The Popular page is the focus of much attention, and we work to keep it dynamic, eclectic, and fair – driven by a combination of blogging and our site usage. It employs a different level of filtering than our Most Blogged Artists chart, which is the pure representation of the most-posted artists in the given week.
Ever since our update in December where we started merging blog mentions of individual tracks together, we’ve been working on a new Popular page algorithm. We’ve made some changes, and I wanted to share with you how the new page works.
For a track to be eligible for being on the Popular page, it must have been blogged in the past 3 days, and received some amount of new favorites. The tracks are placed on the Popular page in order of how many new favorites they are getting. To prevent a track from staying on top of the chart by being constantly reblogged and favorited (because it’s already number one), there is a time limit of 3 days for its presence. Once the 3 days pass, the track can’t enter the Popular page for at least two weeks, so that the charts remain fresh.
We’ve also hidden the favorite numbers from the Popular page, because of their “distracting” nature when it comes to helping people interpret culture (especially numbers that no longer represent the reason why a track is in its position on the chart). The favorite counts for a track are now cumulative for its entire existence in the blogosphere, from the first post to the most recent, but old favorites are not counted in the Popular chart. You can still see the totals if you click on the track name, of course.
What does matter though, is the rate of new favorites, and we’ve added a small bar display that expands to a larger graph of favoriting activity during the past week. Typically, the spikes in this graph help explain a track’s position in the chart.
We made the page to be a useful and fun for everyone; artists, bloggers, music fans, and industry pros.
What do you think? What would you like to see?
Great changes! I would still love to see the post reference “click here to view original.”
Theory is that a brand new Hypem user may not realize that clicking “First posted 3 days ago” takes them to the blog that posted it. I believe that making the language obvious (as above) would actually make a huge difference for bloggers.
Thanks!
April 26, 2011 @ 4:12 pm
Dear Hype Machine,
I love you.
But I have three humble suggestions:
1) Add a “Follow this Blog” button somewhere, anywhere else other than just that blog’s music page. For me, HCI usually goes like this: hear song > like song > want to add blog to subscriptions based on song – without leaving the page I’m on; a + next to the ♡ at the bottom would be totally reasonable. If there’s multiple blogs, you could have it apply to just the first one (like the “Read Post” link does), or offer a “Follow One” or “All” hover/pop-up option.
2) I appreciate that you know the value of screen real estate, but when using your page, I’d actually prefer to have the time and volume always show – or the option to make it this way. (I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s thought “I wonder how many minutes are left in this song…” whilst I was elbow deep in dishes or light plumbing repair (i.e. unable to move the cursor to see the time); my nose does not work on my trackpad well.
3) Everytime I see “No remixes” it stings, just a little (like we live in a bizarro world where Biff is mayor, and remixes are illegal…) I implore you, the only remedy for this: an “ONLY remixes” filter (songs with “mix,” “remix,” and I guess “refix” in their title). In the words of another 80′s movie reference, this would be most excellent.
Thanks for listening. Party on.
-jp
April 27, 2011 @ 5:44 am
this is neat!
other ideas:
1. take derivatives of the realtime charts…and give a “heat” chart based on derivatives maybe something like integral((d(heart)/dt)) over different time frames.
2. make some predictions after you start getting the derivative charts…like have some sorting algorithm that looks at what category the a particular track might be (something super hot…but falling…). compare the predictions with what actually happens. probably have to also factor in the day of the week when the track is released.
3. make a heat map for “hearts” by ip location
4. make an interactive plug in to graph the top 10 tracks so you can click on them and listen
lol…well there you go. check my music out at bryyn.com
April 27, 2011 @ 8:17 am
While you’re making changes… a simple suggestion I have is a way to search for blogs. In my travels through the interweb I often find blogs that contain some wonderful music. I would love a way to see if this blog is on the hype machine to follow them without having to browse the blog directory. I can the search with google but it’s just not the same.
Good job overall I <3 this site
April 29, 2011 @ 1:52 pm
I also would like to egg you on to give the blogs an easier follow option. The site is for and supported by blogs but they’re the hardest to figure out how to follow. Sometimes I go to a page for one song and find a great post with a bunch of other songs I’d like to hear. If I could search for that blog, I’d be able to preview all their songs using the Hype Machine. But as it is there’s no intuitive way to find that particular blog post, or even that particular blog.
May 2, 2011 @ 4:52 pm
I have one too!
Based on my loved songs + blogs that I follow, couldn’t you predict what blog I might like next? very much like last.fm’s recommended artists section, only with blogs.
Its not exactly simple, but I think this resonates with hypem’s mission to make this murky gem-cluttered blogosphere as transparent as possible.
May 8, 2011 @ 5:23 pm
The Dygraphs JavaScript library (among others) is an exceptionally easy way to make these charts interactive. I’m not associated with them, just like the graphs they produce.
May 11, 2011 @ 8:04 am
I think the popular charts is one of the best features on the site, you guys certainly know what you’re doing, don’t ever deviate from that!
June 10, 2011 @ 4:20 pm