Grex Music3 Conference

Item 180: Internet Music Resources

Entered by mcnally on Tue Jul 13 02:32:04 2004:

  I was looking for a place to start a discussion (or, if I can't
  get anyone else interested in it, at least a solo lament) about
  the disastrous redesign of my favorite popular music web site,
  the All Music Guide ( http://www.allmusic.com ) but couldn't find
  an already existing item which seemed appropriate.

  So I hereby nominate this item to be the place to discuss Internet
  music resources -- references, review sites, retailers, and even
  things that don't start with "r."
13 responses total.
#1 of 13 by mcnally on Tue Jul 13 02:37:09 2004:

  As alluded to in #0, I'm very much bummed by the recent redesign
  of the All Music Guide web site.  It's long been my clear favorite
  among the many excellent music sites available but they periodically
  redesign and each "improved" redesign has had problems (in my opinion.)
  It's difficult to complain, of course, since they provide such an 
  excellent resource for free, but their latest redesign not only 
  completely abandons their traditional interface but it's written in
  broken HTML that only renders properly in Internet Explorer.  I'm sure
  they have their reasons, and it's their site to run as they please,
  I know I'm not alone in finding their new changes baffling.

  Oh well..  Thanks for the many excellent years, guys, and it was great
  while it lasted.

#2 of 13 by gelinas on Tue Jul 13 03:16:56 2004:

(Did you report the problems to them?)

#3 of 13 by micklpkl on Tue Jul 13 03:40:55 2004:

This *is* a bummer.

#4 of 13 by mcnally on Tue Jul 13 03:54:43 2004:

  I'll write them a letter when I calm down..  :-(
  No, seriously, though, I will drop them a line and let them know
  that I'm unhappy with the redesign but it's such a comprehensive
  change that I doubt they're going to be willing to abandon the work
  they put into it.  On the other hand, functioning properly with
  Mozilla should be an achievable goal.

#5 of 13 by scott on Tue Jul 13 13:04:24 2004:

Ouch... that is one clunky design.  And much less browser-tolerant than
before.

#6 of 13 by micklpkl on Tue Jul 13 13:48:53 2004:

I will also send a polite e-mail to allmusic.com, letting them know there are
others who refuse to use Internet Explorer, as well.

#7 of 13 by cyklone on Tue Jul 13 19:06:33 2004:

If they announce or link to a Microsoft-related download service soon I think
all questions will be answered.

#8 of 13 by krj on Tue Jul 13 19:22:17 2004:

The Department of Homeland Security is advising that the use of 
MSIE be discontinued.   One could point that out in the letter.
 
AMG is (still?) headquartered around Liberty & Fifth in downtown 
Ann Arbor.

#9 of 13 by dbratman on Thu Jul 15 17:05:47 2004:

This is just one of many, many sites whose designers fail to grasp that 
other people use browsers different from their own.

But I've given up complaining about such things.  The answer is always 
that "everybody else" (read "we") like it, or that "we have to move 
with the times, baby."  Pointing out that illegibility and 
unuseableness are never with the times is a fruitless endeavor.

#10 of 13 by mcnally on Thu Jul 15 17:31:08 2004:

  In an encouraging sign, the site designers have apparently cleaned
  up their problem HTML and last time I visited the "UR BR0WZ3R SUXX"
  message was gone and the site rendered properly in FireFox 0.9.2

  I'm still not thrilled with the redesign, as it splits information
  that used to be very handy up among several screens and something
  in the rollout seems to have increased their load so badly their
  servers were unavailable a high percentage of the time for the first
  couple of days, but at least when I can load a page now I can view
  the information.

  If it were an average caliber site I'd just write it off but I
  really hope they work things out because they've been one of my
  favorite music resources for years.

#11 of 13 by scott on Sat Jul 17 17:53:57 2004:

Turns out I know somebody involved in the site.  He put in a 90-hour week and
mentioned getting some very angry emails.  But they do want the site to work
on all browsers.

#12 of 13 by scott on Thu Jul 29 00:33:17 2004:

Grr.  Still doesn't work well with Konqueror.

#13 of 13 by jor on Fri Oct 22 22:52:26 2004:

        AMG recently moved from downtown AA to SW AA, near
        94 and AA-Saline RD.

        I've used them a lot and their vast DB is impressive.
        But the writing bothers me, they always seem to
        be fishing for some superlative about every
        single topic.

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