New AMG interface

[SEJ]

It's not up yet, but it's coming. I doubt it'll be for the better, but hopefully they'll surprise me.

[Brian Olewnick]

I was sent a link to the beta test. It looks a lot better, less garish, more like this place (!). Some neat new features, including a writer's area where you can look up reviews by author, etc. (though they somehow neglected to include yours truly, *humphh*). If these features stay in the final product, I think most will consider it a good-size improvement.

[Captain Hate]

Originally Posted by Brian Olewnick

Some neat new features, including a writer's area where you can look up reviews by author, etc. (though they somehow neglected to include yours truly, *humphh*).

Beta tested by Uli??

More importantly, do they have a "ignore writers" option; soon to be known as Thom Jurek v1.0?

[SEJ]

Originally Posted by Captain Hate

More importantly, do they have a "ignore writers" option; soon to be known as Thom Jurek v1.0?

Jurek challenges semantic certainties: his writing deconstructs the fractal dimensions of jazz criticism, refracting charged dynamics of tone and color in shimmering skeins of improvisational bullshit which threaten to explode the reader's head...

You get the picture.

Unfortunately, he reviews a lot of interesting recordings, so he's hard to avoid.

[AntManBee]

Originally Posted by Brian Olewnick

Some neat new features, including a writer's area where you can look up reviews by author

At last! I've been wanting that for quite some time.

Originally Posted by Brian Olewnick

though they somehow neglected to include yours truly, *humphh*

Ah, too bad. Why not include all writers?

[Sergio Zamora]

Checking out the new look right now. The site's a little slow, so probably won't explore much yet. Also, I registered but haven't received a confirmation email (with password). I haven't seen any cool new features yet, but I'm sure they're there. It'll take a while to get used to the new interface.

[chuckyd4]

What we've all been waiting for...

[chuckyd4]

Oh, and BOO on AMG for making IE the preferred browser for their site. I understand it's what most people still use (idiots!), but to ignore other browsers at its expense is pretty boneheaded IMO. I had to open that crap for the first time in months, cause in Mozilla it's all wonky. Just another dumb move from our good friends at the All Mistake Guide.

PS... I really like the service they provide, I just don't understand why they have so many problems providing it, and make so many simple errors, don't respond to corrections, etc etc.

[Sergio Zamora]

Originally Posted by chuckyd4

What we've all been waiting for...

He he. That's actually the very first thing I looked up.

[Monty Stark]

Originally Posted by chuckyd4

Oh, and BOO on AMG for making IE the preferred browser for their site. I understand it's what most people still use (idiots!), but to ignore other browsers at its expense is pretty boneheaded IMO. I had to open that crap for the first time in months, cause in Mozilla it's all wonky. Just another dumb move from our good friends at the All Mistake Guide.

PS... I really like the service they provide, I just don't understand why they have so many problems providing it, and make so many simple errors, don't respond to corrections, etc etc.

ie 5.5 on WINDOWS !!!

won't work on a mac!!!!!!!!!!! incredible

[SEJ]

Wow, I didn't even realize it was up, because I was still using the old interface via http://allmusic.com, not http://www.allmusic.com/. Of course I'm with you all regarding the IE optimization: talk about hitching a ride on a falling star! Who uses IE any more? (I couldn't even if I wanted to. )

--edit add

• Holy sh** is this ever broken in Firefox! AMG people: this is why we have standards! WTF were you thinking? Good god, this isn't rocket science. Instead of trying to be attractive, how about being useful?
• Is the "Also appears on" section under "Credits" now? That needs a registration?
• Explore by "mood"? Haven't they noticed how useless those "mood" ratings are? Hilarious!
• It is nice, however, that javascript links are gone, so I can open windows in a tab.

[Stuckinagroove]

I didn't see this thread. I posted the same thing in the alley. I don't really like it to much. I have a mac, and would prefer using firefox or safari as a browser.

[moneyp]

I'm poking around. They have adopted our (ahem) color scheme, but it doesn't look very clear. The content space is uncomfortably truncated with the huge ad space on the right. And the decision to optimize the site strictly for IE and Windows was a terrible one.

Having said all that, hosting a browsable database with biographical and discographical information for millions of artists and albums is no mean feat, and you knew they weren't going to pay for it by selling books.

[GoodSpeak]

Gee.

My PC is looking better all the time


Oh, and I use IE 6.





































thbbbbtttt

[AntManBee]

Why do they want to know things about my income when I register?
Why can't I even search after logging in?
Do I have to buy a new computer just because the *€#?!^* AMG decide they want to look flashier?

I REFUSE TO GIVE UP MY MAC! Mac users unite!!!

[Vince Kargatis]

Originally Posted by SEJ

Holy sh** is this ever broken in Firefox!

Sigh. Really annoying! I use AMG every single day, and it doesn't work in Firefox? Man, that sucks.

[Other Steve]

Say, this might be an incredibly dumb question given how much I use AMG and how long I've been using it... but have the sound samples always been there? Can't say that I ever noticed them before the new layout, if they were actually there all along.

In theory, this is a pretty amazing thing; yes, the samples are only about 30 seconds in length, but really, the ability to get a sense of what the music you're looking up might actually sound like? Even in low-fi streaming, that's no small deal.

On the other hand, it's still subject to human error. I randomly clicked on sound bytes from the title track of Carcass's Heartworks and the first track of Evan Parker's At the Vortex. Both worked fine and the Carcass track was usefully sampled. But I couldn't help noticing the Parker snippet featured Guy and Lovens... but no Parker.

"All-Mistake Guide," indeed. Still, I'm at least a little impressed if the sound is new.

