Kringle Release - 12/2006

This one is finally/almost/mostly out! We've been super busy this month.

The finetune team moved offices at the start of the month and it literally took 2 weeks and five separate Verizon tech visits to get our string and dixie cup connection to the internet up and running. Lucky for us, the finetune service doesn't rely on this connection (other then for us to feed it with good stuff, like new code).

What's New - The Stuff we got done!

• Reskinned - Now with 120% more gleam then our competitors.
  
  
• Pagination and list management everywhere - Some artist pages were getting really slow because they had 1200+ user playlists.
  
  
• Home Page Restructure - A much more goal oriented view of finetune.
  
  
• Wiki Pre-Pre Release - The messages on the home page I leave every few days are coming from a wiki article that I edit. This will be used much more in the next release and we'll let some of you all write too!
  
  
• Popular Artist and Playlists - You're listening in droves and we're crunching the numbers.
  
  
• Fingerprint - Most users will get a list of artists on their profiles. This is distilled from the tracks you've programmed, what you've added to your favorites, and an interpolation of related artists. So... if you've programmed Radiohead on 10 different playlists, and they are also listed as a favorite artist.... they will likely be on your fingerprint. If you also programmed Primal Scream a bunch of times... they will make your finger print. So then the Chemical Brothers and The Stone Roses show up too... and you didn't program them at all... what's going on here? Well both those bands have high relatedness to the two that you programmed. So we infer that point in your fingerprint and its strength based on how related the original artists were to your overall profile. We realize that interpreted artists may not represent you the way you want to be seen... so we'll be providing a way to override anything in your fingerprint in the next release.
  
  
• New For You - Recently added albums that match your extended fingerprint (not just the 10 artists we show)
  
  
• Comment Threads for Artists and Albums - Now you can talk all you want about a particular album and why it is the best.... go forth an argue!
  
  
• Playlist Titles are now searchable - Yeah whatever.
  
  
• Embed Player Changes - All new embeddable players will use an instance id instead of specifically pointing to a particular playlist... This is really good for a bunch of reasons which along with new player features demand a post of its own.
  
  
• Email Playlist - We'll send the list of songs, the playlist icon, Description, and a message from you to someone you want to share with.
  
  
• Email Friend Notification - We'll let you know when someone adds you to their friend list.

Coming Soon - Expect these to roll out over the next few weeks

• Kindred Spirits - How about some recommended people with fingerprints like yours!
  
  
• Recommended Playlists (needs a better name) - Playlists that our trans-playlist-comparitor 9000 has deemed you will like.