Would anybody else like an option to see "New Listings" only

[billhewett]

Hi Travelers!

I have been feeling a bit bogged down by the number of repeat listings on the 1st and 15th of every month. I understand that those listings are still open, so they should NOT be removed, but if I haven't already committed to any of those listings then I probably won't be starting on them by the time the next round rolls in.

That said, I don't think Taxi needs to make a change to their website, which would probably be costly for them (and ultimately us!) and could break something that is working well as it is... so I took matters into my own hands and started developing an extension for the Chrome browser to show only the new listings, both on the "industry listings" page and also on the "submit your music" page!

The problem at this point is that it is an all-or-nothing affair, so if I WANT to see older listings I need to uninstall the extension. That isn't a problem for me... I'm a tech guy, so I'm tweaking stuff like this all day long! But my question for the board is: Would YOU like to have a button in your browser that you could use to easily switch between seeing new listings ONLY, and ALL listings still posted? If enough people are interested then it will be worth my time to build out the extension, make it more user friendly, and post it as a FREE download in the Google Chrome Store so you all can download it.

Let me know if you are interested!

-Bill

[Russell Landwehr]

That sounds like a neat and useful idea, Bill. Taking it one step further, having drill-down options could be nice as well.
Sounds like an idea for TAXI 2.0 that you should send to the powers-that-be.

Russell

[billhewett]

Hey Russell,

Thanks for the feedback!

What kind of drill-down are you thinking? Something like being able to expand and collapse each category, rather than having static links to each one? I could incorporate that into the extension pretty easily!

Then, if I do a good job maybe Michael and the Taxi team will hire me to update the whole site ;)

-Bill

[Russell Landwehr]

That's pretty neat too, to collapse the sections. But I guess what I'm thinking is more along the lines of a sort instead of a drill-down. Although a lot of "sorts" can function like a drill-down if it includes "not."

Like for instance... There are often listings by labels looking for Artists/Bands instead of "songs." I certainly skip over those. And weeding through them gets confusing. Also Instrumental listings can show up in any genre. As an instrumentalist I sure would like to "mute" (temporarily) the strictly vocal listings.

And then having the sorted/drilled-down listings in order by deadline...

Stuff like that.

I would think this would be implemented most efficiently by a "check-the-box" form when listings are input to the system.

Russell

[billhewett]

Oh yeah... I see what you mean. Better options for filtering. I completely agree. I free-text search plus a number of checkbox options would make the whole thing much easier to navigate for sure!

As you suggested, the checkboxes would involve a restructuring of the database on the back end, and more work up-front for the Taxi staff who input these listings into the system. But I could definitely incorporate a free-text search into the Chrome plugin. It wouldn't be as easy as real filters, but might cut down on some of the searching.

[ericmakesmusic]

Hey Bill,

That's a great idea for the listings page. There's already a drop down on the "submit your music" page. It allows you to see just one particular category or just the new listings.

[Casey H]

Hey Bill,

That's a great idea for the listings page. There's already a drop down on the "submit your music" page. It allows you to see just one particular category or just the new listings.

Wow.... I've been doing this for years and never knew the genre drop-down had a choice for "New Listings"...

When the twice monthly listings come out I usually go through them all... Two reasons:
(1) Occasionally (not that often) there has been a typo where a new listing did not say "NEW LISTING"...

(2) Sometimes, I realize that a non-NEW listing is suddenly an opp for me because I have a new track or didn't think of it before.

While agree that better filter functionality would be great and I hope Taxi makes improvements, I do think it's worth going through all the listings when they come out. It doesn't take very long.

Casey

[ericmakesmusic]

I agree Casey. I tend to go over the entire listing when it comes out just in case I missed something last time. Plus, I've learned that TAXI sometimes puts listings in categories that are un-obvious. (I've found Pop listings in the Alt-Rock category a number of times). So, I tend to browse everything just in case.

[billhewett]

Hi Casey and Eric,

Thanks for the feedback! I definitely didn't realize that there was a New Listings option on the submission page, so that is super handy.

I also agree that it makes sense to look at all the listings, but being able to easily filter out the new ones if/when I want to would be a nice feature. I also read through ALL of the listings even though my musical tendencies lean toward folk and rock, as I too have noticed some listings that seem like they could be in more than one category, or sometimes I see something I feel like I could respond to in a category that I am not usually comfortable in.

All that said, I just got a very nice phone call from Tom at Taxi. He and the team got me hooked up with the daily email listings that I didn't know about, and he also let me know that the listings on the taximusic.com listing submission page are updated real time, so there are listing there that didn't make it to the 1st and 15th posts, and listing that have since expired between the 1st and 15th will be removed from that list... I had no idea about that, and that definitely makes it an easier list to manage. My only suggestion there was that that list is harder to read in its cramped format, so if their web developers could make that part of the window wider it would make that page much more user friendly.

-Bill

[jdstamper]

I usually like to look at all the listings too, same as Casey. I focus on the new ones, and skim through the existing ones (in my genre) in case I might have changed my mind about submitting to any of these.

Similarly ... for emails from Taxi, I wish I could opt out of getting reminders, and only see emails about new listings. I would think "most" Taxi members are organized enough that they shouldn't need constant reminders anyway, but giving us an opt-out would work fine for me.

Jim