[stonemonkts]

I don't like the new AMG at all. It's clunky, and keeps timing out, or giving me error messages. I have IE 6 so that's not the problem. I've had to re-load pages or hit the back button repeatedly. It's annoying as all hell. I use AMG a lot so for me this really sucks. I hope they work out the bugs soon.

[gnhrtg]

Other Steve - There were no sound clips before, or at least I have never chanced upon any.

I have some problems with new version as well, it's a bit like what msn has been doing to hotmail over the years, takes longer to load without any apparent (additional) benefits.

[Fred K]

The only way to find sound clips before was to follow the BUY link to the Barnes & Noble website. I actually didn't mind doing that but the new way works, too.

[clinthopson]

I likes the old one just fine. The new one times, out, hangs up and generally acts crappy.

A pox on their heads!

[Chris D]

One truly bad new "feature" is that if one clicks on a full review of an album, one can no longer see the complete track list. That requires a click "back." Stupid!

[Nick]

They do have way more sound samples than Amazon or CDuniverse. I don't know where else you can find samples from labels like FMP, Matchless, and PSI. Too bad it's so damn slow. Do you have to register to search by critic?

[Monty Stark]

this was just posted on another board:

I'm glad people are checking the site and voicing opinions. I work for Allmusic and the powers that be have been kind enough to address some of the issues that people have with the new design so far. I'd like to add that registration also gets users access to 30 sec. sound samples to most of the albums in the AMG library, which I think is one of the largest largest private music collections on the planet (over 300,000 titles).

Here's the official:

SLOW RESPONSE TIMES

We are experiencing some response time delays as we work to get all of our servers properly balanced. Additionally, we will be adding server capacity over the next week, which will further improve response times. While this site is bigger and more complex than and will be somewhat slower than the old site, the difference once we get everything at peak form won't be very noticeable.

SUPPORT OF NON-IE FOR WINDOWS BROWSERS

Optimizing a site of allmusic’s complexity and size for all browsers and operating systems is no small feat. This isn’t a simple “brochure-ware” site of static pages. While we would love to optimize the AMG sites for all browsers and all operating systems, we simply don’t have the necessary resources to do so. Despite some users flattering comparison of our site with that of Google, Amazon and Yahoo!, we are a small company with limited resources. So, we had to pick the most widely used browser by our users (over 87%) to optimize the site for and then work on compatibility issues with the other major browsers as we go forward.

We are first concentrating on fixing some compatibility issues with the Mozilla browsers, which are mainly visual, not functional. The main Mozilla problem is a glitch in how tables are displayed. We’re hoping to have this fixed in the near future. We will also be working to fix some compatibility problems with Safari (Mac).

We ask for your patience as we work on these issues.

REGISTRATION

The allmusic site remains totally FREE to our users and only requires registration for access to new Premium Content. If you are uncomfortable registering, we understand and invite you to continue to use the portion of the site (roughly equivalent to the former site) that does not require registration. But we would like to take a moment to explain why we have introduced registration for Premium Content. The AMG websites are FREE sites that are marginally supported by only advertising and product sales. To attract advertisers and retailers, we need to provide them with basic demographic information of our users so they can determine if our site is a fit for their products. We provide this information only in the aggregate (i.e. 60% of our users are male) and never pass on any individual user information. Please read our privacy policy for more information. Without these advertisers and retailers, the AMG websites would be out of business. Registration is a common practice among free publishing sites such as the AMG sites (i.e. NY Times, LA Times, etc.) that fund their enterprise through advertising and product sales. AMG is in line with common Internet practices and, as a good Internet citizen, zealously protects the privacy of our users.

TAB FORMAT

We realized when we designed the tab system that we would make some folks unhappy, but we felt the trade off was worth it. If we stuck to the one page approach it would limit our ability to add additional information. That design approach (one page) just doesn't scale as we expand content. And it's a real problem with artists with extensive discographies. We think that once folks take some more time on the site, they'll see that there is much more information available now than there was on the old site. The addition of the Songs and Credits tabs are both good examples of information that just wouldn’t be possible in a one page format.

[gnhrtg]

It's very slow and I see the following message every other click or so "Error 2 Timeout;" will wait a couple more weeks or so before bitching further in the hope that they sort these out.

[SEJ]

They have actually begun making changes so it looks better in Firefox. That middle image used to cover the search input for me. The browser warning is gone, too.

I registered with them. I suppose they'll watch my activity closely, as I make a living in the entertainment industry and make over 120k. *snark!* Not bad for being 104 years old! I should retire...

--edit add
Looks like they've straightened out some other layout issues for Firefox. Great!

[AntManBee]

I still can't use their bloody site. I can't even search by name, title or anything. I type the name and I hit the GO button and---nothing happens.

[Bill Barton]

What a complete piece of crap this "new" database with its "improved functionality" is!!!!! After going through the pain in the butt registration process and signing in etc., etc. all I get is blank f*&king pages if I do a search for a musician. What used to be an important if flawed research tool is now completely useless. And the new graphics are hard to read and definitely a step backward from the original look. Total, absolute and unmitigated garbage. I have plain ol' Windows 98SE and IE6, and it does not work on my system at all. If anyone here has any "pull" at all at AMG, please get them to de-bug this sucker. Thanks.

[Gentle Giant]

I use IE on my home Windows machine and on my Mac at work, and I'm not having fun in either place. I tried to register but when I plugged in my password, they said it was incorrect!

Bad medicine, man. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[SEJ]

Originally Posted by Gentle Giant

I use IE on my home Windows machine and on my Mac at work, and I'm not having fun in either place. I tried to register but when I plugged in my password, they said it was incorrect!

I've had to try multiple times before my password was accepted. Once you get logged in, just make sure you let them set a permanent cookie, and you won't have to do it again till the cookie expires.