Archive for July, 2008

For the past few months, we have been working closely with our friends at Rhapsody to bring Yahoo! Music users some great new features powered by Rhapsody’s critically acclaimed digital music service. I’m proud to announce that we are now able to bring the full Rhapsody subscription experience to our Yahoo! Music Unlimited subscribers. Subscribers can now transfer their Yahoo! Music Unlimited accounts, libraries and playlists to Rhapsody and get instant access to their huge catalog of millions of songs. We believe the Rhapsody subscription service is the best on the web, and with the recent launch of their new mp3 store, they just got a lot better. We couldn’t think of a better home for our existing subscribers and we hope they’ll love the Rhapsody service as much as we do.

A lot of work was done under the hood to make the transfer from Yahoo! Music Unlimited to Rhapsody simple and secure. After a few quick steps, Rhapsody will pick up your subscription account information and continue your service with the same billing cycle and price you had with Yahoo! Music Unlimited. If you have a Yahoo! Music Unlimited subscription, go to http://transfer.music.yahoo.com and sign in to get started. Only Yahoo! Music Unlimited subscribers can transfer their accounts to Rhapsody. If you’re not a subscriber and are interested in trying the Rhapsody service, you can check it out for free here. For more information and frequently asked questions about the transfer process, check out our help pages.

We sincerely appreciate the support of our Yahoo! Music Unlimited subscribers during its limited run. While the Yahoo! Music Unlimited service may be going away, the Yahoo! Music and Rhapsody partnership has just begun. We’re working on some incredibly exciting stuff and hope you’ll enjoy the new features we’ll be releasing in the coming months. Stay tuned!

Dave Warmerdam
Yahoo! Music

Thank you all for checking out our booth at Twiistup 4, grabbing Snap Beach Balls (too bad the pool was covered) and providing great feedback. Vivian Lee from JuiceCaster, you are the lucky winner of a Nintendo DS & Guitar Hero bundle. We will contact you to make pickup arrangements. Have a rocking weekend! See you [...]

Yesterday, we launched a redesign to one of our pillar live music programs, Nissan Live Sets on Yahoo! Music. And, it is very fitting that we did so with one of the most memorable and ‘fan’-tastic musical experiences to have taken place on our stage. For those of you who haven’t seen this ‘Hootenanny,’ 300 courageous fans joined Weezer on stage and shared their musical talents. Yes, everyone is playing an instrument! See it here.

This Nissan Live Sets on Yahoo! Music redesign focused on blowing out several key features of the program including:

1. Integrating a clean inline video experience. You can now watch the show inline, all from the same Nissan Live Sets page
2. Bigger/fuller photo galleries: the first time we’ve been able to integrate the high resolution, professionally taken photos of the cool artists we’ve had. No more tiny pictures!
3. A re-tooled blog that leverages Y! Music’s blog platform. This improvement more cleanly integrates the program with other y! music blogs and allows us to layer in related photos, videos and other popular galleries

This has been a major collaborative effort and I hope you enjoy it.

Abraco,
bill

Posted by Sapna Mehta, Online Operations Associate

Ever wish the sites you visit could present customized options catering to your tastes?

Our Recommended Videos feature does just that. By logging in to your Google account and visiting Google Video, you will see multiple videos that pertain to your search interests. You can find these videos underneath the hot videos section of the homepage. Just like the hot videos, you can click on the arrow buttons in the top right corner to see more recommended videos.

While our search suggestions give you search term suggestions for individual queries you enter, these video picks are based on trends of search queries you've used, as well as other videos that you've watched. It's yet another way to discover interesting video content from across the web - this time, personalized for you.


To take advantage of this feature, you'll be asked to sign in to Web History. It's up to you how much customization you'd like - for example, you can choose which searches are included, and which aren't. For more information about protecting your privacy while enjoying the benefits of personalized search, check out the following video - About Web History: Privacy.

We just got these in for the Twiistup pool party event that will take place this Thursday in Santa Monica. In case you are planning to attend Twiistup, please come by our booth, snap a beach ball and help us fill the entire Viceroy pool with them.

Editors Note: One the System Engineers that run the servers that host www.Microsoft.com told me that he wanted to start posting some of the methods and tips and tricks that they use when managing one of the most heavily visitied web site in the world....(read more)

As mentioned in our previous blog post, some swicki builders were experiences problems with logging in and out of their accounts. This bug is now fixed. Thanks again everyone for your patience with this matter.

Some swickibuilders are experiencing problems logging in or creating and deleting accounts. We are aware of the issue and are working hard to solve it. We are hopeful it should be resolved by the end of the week. As always, we are working hard to stabilize and improve the service so please let us know if you have any additional issues, questions or suggestions by emailing us at swickifeedback (at) eurekster.com

Thanks again for everyone's patience in resolving this issue.

Happy mobile chatting!

Posted by Justin Donnelly, Software Engineer

The "Hot videos" section of the Google Video homepage offers up the web's most popular videos, determined by how often they're being watched, shared and blogged about across the Web. If, like me, you think this feature is awesome, you'll love our latest update. Now, instead of only 12 hot videos, there are over a hundred available by clicking on the new pagination buttons on the upper right corner of the "Hot videos" section. Just like our TV view, the video you're currently watching isn't interrupted as you browse through the pages.

Note that these videos are updated throughout the day and are specific to your country. (Wondering what's hot in the Low Countries? Try our Dutch site: http://video.google.nl/.) This expanded view of what's hot can reveal a lot about what's going on in online video. For example, when Weezer released their "Pork and Beans" video recently, nearly every "celebrity" featured in the video appeared in the expanded list within the next couple of days.


Give it a try- You're sure to find something here to entertain you.