@Matt, I have one beef with how the new emusic site works and that is what happens when you try to backtrack in search (just been trying this on a Windows machine with Chrome and Vivaldi browsers).
1. Search for an artist who exists in multiple variations in the emusic store (this is of course VERY common). Select one of the variants offered in the search results (e.g. search for Paul Desmond and choose Paul Desmond Quartet) to go to that artist page. Now hit the back button. You are returned not to the search results but to the page you were on before you searched. This makes it very laborious searching through various search results as you have to start a new search every time you want to check another variant on the name.
2. If you happened to be in your "My Music" section before searching, then when you start a new search even if you select the STORE option at the top right, when you hit the back button you end up back in My Music, so now you not only have to start a brand new search to check a variant, you have to remember to flip over into the store again because any new search defaults to searching My Music.
This is a pain. I have a memory that it was not working this way the other day - or maybe on another device?
A similar problem exists when searching through a sub genre. Say you are in jazz and want to look at Bebop. Once you have finished and you delete Bebop, you go to all genre, not jazz.
Anyone who signed up in the last couple of days and hasn't received an invite will still get an invite, we've just deactivated the sign up page at new.emusic.com
Plenty of thanks to everyone who has tested and provided feedback so far. Apologies if we've been unable to reply individually, but we are immensely grateful with each and every bit of feedback.
You will still be able to use the beta site and apps for a couple of more weeks before we shut off access and begin the process of onboarding users to the site. This will be a gradual process: you won't suddenly be transported to the new site without warning (well, unless you read this and don't come back for a few months and don't read emails).
The plan is to take a small group of willing users to migrate over first, then a larger group, then an even larger group... and so on. Will have more details very soon.
to answer some of the new questions:
- Once again, Label search will not go away. It's a key feature we want to do justice to and plan to have available day 1. You can expect a full label details page (not just a search results page) as well as label as a search object
- Upload support for more formats is likely to not be there day 1 but is a very fast follow (we already have the mechanism to be repurposed)
- Charts will not be going away.
- redownload will be available. We currently are testing the downoad feature (one reason we are shutting off the beta - we can't give away free music). The exact number of times you can re-download is unknown at this point (awaiting more info) but it will be more than current eMusic.
- We will likely be launching an eMusic subreddit soon but will continue to seek out a suitable message board replacement
- Day 1 there will not be a download manager. Albums/tracks may be downloaded directly from the website and, of course, be made available offline on the apps.
- We will continue to add features in order based on the feedback we receive. i.e. if something isn't available on the beta now that is no indication of whether it will be available come launch. In fact, i'm struggling to think of anything we specifically plan to get rid of.
- WIshlist (including notes and personal lists) are part of the migration process. i.e. they will populate on the new site. I don't have an exact ETA for that however
Lastly, anyone who entered their email to the beta site will receive an email soon (next few days) with a survey. Looking forward to seeing all the responses!
@brighternow the similar mechanism is fairly primitive at present. When it doesn't work it sticks out. We are in the late stages of integration with another 3rd party to help us better fine tune recommendations.
The album image copy/paste is purely down to the angular js makeup of the site. Shouldn't be too much to reactivate it.
@germanprof will look into this UX issue. I'm not aware that anything changed there but will double check
Just noticed the beta seems to have prohibitive prices on Intakt releases - Eg, >$8 vs as low as <$5 on the current site. If it stays, $8 is an unwelcome new threshold on single-disc releases
@Matt, I am not sure what percentage of catalog is present by this point on the beta site, but the transition is very confusing in terms of trying to get a handle on what stays or is leaving.
For example: Old emusic has 6 albums by Bruno Sanfilippo. Emusic beta has seven albums. Most of these are on AD21 or AD21Music. Yet only one of the albums that is on the old site reappears on the new site.
There's similar weirdness with 1631 recordings/Tobias Hellkvist.
Maybe this is just that the catalog is not finished yet, but it is looking as if there will perhaps be some unpredictable switches in content.
So, even if this may be wishful thinking, will there be any point in time at which the catalog of the new site will be set but we will maybe get a day or two of grace to see if there is anything we want to grab off the old site before it disappears? (Similar things have happened in the past when emusic has warned us that labels are leaving)
@Germanprof said: So, even if this may be wishful thinking, will there be any point in
time at which the catalog of the new site will be set but we will maybe
get a day or two of grace to see if there is anything we want to grab
off the old site before it disappears? (Similar things have happened in
the past when emusic has warned us that labels are leaving)
One thought I had about what's on the new site versus not could be the bit rate available. I got one note on the FB page stating that everything on the new site will be 320 bpm. Perhaps some of the older, lower bit rate material won't be available going forward???
We are indeed still working on pricing. multi-cd releases are posing a bit of an issue. Essentially some distributors send a wholesale price per CD, some for the whole release. We're working to normalize.
