Our New Homepage and Music Videos Section
A few months ago I posted on our release of the beta version of our new Homepage and Music Videos section. Today I’m excited to announce that we’ve exited beta and have made the new site available to everyone who visits music.yahoo.com.
WOO-HOO!!!
As I mentioned in July, this is the first significant change that we’ve made to our site since 2001. Since then, a lot has changed on the Internet, but our music website has remained the same, almost attaining the kind of affectionate status you reserve for an old sweatshirt that is incredibly comfortable but makes your Significant Other cringe every time they see it.
When we started this project many months ago, we had little idea of what the site would look like when done, but we had some pretty clear ideas about where we wanted to go. We’d spent some time talking to people who use our site and assessing opinions through surveys to determine where we wanted to take the site. I dug up some of my old documentation to remember what the heck I was thinking when we started this project, and thought I’d share what we wanted to do and how the end product stacked up:
Editorial Voice: A while back, my colleague Todd Beaupre did a great presentation on the need for more editorial voice on our site. The challenge is that while people who use our site love getting context to better understand the music they hear and the videos they watch and often appreciate the recommendations of our editorial staff on what’s new and worth a listen, we cater to 25 million people each month and finding an editorial voice that appeals to everyone and turns off no one is pretty impossible. So we decided to create several editorial channels and let our users pick from among them.
We ended up developing two editorial placements on our new Homepage: one is the large module in the upper left-hand side of the page that showcases our best picks of videos, music, photos and lyrics. The other is our Music Blogs module, found at the bottom of the page, that lets our bloggers communicate their favorite music, playlists, great (or truly horrifying) moments in entertainment and everything else you need to know about the wide world of music. The bloggers are really an exceptional group, including our own Dave DiMartino and Lyndsey Parker; bloggers from some great publications and sites like MOJO, Arthur, NME, URB, Spin and JamBase; and other fine folks from outside of Yahoo! who are sharing their playlists and observations about the music scene. One great find here is a that we recently kicked off on hearing that Led Zeppelin is getting back together. Our Executive Editor Dave DiMartino will be posting some great, exclusive stuff in the coming days. The best part of the blogs feature is that we put our users in control of what they see: if you click through to our you can select which blogs you want to see, and screen out the ones you don’t like.
I have to say that since we released our site in beta, the blogs have become one of the most popular areas of the new site, as well as one of my personal favorites.
Personalization: Ever since we created LAUNCHcast Radio back in the dawn of (Internet) time, our team has spent a lot of time investing in better ways to get you the music you like and not waste your time with music you don’t dig. We’ve now taken the same technology that powers LAUNCHcast and Yahoo! Music Unlimited (YMU) recommendations and brought it to our site. The middle of our new Homepage page has a section with Videos, Songs, Albums and Artists, all personalized to your tastes. You’ll also see a similar module on the new that’s focused on music video content.
If you haven’t started rating music, click on ‘Improve My Recommendations’ and start telling us what you like. The music you rate will also influence your personal radio station and your YMU recommendations.
Live Music: My love for music got re-awakened four and a half years ago at the Coachella Music Festival in 2003, so I have a deep appreciation for live music. We’ve partnered with Yahoo!’s to bring you information about music events around the country, anything from large concerts to shows at your local neighborhood bar. Check out the module on the lower left-hand side of the Homepage for a snapshot of concerts, and click on ‘ for a longer list of shows. The events on Upcoming are submitted by users such as yourselves, so please click on the ‘Get Started’ button on the button of the module to tell us about concerts we’ve missed.
Video Playlisting and Stations: One thing a lot of users told us during our research is that they wanted to more easily queue up a bunch of music videos and play through them. We created two ways of doing this: one is video playlisting, and the other is our music video stations. Video playlists are accessible through the My Music bar on the right-hand side and allow users to set up a list of videos and play through them. Music Video Stations are available from the main Music Videos page (click on the ‘Videos’ tab in the navigation bar) and are programmed by our editorial team to reflect the best music videos from different genres, eras and our original programs.
Sharing Tools: Music is an inherently social experience, so we’ve taken some first steps to let you share your musical tastes with others. If you click on the link for a music video, you’ll come to a page that will show you the embed code for the video.
If you copy and paste that code into any HTML page, the video will appear in an embedded player. This can be used to include your favorite music videos on any website or personal page. One note is that not all of the record labels have given us rights to have embed codes for their music videos, so there may be some videos that we don’t let you share. We are working on trying to get rights for all of our videos as fast as we can.
This embed code functionality is just the first step in making the music experience on our site more social. I recognize that this is an area where we’ve really lagged in the past couple of years, but we’re committed to changing that. In the next several months, you’ll see us add a lot more features to make the idea of music community on our site a lot stronger, culminating in what I think are some very innovative ideas in this area. So if you’re looking for more social tools and sharing functionality, stick with us and I promise you won’t be disappointed!
Music Playback: One thing we didn’t plan for in the beginning of this experience but incorporated along the way is better playback of songs. If you click on any play button for a song (but not a video) on the new Homepage, we’ll play back the song in a very slick new audio player that slides out on the left-hand side of the page. If you’re looking for some selections, try the Charts module on the left-hand side of the page and select ‘Songs’ from the drop-down, or click on the Songs tab in the recommendations module in the middle of the page. Most users will get 30-second samples, but YMU subscribers will hear full-length tracks, just like in the Yahoo! Music Jukebox. This is a little gift to our subscribers, and a taste of more to come next year.
User Suggestions: During the time when we were out in beta, many users gave us feedback on what they liked and didn’t like about the new site. While many users were very positive, some told us things they wanted to see improved. There were three main comments:
- My Videos: users wanted easier access to the videos they’ve rated so they can play their favorite stuff. We added a link to ‘Videos I’ve Rated’ in the navigation bar, under the main ‘Videos’ link, to provider easier access to this content.
- My Radio: some users have had trouble finding their personal radio station. There are two ways to access it in the new site: hover over the ‘Radio’ link in the nav and click on ‘Play My Station’, or look on the Homepage (or any of the pages with the new design, like blogs, concerts, charts or the music videos section) and you can see a link to play your personal station on the right-hand side of the page. If you don’t have a station, just start rating some music and one will be created for you.
- Videos by Genre: our old site had a link in the videos nav to videos organized by genre. We’ve moved that navigation to the with a navigational system that we think is easier to browse. We’re looking at some ways to make this more visible to help out those of you who are looking for quicker access to this feature.
Well, I think I’ve said enough about the new pages. I hope you all are happy with the new Homepage and Music Videos experience. We’ll be updating the features as we go along so stay tuned for more improvements in the coming months. We also recognize that some major areas of our site, like the Artist section and the Radio section, have not yet been redesigned. Tackling these pages is next on our list, so look for improvements early next year.
And PLEASE feel free to give us your thoughts and opinions on what you like and what you don’t like. We really do read that stuff and use it to make decisions. Just click on the ‘feedback’ link in the footer and send us your comments.
Enjoy!
Michael Spiegelman
Product Guy