Some great new Taxi website features!

[Casey H]

Hey... Before anyone freaks about the update, remember that all upgrades have some initial bugs. Give the folks a chance to address bug reports over the next few weeks.

Some of the new features I quickly discovered:
Direct links to your artist profile that work reliably!
You can share individual song links to email and social media!
You can now upload wav, aif, or mp3s! So high res available!
The songs on your profile may appear now in a random order BUT you can select a song as "featured" to put it up top on your profile. I don't know if there is a limit on how many featured songs but cool!
You can apply tags (mood, style, etc) to your songs.
And much more I haven't even discovered yet!

So for me, no grumbling, no complaining... Kudos for the new site!

Casey

[cassmcentee]

+1

[admin]

Thanks for noticing Casey, AND for pointing those features out! We're working 12 hour days to get everything squared away ASAP. Were we here until 1:15 am on Sunday night/Monday morning? Why yes, we were!

One of things causing some issues is that we had to port over TONS of songs and other data, and we still have some listings that were created in 1.0 that are being screened in 1.0, while 2.0 is up and running. Once we get past those legacy listings, and the results are in, all songs will show up in the new profiles. That was expected, and there was no graceful way to do it, other than not posting any new listings for a couple of weeks. We thought you guys might feel like you weren't getting your money's worth if we took that approach

We've also got so many new requests coming in, that frankly, we have even been deadlining on holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas!! We just couldn't stop running new listings.

I think the best new feature will be the new critique forms that are specifically designed to the type of listing/request:
Film/TV Song
Film/TV Instrumental
Songs for Artist Pitches
Labels Looking for New Acts

The items on the feedback forms have been distilled down from our experience in screening millions of songs and instrumentals, combined with HEAVY input from the best A&R people we've had under this roof. Our goal is to get rid of the Yes/No critiques and go back to more robust feedback, while making the forms easy for members to digest.

We think the screeners will be able to give more feedback in the same amount of time. It might take a couple of weeks for the A&R people to get used to them, but maybe not - these forms were after all, built from their perspective and for your benefit.

You will also be able to have your fellow members follow you, and you'll get notifications of various types on your profile page.

You'll be able to drop comments on each other's waveforms, and a BUNCH of other useful stuff like getting notifications when you're forwarded/returned, when your friends are forwarded (if they choose to do that), new listings posted on your profile every day, you'll be able to share critiques with your followers, and more good stuff I can't remember because my brain is scrambled. Only 3 days off since the Rally

BTW, we're working tonight to get rid of some submission bugs, and I think those should all be cleared up by week's end.

I need to get back to work.

If you don't see some of your material in your song list at the moment, do not fear! We haven't lost them (yet!) I'm kidding!!!!

Trust us! We will not let you down.

P.S. You're going to have unlimited hosting.

ML

[jessecarrigan]

I'm a software engineer in my day job so I have an inkling what a massive undertaking this is. Thank you Michael, and everyone working on this, for working so hard to make things better for all of us. I appreciate it and I know many others do too.

Especially this!

Our goal is to get rid of the Yes/No critiques and go back to more robust feedback, while making the forms easy for members to digest.

This is a huge deal. It's so valuable for learning how to get better at writing music that works for the listings. Really fantastic.

[Casey H]

I'm a software engineer in my day job

Me too!

[admin]

I'm NOT a software engineer, but I play one on TV

BTW, we are simultaneously building all of this to be responsive (sizing) so it works well on phones and tablets, making it easier to use TAXI while you're at work

[Casey H]

Michael
What is the best way for people to submit bug reports so your team can address them in an orderly and prioritized fashion? The forum has only a small percent of members.

Would it be good for you to set up an email address such as BugReports@Taxi dot com? A social media page? You could let people know about it in a newsletter (when you have time to breathe) How can we help?

Thanks again! Nice job!
Casey

[admin]

Casey,

We're very much on top of broken stuff as members are reporting it, and I'm afraid if we created a more formal reporting mechanism we'd get far more suggestions for new features than bug reports (which we're getting already). As you well know, there are ALWAYS cool new features that could be added, but at some point, you've got to go with the existing feature set and get THAT up and working well.

After that's launched and stable, and members have had some time to use it, we'll refine even further and add more features. But for now, we've got to stay focused and forge ahead to the finish line. We ARE bringing in groups of staffers from each of the departments who have been giving us operational feedback from the trenches in real time. We're also not a company on the scale of Spotify or any of the Silicon Valley companies that have multi-million dollar budgets and TEAMS of developers for projects like this. I'm determined to deliver seven-figure results with our six-figure budget.

ML

[admin]

Believe it or not, only 11 months until the next Road Rally. Last night, while the coding was happening in the conference room, I was in my office working on Road Rally 2020. I need a life! I'm thinking about doing, "Producing Colbie Callait," and bringing Ken back WITH Colbie to talk about making her records. Not to hijack this thread, but do you think that would resonate with our audience?

thx,
ML

[Casey H]

I'm afraid if we created a more formal reporting mechanism we'd get far more suggestions for new features than bug reports (which we're getting already).

Yea, that's true. You and I are talking about bugs but I know that there will always be lots of "Why don't you have THIS feature?", "You should do it THIS way", etc.

BTW, here in the software biz we have a joke:
Q. What is the definition of a feature?
A. A bug with seniority.

Casey

PS I have suggestions for Rally 2020 but I'll hold off for now!