Looks as if that normalization still has a long way to go - just seen Frestetics Quartet Complete Haydn String Quartets, https://beta.emusic.com/album/1987558, is $1842.99 (this is a 19 disc box set, so $96.99 per disc, or $7.97 per track) compared to an entirely more reasonable price on Amazon - with Amazon UK for once being a better price that the USA site.
I'm starting to try to figure out what I should buy before the transition. DiN label prices seem to be the same. I am seeing a number of Harmonia Mundi titles getting cheaper on the new site. Some Tzadik/John Zorn is getting cheaper (which surprises me because several of those titles had their prices tweaked upward a few weeks ago). (e.g. Pellucidar and On leaves of Grass are both down a dollar) 50 cent increases on Barge Recordings. Increases on MPS. A bunch of older jazz bargains on Marathon Media International Ltd. are not on the new site so far. Some reductions on Kranky (e.g. Earthen Sea $6.49-$4.99) The "Everest Years" jazz collections are up a dollar. Hic Sunt Leones has reductions. ...
There are albums where the album is marked "Full Album Unavailable" yet all the tracks can be purchased. Example: https://beta.emusic.com/album/5863232
Well I had $23 and change in credit, and by targeting all the albums on my SFL that seemed about to disappear or get more expensive I ended up with 7 albums, and 12 cents left. Can't complain at all!
Hi Doofy - that comes up as US$4.99 for 7 tracks, or $0.59 a track. I'm finding the price breaks are favorable for albums that have a long track that used to be "album only", but a bit more expensive overall at the moment. It seems like it might be a reasonable trade off with the new site being so responsive -- although I bet it will feel like the funds disappear much more quickly.
An enormous thank you to everyone who participated in the Beta program. The feedback we've gotten has been invaluable in helping us identify the positives and the pain points ahead of our launch of the new site and apps. We’ve had fantastic discussions with all of you (good and bad… it’s all helpful) and are proud to have a group of dedicated and music-knowledgable people help us with this process.
We hope you’ve been able to take advantage of the free music during this time. Unfortunately some good things must come to an end and we’d like to let you know that the beta site and apps will be closing on Monday, 03 April. So, get listening and make sure to enjoy all the music you’ve purchased or added to your wishlist thus far. Once we close the beta, anything you have purchased during testing will no longer be available to you.
The next steps for us are to finish developing some key features, finalize the global store catalog, and begin to migrate groups of users to the new site. Eventually, the current eMusic site will be replaced but this will not be overnight so don’t worry about losing any of your saved lists or comments or notes. Everything will be transferred to the new site in due course.
We'd love to collect some final thoughts on your experience during the beta, as well as know if you'd like to be one of the first to come on board! Please click the button below to provide your comprehensive thoughts. The survey takes between 4-6 minutes, and will be live until next week, so if you want more time, no problem!
In the meantime, we're preparing to launch a new blog, which will let you keep up with the progress of the migration and the status of the apps and features, as well as our new eMusic subreddit which will be moderated by eMusic staff and we hope will become a place for discussion of all things eMusic.
We're looking forward to sending your invitation and hearing your feedback!
A few days ago we sent a notice that our Beta site and apps would be closing - at the time we were targeting Monday, April 3. We regretfully came to the decision this morning that we must accelerate this timeline in order to make the necessary updates required to begin our migration process over the weekend. This means that the Beta will be closed by end of day today, Thursday, March 31.
Again - an enormous thank you to everyone who participated in the Beta program. We hope you have been able to take advantage of the free music during this time. You will have until 12:00 EST tonight to enjoy the music purchased as part of the Beta.
In case you haven't taken the survey yet, we'd love to collect some final thoughts on your experience during the Beta, as well as know if you'd like to be one of the first to officially come on board! Please click the button below to provide your comprehensive thoughts. The survey takes between 4-6 minutes to complete-- we hope you will have time to contribute.
As we said before, you'll be hearing more from us on the progress of migration and soon we will launch our new eMusic blog as well as an eMusic subreddit for discussion of all things eMusic. If you raised your hand (via the survey) to be migrated, we will begin that process for some over the weekend, and progress through next week.
After this beta phase we are working on a number of key features (label
search is included in that list of features) before going live.
So, either the key features were a lot easier to add, or the early adopters (those migrating over this weekend) will have a period with a much reduced feature set.
It is obviously a shame that these 'key features' will not be part of the beta.
It looks like the next step is here. I requested to be moved when the new site becomes available. Today I received an email saying that my account would be transitioned to the beta site tonight, and starting tomorrow my account at the old site would no longer be accessible. eMusic added a "25 music credit" to sweeten the deal, although I am a little confused by the wording there.
