allmusic.com

Anyone else dislike the redo of the http://www.allmusic.com web site? I use this site ALL the time and now I hate it.

Not only does it seem more confusing to me, but several of the pages don't load up properly.

I wish when people would change web sites they would not make them MORE difficult to navigate/use/read.

Why couldn't they have left it alone?!

Cheers

DJ Medusa.

They screwed it up. Barely useable.

This is a hot topic on a few message boards today. The site is difficult to navigate because many pages have to be refreshed constantly or you get an error message.

Even more annoying is that the site now only supports IE version 5.5 or higher (for Windows). So if you're on a Mac or use another browser, you're screwed.

I got:

We apologize for the temporary connection delay.
Please click the refresh button on your browser

sucks ass

random search: Old 97's…first three albums are missing completely.

but the song samples are a welcome addition

Originally posted by Rhett Miller:
random search: Old 97's…

Looks like someone forgot the definition of random. ;)

No listing of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, or AM for Wilco either.

Originally posted by Random Citizen:

Originally posted by Rhett Miller:
random search: Old 97's…

Looks like someone forgot the definition of random. ;)

Originally posted by Random Citizen:
So if you're on a Mac or use another browser, you're screwed.

AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH

I too used allmusic all the time. I think we need to give them some time to work the bugs out though, before we write them off. The browser shit blows…who does that anymore? A big site with browser specific shit…. i smell a microsoft rat.

It's definitely a Microsoft rat…those sound clips they added (which are only available to registered users, btw)? Windows Media Player only.

Originally posted by Rhett Miller:
No listing of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, or AM for Wilco either.

Originally posted by Random Citizen:

Originally posted by Rhett Miller:
random search: Old 97's…

Looks like someone forgot the definition of random. ;)

I found listings for both albums… and the 97s have the albums listed, but no content for them yet. I imagine some of it will just take some time

I dislike it too…the big problem for me is that now it requires several more clicks to see the same info as before.

You have to click once for the artist, again to see the discography, then click again to see the compilations, again to see the review…jesus! Before the revamp you could usually see it all in one page, and only go to a different page to read about a particular album, which made a lot of sense. This does not.

What other boards are discussing this, random citizen?

WOXY.com message boards

Velvet Rope message boards

Originally posted by bellenseb:

What other boards are discussing this, random citizen?

Reading the posts I thought it was going to be really bad. As usual, it is difficult to get used to the new format, but I don't think it is that bad. I've always found all music.com to be one of the best and most useful sites on the internet and I think in a few days once I get used to the new format, it will still be one of the best sites out there.

Has anyone tried registering and logging in?

This is completely maddening.

I registered, got the e-mail sent to my account, then went back to allmusic.com and have been retyping and retyping and RETYPING my e-mail address and password they sent, and I keep getting a page which says, "Invalid login, please try again."

All of this just because I am trying to look up a song by a certain band (you need to be registered now to look up songs).

How very irritating. :(

Cheers

DJ Medusa.

Allmusic responds to user feedback:

Dear allmusic fans-

As youâ??re aware, weâ??ve recently relaunched the allmusic site with expanded content and functionality and a whole new look. It is an ambitious undertaking and one that hasnâ??t gone off without some snags. We are working hard to fix the problems and ask for your patience while we work through this transition period.

Weâ??ve been on the net since 1995 providing a free music reference resource. We would hope that through our ten years of service weâ??ve earned a little patience from our users as we work through the transition to the new site and some of the difficulties weâ??re experiencing. Weâ??re a small company with small company resources. While weâ??re flattered by our usersâ?? expectations, our resources are limited. Weâ??re a small company from Ann Arbor, MI, trying to provide a great resource for music fans.

While we canâ??t respond to every piece of feedback we receive, we do read every bit of it. Feedback from our users is very important. We appreciate the time you take to share your thoughts with us. The following are some updates on the site and some responses to your comments.


SLOW RESPONSE TIMES
We are experiencing some response time delays as we did not anticipate the more than doubling of our traffic with the relaunch. We are working to add servers to handle the capacity and to get all of our servers properly balanced. This site is bigger and more complex than the old site. The speed difference won't be very noticeable once we get everything in peak form.


SUPPORT OF NON-IE FOR WINDOWS BROWSERS
Optimizing a site of allmusicâ??s complexity and size for all browsers and operating systems is no small feat. This isnâ??t a simple â??brochure-wareâ? site of static pages. While we would love to optimize the AMG sites for all browsers and all operating systems, we simply donâ??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 concentrating on making the site more accessible through Opera, Mozilla Firefox, and Safari. We know how important it is to our users and weâ??re moving quickly.


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 wouldnâ??t be possible in a one page format.

Thanks for all your feedback. Together, we can make our service better than ever.

They're in cahoots with Barns & No-Bull, so they were forced to modernize.

The old site looked like shit.

Originally posted by Visual AIDS:
The old site looked like shit.

I didn't visit the site for its looks. I visited it because it was a quick and easy way to find information on a band, album or song.

Originally posted by Visual AIDS:


The old site looked like shit.

I'll agree. The old site was very useful and I had figured out how to make it work for me, but I thought it was pretty clunky.

Originally posted by Random Citizen:
I didn't visit the site for its looks. I visited it because it was a quick and easy way to find information on a band, album or song.

This is *exactly* how I feel. Now it just takes so long to look up a song (hell, I still can't look up a song because the site still will not let me log in, even though I registered). :(

It's the time factor that definitely does it for me. I know they are trying to go for something better, but … the old site *functioned* better even though it didn't look as slick/nice.

Cheers

DJ Medusa.