Yeah, was just in a meeting this morning where we agreed to invest time and funds this summer in blowing up my organization's website and rebuilding it. It's been long due - the existing site is dated and creaking. We've been talking about doing it for at least three years, but have been so maxed out actually completing projects that there was no time to worry about infrastructure.
After having long ago been a constant denizen of the emu boards I rarely visit them now. Tonight I saw a thread titled eMusic - Classical and tried to read it, partially because brighternow and GermanProf were posting in it. I couldn't get through it. I just couldn't care enough to summon the little energy needed to keep reading. Sorry, guys. Six ways to list Prokofiev? Wasn't that brought up, I don't know, at least five years ago? What makes anyone think bringing it up again will make it change?
Sighted in the wild, an actual discussion about music
wow, yeah. i don't want to even look at those pages any more, much less contribute to them (but, masochist that i am, i probably will). and one "disgruntled poster" stands out among the rest.
It is so slow over there at the moment, if anything getting worse. I am more seriously than ever thinking
Well that may be the end of eMu for me.
I refresh on Wednesday, but have enough credit left for Amadou and Mariam's release due on Monday. I might just put my account on hold for a couple of months to see how I manage without it. What I really do not want to do is loose my current plan, but I understand I will keep that if I go on hold. It feels like what I would imagine it would be like if I was thinking about coming off a drug, lots of reasons to do so, but lots of reasons to put off the decison and have another fix. (Actually, that is true with me and chocolate!)
New CD release due on Monday according to emusic, but itunes suggests 2nd April. I may have to revise my plans if that is the case! The review below was taken form today's Independent newspaper
Folila was originally intended as two separate albums, one featuring American guest spots, the other collaborations with African and European musicians. Taken together, the results demonstrate how adeptly Amadou & Mariam straddle both local and global, with a truly "world" music that deserves mainstream chart success rather than niche appreciation. The guests range from Jake Shears's falsetto refrain on "Metemya" and Amp Fiddler's soul plaint on "Wari", to the gruff vocal of controversial French rocker Bertrand Cantat on the bluesy "Oh Amadou"; but at the heart of every song is the irresistible combination of Amadou's trilling, cyclical guitar figures and the duo's uplifting vocal harmonies. Best of all is the single "Dougou Badia", featuring Santigold, which ends with full-on duelling rock guitars.
Am I missing/forgetting something or is there no actual "advanced search" option on emu?
I was going to reference a relatively new jazz album that has the word 'cat' or 'cats' in the title, and figured if I could search just the Jazz genre on the word 'cat' and then order by release date, that I'd find it sort've quickly. But instead, after using 'cat' as a keyword on a search, basically it pulls up over 9,000 results of all genres and in no particular order. Useless.
I've gotta believe that I'm just overlooking the functionality I'm looking for. Otherwise, the only other recourse is to hit Browse/Jazz/Order=Release date, and then search through about fifty pages of album listings until I find it. Obviously, that's not something I'm gonna do just to make a funny post. It certainly would be a shame if I actually wanted to buy that album.
But like I said, I swear I used to be able to do multiple search commands before.
Refresh day tomorrow. I've been keeping some credit back for a couple of releases both due out yesterday, but of course they were not amongst the new additions. I eventually went through the covers of all 1000 additions because there is no RSS feed and I don't trust their search facilities as being 100% accurate. I'm going out in a couple of hours so I really do need to spend my last £10 fairly quickly, because it may or may not be there still tomorrow morning depending on when they refresh. OK there are a few things in my SFL that I can buy now, but this is one of the things that I am beginning to dislike about emusic. When everything else is working really well you don't mind the odd quirk, but when there are lots of other issues the quirks become issues themselves. Ugh....
Several years ago someone on the Emu boards had developed a website/search engine that would search emu and also use last.fm, perhaps even your profile there to search eMusic and to work with rec music. I checked recently though and that website is something completely different so maybe it's defunct. It had a rabbit image, but I don't have the bookmark on my laptop. Anyone else remember this?
