The New Allmusic: D/D?

According to Alliance Entertainment's press kit:

AMG customers include Barnes &
Noble, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, Real Networks,
BlueLight.com (Kmart), CDNOW, Best Buy,
Circuit City, Blockbuster, Ticketmaster,
Yahoo!, AOL’s Spinner and MovieFone,
ARTISTdirect/UBL.com, and MTV
Networks Europe.

Are they gonna offend AOL (owner of Netscape) and Yahoo! to get in a monogomous fuck fest Microsoft?

All the extra clicks, the unnecessary flash, the lack of flow to the pages, the extra scrolling, ugly design (the old one looked so much better!), it doesn't display right in opera, and I could go on and on but much of it's already been mentioned. I liked the compact design of the old site. It was so easy to get information at a glance. I hope they realize how much this sucks and change it soon.

So (you might say), use Safari or something else. And yet, with Safari, my log-in is erratic. Sometimes it "remembers" me, most often it doesn't, so I have to constantly enter my e-mail addy and my password.

The AMG site has always behaved differently in my browser from most sites, even jealously commercial sites like Amazon. I've always just asumed it's an information gatherer. How else could it be so so slow (as it always has been)? If it's gone upmarket (blah blah about increasing servers etc.) i see no reason at all for it to still be that slow.

That is unless there's still multiple server and client stuff going on during the loads, and since i've crashed the site in a number of ways, i have no reason to assume the site isn't accessing a variety of databases depending on the data. Whose databases ? Clients databases ? Is that an exhaustive list of clients above ?

I can think of a few other organisations who'd be oh so keen to access AMG user data, outfits who could only be either a friend or a foe to AMG.

And the speed here is orders of magnitude slower than the previous site, doubtless due to all the extra clicking being undertaken.

It should be used in university courses on how not to design an information based interface.

It does, yes. At present, I have no other thoughts to offer on any of this as I had nothing to do with the redesign beyond beta testing briefly -- it worked fine with Safari on my Mac, and I was one of many testers.

I am, in fact, on a Caribbean island and I intend to spend tomorrow afternoon doing nothing but sitting on a beach for seven hours, relaxing in the sun and/or shade and reading a book. Yay me. Seeya all soon!

So, now that AMG has made itself COMPLETELY FUCKING USELESS, what is the best web alternative??

See, they knew what was wrong with the site -- terrible colors, cheezy unnecessary graphics, 1997 image maps, a generally dated look, etc. But they didn't know what was *right* with it -- very decent information architecture, clear tables of data in readable font sizes, excellent at-a-glance scanability, etc. And in fixing what they thought was wrong, they broke what they didn't know was right. It's a classic novice mistake, really, and from where I sit completely understandable (I'm not much more than a novice myself, though I have purchased a lot of books about this). I was at first incensed that they would slap an "IE optimized" warning on the page, and rightfully so, but they took that down within a day or two, fixed the Mozilla CSS bug, and really seem to be making an effort to make it work the way everyone wants it to. They have, sadly, already married themselves to a design with inherent usability problems -- kind of stumbled backwards into it, really -- but that does not make them bad. It just makes them kind of clueless.

They may have to leave this design up for a year or so, just for consistensy's sake, but it won't last much longer than that, and they will have learned from their mistakes.

Who gives a shit how "cheezy", "1997", or "dated" it supposedly was anyway, though? How do any of those things have to do AT ALL with how GOOD the site is? And in what kind of numbskull's imagination do those adjectives even MEAN anything? And how is that washed-out new lavender color less "terrible" than what was there before? I will never, ever understand those who fall for the scam of "updating" technology for the mere sake of updating it, as long as I live.

We're trusting these people with our music facts but don't even know the difference between between i.e. and e.g.!!!

I've written an extension for Mozilla Firefox that, when installed, alters the display and functionality of allmusic.com. Specifically, it does the following:

It cleans up the horrible JavaScript-only links sitewide, thus enabling 21st-century browsing techniques such as tabbed browsing and opening links in new windows.

It hides the annoying Flash spinner thing atop each page.

It changes the functionality of the "Read more..." links on band and album detail pages. On the old AMG, band and album pages contained full reviews. Now, they feature only the first few sentences, with a link to "Read more..." on a separate page. The extension changes the functionality of that "Read more..." link so that, instead of taking you to a new page, clicking the link will dynamically load the full band/album review and insert it inline.

>Yeah, get the ten CD install of Free Bltfzpk 5.4x. Don't forget the Excrement 01.1 action web accelerator add-ons, people. And you'll need the CrummyFree compiler, although that usually comes with Bltfzpk. Support is excellent.<

as for AMG, a conserted effort by all the PCs in China to simultaneously hit on Britney Spears might Mariah-Carey-ify her (eg schoolgirl with mouse ears fried in electrically-lit Xmas-holly romp), duet with Lemmy in an electric chair,.. and maybe creat a ripple in AMG central, whomever that is.

Well color me a numbskull. It's marketing, is all. Colors. Shades. The emotional appeal of design. Trends and fashions. Frivolous? Yeah, certainly in this case, as it the redesign interferes with the usability of the site. But trendy colors and updated-looking graphics sell adspace. It's not a stupid idea, not if you want to make some scratch off your work.

i hadn't read the previous few posts, but it didn't take me a second to guess who this came from.

the "read more" thing is a big annoyance that, i imagine, could be easily fixed. perhaps his nedness can convey these constructive criticisms to those in power?

They could be conveyed, but I have no guarantee they'll be acted upon.

JESUS H! And I was just randomly guessing!

You have the special 'anti-Canadian' AMG virus.

I still can't get the links to respond -- i click and, nothing (x10).. grr..

i changed my setting as per the instructions -- AMG is now my very first "trusted site" even , which seems like a somewhat mighty concession in itself, but still no "search" or "go" buttons seem to do anything -- my firewall blocks pop-ups, so is that the problem ? i hit a button and no bytes even get sent. It just really doesn't like me.

is there something really simple i should know ? is this in permanent revolution mode still ?
it feels like i have to do something like put in "a quarter" or some such thing to get the ball rolling .. am i just not on their demograph radar ? have my callous comments regarding the new site up-thread resulted in designers setting me up my very own "front door" ? essentially, wtf ??

feasible ?
they'll have me if you put in a good word won't they Ned ?