Would you be so kind to search for Innova Recordings for me ? I searched for quite a number of albums and found only a few of the 531 on the old site.
- this was one of the reasons I didn't volunteer as a testperson. Another reason was that there was practically no search filters, such as "newest" and album-single- comps and so on.
And maybe post a link ?
ETA: I just found a way in and found this 10:33 minutes "album" for $6,99 - Not very promising, I'd say . . .
ETA 2: What ! . . . No Composer search either.
ETA 3: Ok, I just found Innova with 73 albums (out of the 531) and with 2013 as the newest
- I'm beginning to dislike what I see and hope for some major improvements here . . .
I was poking around too, and disappointed to see the selection pretty much the same as before. Holes in the catalog, and some labels still missing altogether.
Prices are generally up, especially for newer releases. The 7.99 price point is a new and unwelcome addition. Despite BN's mis-price above, pricing seems generally more favorable on shorter/fewer tracks albums.
I don't understand why it is less expensive to buy many albums a track at a time rather than selecting the "Buy Album" option. I was assuming this was a start up glitch, but maybe not.
Quick notes: Just my login credentials and account credit came over with the transfer. At the moment, I don't have my past purchases in the "My Music" section, or my "save for later" list, and purchased tracks from albums that I have partially purchased are not flagged as previously purchased. You can add an album to a new wish list, but not an individual track.
Just had a bit of a rummage around as well - performance seems very sluggish...
I notice that the really crazy prices I commented about have had some attention, but some albums on my too buy list are still cheaper to buy elsewhere.
I find it more than a little annoying that the prices don't appear until you are on an individual album page - is that something to do with not being logged in? Think I'll put off any thoughts about going back to eMusic for a while longer...
Comments
I just thought I would mention that the "similar albums" is in many cases way off.
As an example, this album:
https://beta.emusic.com/album/5242340
- can not in any way be compared with 100 rock and roll hits
- It's probably this "Various Artists" ghost haunting the site.
1. Search for an artist who exists in multiple variations in the emusic store (this is of course VERY common). Select one of the variants offered in the search results (e.g. search for Paul Desmond and choose Paul Desmond Quartet) to go to that artist page. Now hit the back button. You are returned not to the search results but to the page you were on before you searched. This makes it very laborious searching through various search results as you have to start a new search every time you want to check another variant on the name.
2. If you happened to be in your "My Music" section before searching, then when you start a new search even if you select the STORE option at the top right, when you hit the back button you end up back in My Music, so now you not only have to start a brand new search to check a variant, you have to remember to flip over into the store again because any new search defaults to searching My Music.
This is a pain. I have a memory that it was not working this way the other day - or maybe on another device?
@brighternow the similar mechanism is fairly primitive at present. When it doesn't work it sticks out. We are in the late stages of integration with another 3rd party to help us better fine tune recommendations.
The album image copy/paste is purely down to the angular js makeup of the site. Shouldn't be too much to reactivate it.
@germanprof will look into this UX issue. I'm not aware that anything changed there but will double check
Oh ! that one,
I have a wish about composer, artist, performer information on the album pages.
On the "old" Emusic, those info. is hidden on a (i) button
http://www.emusic.com/album/richard-pinhas/reverse/17132437/
On Beta there's no such info.
https://beta.emusic.com/album/4891126
On the very old Emusic (before 2009 i think) those informations was readable just below the track name.
This was very userfriendly and I wish Emusic would consider this for the new site.
- Imagine a 50 track album and you want to find a specific composer . . . clicking 50 (i) buttons is a major PITA.
For example: Old emusic has 6 albums by Bruno Sanfilippo. Emusic beta has seven albums. Most of these are on AD21 or AD21Music. Yet only one of the albums that is on the old site reappears on the new site.
There's similar weirdness with 1631 recordings/Tobias Hellkvist.
Maybe this is just that the catalog is not finished yet, but it is looking as if there will perhaps be some unpredictable switches in content.
So, even if this may be wishful thinking, will there be any point in time at which the catalog of the new site will be set but we will maybe get a day or two of grace to see if there is anything we want to grab off the old site before it disappears? (Similar things have happened in the past when emusic has warned us that labels are leaving)
I can't find Innova Recordings anywhere
They have been steady since 2010
http://www.emusic.com/browse/album/all/label:388422/page/1/
- It would be a disaster to loose that one
Yes please !
DiN label prices seem to be the same.
I am seeing a number of Harmonia Mundi titles getting cheaper on the new site.
Some Tzadik/John Zorn is getting cheaper (which surprises me because several of those titles had their prices tweaked upward a few weeks ago). (e.g. Pellucidar and On leaves of Grass are both down a dollar)
50 cent increases on Barge Recordings.
Increases on MPS.
A bunch of older jazz bargains on Marathon Media International Ltd. are not on the new site so far.