I think because the RSS feeds have not been working for a week or more, those sorts of things can no longer operate. It is yet another aspect that has 'gone wrong'!
I've made up my mind. I'll have the refresh today - probably too late to stop it anyway. I'll spend it all over the next couple of weeks. Then I'll put my account on hold for two or three months to see how I manage without emusic. If I cancel completely I'll loose my grandfathered plan and I'd never go back at current rates for new members. I've been paying emusic £20 per month, but I reckon I generally average perhaps another £20-30 on music most months, when I add up downloads from Bandcamp, Amazon, and 7 Digital, along with the occasional new CD, second hand purchases and £1 for each CD I borrow from the LIbrary. So that will give me a budget of around £45 to £50 per month. I'll see how I manage with that. It might make me more selective, which would be good anyway. I've just got totally fed up with the service over there. Sad because I've gained enormously from being an emusic member
I just had an email from Noah. Well, signed Noah in member services. Telling me that they will reply later today on the board about the new recommendation engine. But apparently (if signatures are to be believed) Noah was not shipped off in the recent staffing reduction.
I go back and forth on the board between being frustrated by the apparent randomness of their strategy for replying to member questions, and sympathizing with them if they have simply arrived at the conclusion that on that board they are damned if they do and damned if they don't and they are better off laying low and making sure they have the wording right if they say anything at all.
It's good to hear that Noah is still employed . . .
I have just send an email att. Noah & Justin re. the feed thing:
As you probably already know the RSS has not been working for about a week now.
Could you please inform me when or if this will be working again ?
I have about 200 + emusic feeds in my feed reader and this is really the only way to keep me updated with news from my favourite labels / artist / composers.
Another thing re. feeds:
Ever since the makeover about 4 months ago, the only feed that were available by clicking on my browsers (IE9 64 bit) RSS icon was feed for the Emusic mainpage. I would think it would be possible to subschribe to any page where feeds are available, exactly as it is on a site like Bandcamp.
And last:
Beeing silent about this on the emusic messageboard gives me the impression that Emusic does not really understand the gravity of the situation.
I had sent an email in the same spirit about the new recommendation engine. I did get a response promising news. There are signs that they are in fact reading things but choosing not to say anything at all until they have the official answer as to what will (allegedly) be done, which given emusic's workings can take a while. This infuriates me at times, but as I said, they way anything they say gets picked apart at the moment it must feel a bit like going into the shark pool from their end when they post on the board.
I wanted to thank you for your interest in testing eMusics Personal Recommendations feature. While we are getting ready to launch the first version of Personal Recommendations to all our members in the US in the next days, were still working on some developments to support it for all regions.
I apologize for not being able to provide an exact date for release, but I will make sure to let you know first as soon as we are ready to roll it out to your region. We realize this feature is important for all our members.
This raises some issues in my mind
- Why only US? Why did they not make this clear to start with?
- Why/how is it going to be different in other regions?
- Timescale? They are still being cagey on this - surely any self-respecting site would have tested everything fully as a beta before going live?
It just continues my frustration with emusic as it is now.
No we only were recommended in general albums we could get - I suspect the new version has not yet achieved that! Also, of course , they won't want you to see the odd thing that we can have but you can't! At the moment I am very frustrated by emusic, and this just adds more to that. Normally it probably wouldn't matter to me but with all the other issues it does make a difference. As I think I've said already, after I've spent this months credits I will put on hold for 2 or 3 months. I've recently noticed for example that Amazon has increased the range of contemporary jazz available as mp3s, so that emuisc no longer has exclusivity there.
Saw this post that was made today from an eMod over there:
>>>>>>>>>>>
I'd like to thank all of you for your patience as well as your thoughtful comments regarding Personal Recommendations . Those who volunteered as alpha testers have just received an email and as communicated there, we are about to roll out the Personal Recommendations to all our US members. We are working to expand this feature to all other regions very soon.
