New side bar (former Community Popup); easier access to playlists with a new menu structure

We've just released an update that enhances the user experience by cleaning up the whole structure. This redesign was part of the given user feedback, so tunesBag really listens to your proposals!
First change: The new menu bar - all playlists and shared libraries can now accessed within the new menu bar - just move with your mouse over "Libraries" or "Playlists" to show the available items. A click launches the playlist or desired library.What's new as well? ;-) We've replaced the community popup (quite a few people told us that the fading in/out is annoying) and introduced a new sidebar containing information about the currently played track. After the login, the newsfeed will be displayed here.
Please note the new action buttons in this bar - you can become a fan of an artist with one click, add the track to playlists or add a comment.

Last but not least - everytime a new track starts playing, a new bar containing only the artist and track name is displayed for a few seconds - perfect if a playlist is running and you just want to take a look from your couch which track is running ;-)

Create a nice background using an online tile generator

Did you know, that you can customize tunesBag.com? Just click on your username ("Hi, user") and select "Cuszomize" - this way you're able to change the background and profile image! In case you're looking for great background images but you're no Photoshop-hero you definitly should take a look at this online background tile generator (bgpatterns.com) - with a few clicks you can create smooth images for your personal online music player (via datenschmutz).
An example:

Sorry for the delivery of multiple (old) e-mails at once

The email server of our provider crashed today and a backup had to be restored. This backup contained very old mail queue items and because of this issue, some of you might have received an old newsletter which the server had been unable to deliver some weeks or months ago.
The issue should now be fixed, please report any problems to office(a/t)tunesBag.com!

Survey: Unlimited storage for your tunes - how much are you willing to pay?

Users of our closed beta keep asking about the possibility of unlimited storage so that they can upload their entire tunes collection - we're interested in your opinion about such a service extension - please take a minute and answer our two (really, just two) questions on this topic: Please click here to answer the survey
Thank you for your participation!


Source of the Picture

Database upgrade in progress / Downtime

We're currently updated a huge database - the service might react very slowly or even be unresponsive. We expect the service to be back in full action at about 1 am UK time.

Update 03am: Database reorganization took longer than expected; everything should now be working fine again. Please report any bugs to office (a/t) tunesBag.com!

Update Sunday: We're still creating Indexes on huge mysql tables, one after the other. Therefore you still might experience delays. The good thing about this: We take this opportunity to optimize queries + tables = better performance in the future!

Smart Playlists - Select Genres and a surprise level and you're ready to go!

If you and your friends have a huge tunes collection and you're lazy when it comes to creating playlists, we've now the perfect feature for you!

In addition to regular playlists tunesBag now offers the possibility to create smart playlists with a few clicks only. Users can select several genres and define a "surprise level" - using this information a playlist is created with either popular tracks or new ones in order to discover new tunes. The feature works among all friends’ libraries thus perfectly enabling insights to friends’ huge libraries.

Screenshot #1: Select the desired genres, the surprise level and the libraries
Screenshot #2: Hit "Create" and you're right into the playlist. You can save the playlists with a single click.
Read the story on Centernetworks & Genbeta!

tunesBag is now a full backup service - upload AND download your entire music collection

The team of tunesBag is proud to announce some new exciting features enriching the product and making it even more comfortable to use. The first one is our new backup and restore feature.

Uploading your tunes collection to tunesBag is the perfect way to create a backup of your tracks protecting your time and money spent on setting up your music collection. We all know that a hard disk crash or a lost notebook can happen every day but still many people are not prepared for such disasters. As part of the new version, a restore feature has been implemented - users of tunesBag are now able to re-download their own uploaded tracks - the native program even creates the directory structure on your hard disk fitting to your playlists.

How to download the new Desktop Client for Windows
You're able to restore certain playlists or your whole library. Please download the latest version of our Windows Desktop tool to enjoy this feature - you can find the download link when you click on "Upload" at the home screen or click here for the direct download link.

Here you can see the files restored from your tunesBag account to your local hard disk.
You're able to download invividual tracks using the web interface as well.

Upload files with a size of up to 50 MB

We've raised the quota for single files up to 50 MB - great if you've long DJ mixes or such stuff to add to your tunesBag! The 5 GB quota for the overall size stays the same for the closed beta.

Join the tunesBag - fanpage on Facebook!

Just a short notice: tunesBag has it's own fanpage on Facebook - be sure to join us there ;-)

tunesBag.com added to the Amazon Web Services Solutions Catalog

We've been added to the AWS Solutions Catalog - as you might know, tunesBag is using various amazon services (e.g. S3) to store data and we're - apart from some issues in the past - very happy with the service they offer.

Pie Chart of popular artists in tunesBag #2

It's time to release a pie chart of the most popular artists (by number of tracks) again (see chart #1) - this time the top 20 artists only take 7% of all tracks in our database.

Gigs, live shows, concerts: Jambase has been integrated

We've now integrated two sources for live shows, concerts and gigs on tunesBag - additionally to upcoming (upcoming.yahoo.com) we've now added data provided by jambase.
Just open an artist page in order to see when and where the next performance of an artist takes place!

Musical Preferences reflecting your personality?

The Heriot Watt University - Department of Psychology is currently doing a research on how musical preferences are reflecting the character. Over 30.000 people have provided data to this create this study and according to Prof Adrian North, the music taste clearly links to personality.

Some example results:

JAZZ: High self-esteem, creative, outgoing and at ease
RAP: High self-esteem, outgoing
DANCE: Creative, outgoing, not gentle
INDIE: Low self-esteem, creative, not hard working, not gentle
ROCK/HEAVY METAL: Low self-esteem, creative, not hard-working, not outgoing, gentle, at ease

In general, the results are quite interesting; but don't take such information too serious ;-)

Find more details on BBC.co.uk

New player design, list view and menus

We've just released an update with some changes in the backend and design improvements in the frontend. There are two visible changes - the list view now looks much better and there is a new menu when you click on "Actions". You can call all features (Recommendations, Add to Playlist etc) from this menu.

The second redesigned part is the new player on the bottom - you are now able to rate any currently playing track with a simple click. It looks much cleaner as well now.
Enjoy the updated tunesBag!

Future of Online Music - Industry Players Discuss

A few days ago, an interesting posting about the future of Online Music was published on ReadWriteWeb. Dalton Caldwell (Imeem), Lucas Gonze (WebJay/Yahoo) and Rob Williams (RealNetworks) were discussing about the Business Models, Developer Platforms, DRM and the ongoing battles with the labels.

The major points / conclusions raised in the discussion from my perspective

• Online music can't live without social/community features
• The user experience is not as good as it should be
• API/Developer platforms are keys to success
• Ad supported business models are the future but still seen with a lot of skepticism in the industry
  360° deals are the future for artists (monetize the music in a lot of ways, e.g. live shows, TV, film music, advertisments, ...)
  
• DRM is dead (although still seen on some services)