Add tracks to playlists already in the upload dialog

When uploading audio files using the web uploader you now can add the uploaded files to a new or existing playlist right in the upload dialog - simply select the desired playlist or select "Create new playlist" and enter the name of a new playlist. The tracks are assigned automatically to the playlists and you don't have to do any manual work afterwards.

Delete unused invitations

Have you invited a friend to tunesBag but she/he has not reacted? Delete the invitation from the "Invite" dialog and enter the email address of a friend of yours who might be interested in tunesBag as well!

Time for some widgets for your blog + email signature

Widgets are small pieces of code which you can insert in your blog or email signature automatically generating some useful or interesting information for you and your friends.

We have now released some powerfull widgets which you can use in your email program and website / blog.

Let every email recipient know which track you've played recently on tunesBag
Using this widget, an image is automatically added to each outgoing email telling your friends which track you played recently on tunesBag - including a link to your tunesBag user page (See an example here)! All you need is to add a short piece code to your signature in your email application. You can find the code in the "Customize" dialog (just click on "Customize" / "Widgets" to see the dialog).


Add your recently played tracks to your blog / website
Just copy/paste the code from the widgets dialog to your blog/website and you can always see the recently played tracks on your blog/website. Users can click on the track to get more information and visit your user page.
Where you can find all these code snippets
Just click on "Customize" / "Widgets" to see all the needed code pieces!

Hot: Support for M4A, WMA, OGG and MP3 released

After some testing (including some failures and nasty bugs) we have now released the full support for the following audio formats:

• MP3 (yes, it's still there)
• M4A (all Apple iTunes users will love to hear that)
• WMA (Windows Media Player anyone?) and
• OGG (Vorbis)

You can use any supported upload method (native Uploader (new release available!), web-based upload, email or point to file) to upload any file of the given types. To try it out we recommend you to use the browser-based upload - simply click on upload and select some files from your hardisk. Watch the processing status using our new upload monitor.

Upload queue monitor with status information

We have pimped our web browser upload tool and now you can see the processing status of the files you've uploaded - I think everybody likes to see what's going on the background.
Just log in and click on "Upload", select some files and see the status.
We have three stages when adding a file to your tunesBag:

• Queued: Still waiting in the upload queue to be processed
• Analyzing: We're analyzing and optimizing the file
• Finishing: The file has been processed and will be visible soon in your library.
  

Give your player a personal touch - custom photos + skins

Most of us love to give their things a personal touch - now you can do the same with your tunesBag player - in the new preferences dialog you can upload an user photo which will be shown in various places on the site (e.g. library view or when adding comments to playlists) and a background-image.
See an example here:
Now support for skins - first one is available
Additionally, we have now introduced the first skin for the media player - it's a rather dark one ;-) To switch to this skin, please enter the preferences and change the skin in the "Design" tab.


Are you a designer interested in making a skin for tunesBag? Contact us now!

New web design - congratulations to last.fm!

Almost every music lover knows last.fm, the music recommendations site with their "Audioscrobbler" system founded by some guys from Austria. The website has now a new design and to be honest - I like it very much! It's clean, not too "Web 2.0 glossy" and simply cool. In this context, I'm of course excited about the final design of tunesBag - I hope it will be even cooler! ;-)

In case you did not know - at tunesBag, you're able to submit your listening habits to the AudioScrobbler service - just check out "Tools" / "Integrated services".

Preview: New Uploader code-name "Black Magic" with support for mp3/m4a/wma/ogg

We receive quite a lot of feedback from the users of our Windows uploader application including some bug reports. As the uploader application is the best way to add a lot of your tunes to tunesBag with just a few clicks we're constantly working on improving this application.
Today we're proud to show you some of the latest screenshots of the upcoming version named "black magic" - it will be released together with the next major beta upgrade soon.
So, what's new? To make a long story short:

• Support for MP3, WMA, M4A and OGG
  You've asked for it - we will support every major audio format in the upcoming release! Additionally to the defacto-standard MP3 we now support the M4A - format used by iTunes, WMA by Windows media player and OGG used by some open source solutions. With this new feature you can backup any audio file on your harddisk!
  We will support the new formats in our standard web upload as well.
  
• Better handling of large iTunes libraries
  Better performance when dealing with larger iTunes libraries (we performed tests with libraries with up to 10.000 items).
• A lot of bugfixes
  We closed at least 10 bugs reported by users
• m3u / pls support
  You can add your m3u/pls playlist by simply dropping the file on the form.
• Listen to your music while uploading
  You can listen now to the currently uploaded track (MP3/WMA only).
  

Here are some screenshots:
The new iTunes uploading section of the software.

The new drag + drop window - including support for mp3 / wma / m4a and ogg.

The new progress window - you can listen to the currently uploaded track with just one click.


So stay tuned and expect a great new version soon!

Does Ad-Supported Music work?

Lucas Gonze has published an interesting article about the problems with Ad-Supported Music on the net. He re-published the article recently on alleyInsider.com and the comments there are absolutly worth reading if you're interesting in the online music ecosystem.
The author points out that Ad-Supported music is a cool thing on the web for consumers but the catalog fees wanted by the labels could kill this approach. The important points identified by most users are a high volume and good deals with the majors if you're using their catalogue - nothing new but still interesting to read and follow the discussion.

Next wave of invitations coming soon

This is just a short status update as we received several inquiries about invitations for the closed beta - we will send out the next wave of invitations by the end of next week.