In the next couple of days, please look for a message at the top of your homepage confirming that your Personal Recommendations are waiting for you. Based on your feedback, we will keep improving the quality of the recommendations so we encourage you to review your recommendations and share your comments with us
>>>>>>>>>>>
eMu obviously doesn't grasp an iota of the concept of testing. They only now just notified their 'alpha testers' but yet are "about to roll out the Personal Recommendations to all our US members". What's the point of having any kind of 'alpha' test/testers again? In theory an 'alpha' release & associated testing is followed by a 'beta' release in which a larger pool of users are invited to participate in the testing. Only after tweaking in a 'beta' stage and once the product is deemed acceptable it is then made available to the unwashed masses.
Looks like another major shit pile is gonna land on eMu in the next couple days. Use your credits sooner rather than later. IMHO there won't be many 'laters' left in eMu's corporate life at the rate they seem to barreling down a path of assured, self-inflicted extinction.
Comments
Do you have the wrong URL in there or was that a hilarious display of irony? I got an OOPS page.
On a non-hijack note, that is not only actual discussion about music, but reasoned discussion!
Craig
wow, yeah. i don't want to even look at those pages any more, much less contribute to them (but, masochist that i am, i probably will). and one "disgruntled poster" stands out among the rest.
ohhh, what's this?
Even their label, Because Music, says April 2nd, but I have just looked again at emusic UK and that has it as 26th March! You can [url=
http://www.because.tv/en/news/new-amadou-mariam-video.html] hear[/url] a new track
I was going to reference a relatively new jazz album that has the word 'cat' or 'cats' in the title, and figured if I could search just the Jazz genre on the word 'cat' and then order by release date, that I'd find it sort've quickly. But instead, after using 'cat' as a keyword on a search, basically it pulls up over 9,000 results of all genres and in no particular order. Useless.
I've gotta believe that I'm just overlooking the functionality I'm looking for. Otherwise, the only other recourse is to hit Browse/Jazz/Order=Release date, and then search through about fifty pages of album listings until I find it. Obviously, that's not something I'm gonna do just to make a funny post. It certainly would be a shame if I actually wanted to buy that album.
But like I said, I swear I used to be able to do multiple search commands before.
I go back and forth on the board between being frustrated by the apparent randomness of their strategy for replying to member questions, and sympathizing with them if they have simply arrived at the conclusion that on that board they are damned if they do and damned if they don't and they are better off laying low and making sure they have the wording right if they say anything at all.
I have just send an email att. Noah & Justin re. the feed thing: - So, nothing left to do but waiting . . .
The feeds are working again . . . this, together with many others just showed up:
This raises some issues in my mind
- Why only US? Why did they not make this clear to start with?
- Why/how is it going to be different in other regions?
- Timescale? They are still being cagey on this - surely any self-respecting site would have tested everything fully as a beta before going live?
It just continues my frustration with emusic as it is now.
I'm trying to recall if the old rec engine would sometimes give me ECM albums that I wasn't allowed to buy. Can't remember exactly.
>>>>>>>>>>>
I'd like to thank all of you for your patience as well as your thoughtful comments regarding Personal Recommendations . Those who volunteered as alpha testers have just received an email and as communicated there, we are about to roll out the Personal Recommendations to all our US members. We are working to expand this feature to all other regions very soon.
In the next couple of days, please look for a message at the top of your homepage confirming that your Personal Recommendations are waiting for you. Based on your feedback, we will keep improving the quality of the recommendations so we encourage you to review your recommendations and share your comments with us
>>>>>>>>>>>
eMu obviously doesn't grasp an iota of the concept of testing. They only now just notified their 'alpha testers' but yet are "about to roll out the Personal Recommendations to all our US members". What's the point of having any kind of 'alpha' test/testers again? In theory an 'alpha' release & associated testing is followed by a 'beta' release in which a larger pool of users are invited to participate in the testing. Only after tweaking in a 'beta' stage and once the product is deemed acceptable it is then made available to the unwashed masses.
Looks like another major shit pile is gonna land on eMu in the next couple days. Use your credits sooner rather than later. IMHO there won't be many 'laters' left in eMu's corporate life at the rate they seem to barreling down a path of assured, self-inflicted extinction.
@Luddite - Agreed!! Especially the last sentiment