Machine Shop: Hype Machine Team Blog

Ads in our mobile apps [updated]

Users of Hype Machine’s Android and iOS apps will notice that display ads have started running in their apps.

We are grateful to everybody who’s purchased the apps since we began releasing them in 2011. These sales allowed us to maintain them and develop new features, and we thank you for your support.

We know that it’s frustrating to see ads in an app you’ve paid for, and we wish we could keep the experience ad-free. Unfortunately, as a small team without outside funding, it is no longer possible for us to keep the app running without the revenue that advertising can provide.

Hype Machine has supported itself with advertising since 2005, and with these changes, we hope to keep bringing you new music for many more years to come. Thank you for listening with us.

UPDATE 12/14/16

We considered many options before introducing ads in our apps, and there are many reasons why subscription/donation/IAP offers were not workable for us at the time (for example, supporting two product experiences is tough for a team of three people).

Given the strong show of support for an ad-free solution since the announcement, we are looking into ways people could remove ads in the apps. If you are interested, sign up here.

UPDATE 03/23/17

Ads in our mobile apps have been temporarily disabled.

Zeitgeist 2014

Zeitgeist 2014

Our 7th annual Zeitgeist! In our roundup of the best music of 2014, we have:

An Album for Every Moment: We asked musicians, music bloggers, and friends to recommend a perfect album for every moment of the year. Use this guide to find albums you may have missed or make a new connection with something you already know.

Top 50 Artists: The most-blogged artists of 2014.

Top 50 Tracks: A set of the most-favorited tracks on Hype Machine this year.

You can also toggle between past Zeitgeists using the dropdown menu on the top. Check them out—good music is good music, any time or year.

Thank you for listening with us!

Playlists! On Hype Machine!

Playlists on Hype Machine

As you’ve discovered more and more music on Hype Machine, you’ve probably wished there was a way to categorize your finds. A way to revisit the dancey things while planning a party mix,  just hear the slower tracks, or find that spoken-word piece again. Now you finally can!

When favoriting a track, you can add it to one of three playlists—Up, Down, and Weird. These are the categories we use, but you can rename them (long-press the title, Emoji welcome!). You can also put your existing favorites into these categories. Just swipe across each track and pick the list that fits best. The tracks in each list show up in the same order as in your favorites.

This is among the most requested Hype Machine features, so we’ve put a ton of thought into making it fit the experience. Our goal since 2005 has been helping you find new music to fall in love with. You can stumble into all kinds of different stuff here, and these playlists will help you remember everything great you’ve found, in any category.

But really, I just can’t wait for you to try this out. Let us know what you think!

Ones To Watch 2014

Ones To Watch 2014

A few weeks back we shared our annual Zeitgeist. One of its features is Top 50 Artists, which counts down the most-blogged acts of the year. The list is always telling of our times, both as a music blog community and an industry at large. What becomes popular on blogs no doubt informs and reflects what is, or will be, popular elsewhere. Each year when approaching this project, we see the distance between what is and will be, getting a little smaller, or perhaps that area a little grayer. Credit this to things moving faster, and that blogs, while still ever-ahead of the curve, are now also an established piece of the overall infrastructure in which new music is discussed. So it makes sense that when an established act like Daft Punk or Phoenix release an album, they are going to make the list. It’s awesome that our data shows this. But, as nerds here ourselves, and in the founding spirit of HM, we got curious. Bloggers still dig daily for the next will be’s. And we thought: how can those findings be better highlighted?

Enter: Ones To Watch 2014

We revisited the list of most-blogged artists and removed any name that has appeared on a previous Zeitgeist or has already released a full-length LP. What remained were the extra-emerging acts—the ones who made a name for themselves last year (and likely no year prior), on the strength of a few tracks, maybe an EP, etc. The ones to keep an eye on. Hope you find this as fun as we did.

Update: Here are a few more from this series:

August 2014: Ones To Watch 2014 ½ with BBC Radio 6 Music

January 2015: Ones To Watch 2015

August 2015: Ones To Watch 2015 ½

Hype Machine for BlackBerry 10

hype-machine-q10
 
I’ve been a BlackBerry user for 7 years, so it was naturally exciting when BlackBerry showed interest in working with us on a native Hype Machine app for their new line of phones. With their support and the team at Smoke Labs, we were able to make this app a reality!

The first release of the app is now out, with more updates on the way to make stumbling into great music as much fun as it is on the web. The team at CrackBerry also got excited about the release and has more to say there.

If you are wielding a BlackBerry Q5, Q10 or Z10 phones, check out the app!

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Hype Machine indexes hundreds of music sites and collects their latest posts for easy streaming and discovery. We're here to help you find the best new music first.

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