Some reductions on Kranky (e.g. Earthen Sea $6.49-$4.99)
The "Everest Years" jazz collections are up a dollar.
Hic Sunt Leones has reductions.
...
This was kind of on my 'can't listen to everything' list, but now that I've listened to it goes on the S4L.
Matt, feel free to tell your label partners that letting us stream albums would be a great music discovery feature
The iPhone app just started playing by itself, soon after I stopped it! Not sure I've noticed that before...iTunes has the same execrable habit
Dear Music Fan,
An enormous thank you to everyone who participated in the Beta program. The feedback we've gotten has been invaluable in helping us identify the positives and the pain points ahead of our launch of the new site and apps. We’ve had fantastic discussions with all of you (good and bad… it’s all helpful) and are proud to have a group of dedicated and music-knowledgable people help us with this process.
We hope you’ve been able to take advantage of the free music during this time. Unfortunately some good things must come to an end and we’d like to let you know that the beta site and apps will be closing on Monday, 03 April. So, get listening and make sure to enjoy all the music you’ve purchased or added to your wishlist thus far. Once we close the beta, anything you have purchased during testing will no longer be available to you.
The next steps for us are to finish developing some key features, finalize the global store catalog, and begin to migrate groups of users to the new site. Eventually, the current eMusic site will be replaced but this will not be overnight so don’t worry about losing any of your saved lists or comments or notes. Everything will be transferred to the new site in due course.
We'd love to collect some final thoughts on your experience during the beta, as well as know if you'd like to be one of the first to come on board! Please click the button below to provide your comprehensive thoughts. The survey takes between 4-6 minutes, and will be live until next week, so if you want more time, no problem!
In the meantime, we're preparing to launch a new blog, which will let you keep up with the progress of the migration and the status of the apps and features, as well as our new eMusic subreddit which will be moderated by eMusic staff and we hope will become a place for discussion of all things eMusic.
We're looking forward to sending your invitation and hearing your feedback!
Your eMusic Team
Dear Music Fan,
A few days ago we sent a notice that our Beta site and apps would be closing - at the time we were targeting Monday, April 3. We regretfully came to the decision this morning that we must accelerate this timeline in order to make the necessary updates required to begin our migration process over the weekend. This means that the Beta will be closed by end of day today, Thursday, March 31.
Again - an enormous thank you to everyone who participated in the Beta program. We hope you have been able to take advantage of the free music during this time. You will have until 12:00 EST tonight to enjoy the music purchased as part of the Beta.
In case you haven't taken the survey yet, we'd love to collect some final thoughts on your experience during the Beta, as well as know if you'd like to be one of the first to officially come on board! Please click the button below to provide your comprehensive thoughts. The survey takes between 4-6 minutes to complete-- we hope you will have time to contribute.
As we said before, you'll be hearing more from us on the progress of migration and soon we will launch our new eMusic blog as well as an eMusic subreddit for discussion of all things eMusic. If you raised your hand (via the survey) to be migrated, we will begin that process for some over the weekend, and progress through next week.
Your eMusic Team
So, either the key features were a lot easier to add, or the early adopters (those migrating over this weekend) will have a period with a much reduced feature set.
It is obviously a shame that these 'key features' will not be part of the beta.
Sounds like they're not going to be able to test purchase functionality until launch - Keep an eye on those balances!
It will be interesting to know how many, if any, of the 'key features' have made it in.
Would you be so kind to search for Innova Recordings for me ?
I searched for quite a number of albums and found only a few of the 531 on the old site.
- this was one of the reasons I didn't volunteer as a testperson. Another reason was that there was practically no search filters, such as "newest" and album-single- comps and so on.
And maybe post a link ?
ETA: I just found a way in and found this 10:33 minutes "album" for $6,99
- Not very promising, I'd say . . .
ETA 2: What ! . . . No Composer search either.
ETA 3: Ok, I just found Innova with 73 albums (out of the 531) and with 2013 as the newest
- I'm beginning to dislike what I see and hope for some major improvements here . . .
Prices are generally up, especially for newer releases. The 7.99 price point is a new and unwelcome addition. Despite BN's mis-price above, pricing seems generally more favorable on shorter/fewer tracks albums.
Quick notes: Just my login credentials and account credit came over with the transfer. At the moment, I don't have my past purchases in the "My Music" section, or my "save for later" list, and purchased tracks from albums that I have partially purchased are not flagged as previously purchased. You can add an album to a new wish list, but not an individual track.
I notice that the really crazy prices I commented about have had some attention, but some albums on my too buy list are still cheaper to buy elsewhere.
I find it more than a little annoying that the prices don't appear until you are on an individual album page - is that something to do with not being logged in? Think I'll put off any thoughts about going back to eMusic for a while longer...