 pm
http://www.egochasm.co.uk/hype/
Okay im this far
I’ve used TaggedHype’s del.icio.us feed with feed burner to create a podcast that JW PLAYER can read, im looking to create a fully blown userscript for a media player that can be launched dynamically from any page but i dont have the javascript knowledge.
Any one wanna help?
Contact me on my blog via the comments
November 26, 2007 @ 10:48 am
Nevermind I’ve been wrapped on the wrist for this one. Guess we’ll just have to wait.
November 27, 2007 @ 3:59 am
The new player is cool. One thing I can’t figure out is how to save the mp3 to my machine. Or am clueless to the fact that you’ve purposely made it this way?
December 4, 2007 @ 7:49 pm