Better Mobile Support
Don’t get to excited just yet, I’m not announcing a native iphone/ipad app; however, I’d like to let you guys know I spent some time today to try and improve mobile support. I’ve only been able to test on an iPhone 4S and an iPad, but with the latest firmware/updates. I’d like to think the changes bring forth a lot better usability and user experience. You’ll notice a few things are missing (share links, about link, blog link, etc). One thing to note about using tubalr via an iphone or ipad is the first video does not auto play; this is a limitation of the player itself that I can not control. You’ll also notice that videos don’t automatically start playing after the previous finishes… I’m not sure what’s going on here, but you can simply tap the player to get it going again. Anyways, I hope this makes a few people happy. If anyone finds anything that could be improved or comes across any bugs, please shoot an email to listen.to.tubalr@gmail.com!
Happy Cinco de Mayo!
Custom Playlist for Registered Users
Today, I’m pleased to announce the ability to make custom playlists! Wondering what that means? Let me give you a personal example. Red Hot Chili Peppers are one of my all time favorite bands… so I created a playlist with the name “RHCP” and have been adding all my favorite RHCP videos to it. Here you can check it out if you want: tubalr.com/cody/playlist/RHCP.
Heres some steps to get started with the feature:
- Login to an existing account, or register a new one.
- Start searching for music.
- When you find videos you like, click the playlist icon to the upper-right of the video player.
- Add the video to an existing playlists or create a new one to add it to.
- Repeat and enjoy your playlists, you can find all your playlists by clicking the ‘My Playlists’ link in the top right navigation!
That’s it, I tried to make the whole experience as easy and stream-lined as possible. If you have any suggestions or feedback shoot an email to listen.to.tubalr@gmail.com.
NOTE: If you used the favorites feature, dont worry, I didnt throw them out! You’ll find a playlist titled ‘Favorites’ waiting on your “My Playlists” page.
New Feature: Share Single Videos
A few hours ago I shared a new feature and posted on facebook and twitter that I love sharing new features with you guys. Well, here’s another one!
You can now share single videos! It’s simple, just hover your mouse over a track in the playlist to see the ‘share video’ link. After a short delay you’ll see the link, click it and choose to ‘share on facebook’ or ‘tweet on twitter’. It’s getting a little late now and I’ve been hacking around for the good part of the afternoon/night, so if you run into anything I screwed up please shoot an email to listen.to.tubalr@gmail.com!
New Feature: Import YouTube Favorites
Hey Friends, just thought I’d fill you guys in on a new feature that was just released into the wild (some may find this a little more exciting than others).
So what’s the scoop? Well, you can now import your YouTube favorites or a friend’s YouTube favorites into your Tubalr favorites! To do, this simply go to your settings page (register an account if you’re not a user already!) and at the bottom you’ll see a new section labeled ‘Import YouTube Favorites.’ Then enter a YouTube username and click ‘Import’. That’s it, you should now notice the new favorites in your favorites playlist next time you check!
Things to note:
- If you get an error, it’s likely because your YouTube privacy settings are set to hide your favorites from the public.
- This new feature imports all favorites for the given user that are not currently in your Tubalr favorites.
- You’ll need to manually remove any favorites that were imported that you didn’t want imported.
I hope this feature makes those of you with hundreds of favorites happy! Let me know by dropping a line at listen.to.tubalr@gmail.com if you run into any problems. Cheers!
New Feature: Discover Users!
Hey guys, just thought I’d make a post about a simple new feature I released today.
You can now discover users that have 10 or more favorites and have denoted their “music tastes”. Registered users will find a new field under their settings that let them describe their “music tastes”. Before, the only way to check a users favorites out was to know their username and type in a URL manually, hopefully this will surface some of those awesome users out there with tons of favorites. To listen to a users favorites now just click their name on the users page. Currently theres no sorting or specific way users are listed, so have fun exploring.
As always shoot me an email at listen.to.tubalr@gmail.com if you have any problems, suggestions, or feedback!
Tubalr’s Numbers After Landing on Mashable and TechCrunch
Ever since I started Tubalr back in Sept 2010, I’ve been annoying my friends and others to check it out. It was(and still is) something I was proud of and thought others might like it too.
Finally in December 2011 Mashable and TechCrunch got a hold of it, along with several other awesome blogs. So I thought you guys might like to see some numbers for the past 32 days.
Basic Numbers
Visits: 230,941
Unique Visitors: 152,202
Pageviews: 682,126
Average Time on Site: 11 minutes 30 seconds
Record Concurrent Users: 250ish
Searches: 281,622
New Users: 4,154
Favorites: 9,635
Banned Videos: 407(feature launched yesterday)
Browser Usage
- Chrome: 38.66%
- Firefox: 24.69%
- Safari: 17.11%
- IE: 7.53%
- Other: 12.01%
Top Five Countries/Territories
- United States
- Japan
- United Kingdom
- Canada
- Brazil
Top Five Sources
- Direct
- Google(organic)
- StumbleUpon
Top Five Searches
- Adele
- rock
- Coldplay
- indie
- Radiohead
Cost to run the app: $22
There you have it, if I left something off that your interested in seeing shoot an email to listen.to.tubalr@gmail.com. I’ve had a blast making Tubalr and will continue to tweak it and mess with it as time allows. Thanks a shit ton for all the support everyone, its been amazing.
New Feature: Ban/Remove Videos
So I’m pleased to announce a new feature I just rolled out today. You can now remove videos from playlists, and if your logged in you can ban videos.
If your not logged in you can simply just remove videos from the current playlist, if you reload the page or search for another artists those removed videos are forgoten. No worries though, if you want Tubalr to remember videos you hate… register an account and start banning videos. One thing to keep in mind though, once a video is banned, it can not be unbanned.
With all new features, there are bound to be bugs or things that slipped by, so if something comes up, shoot an email to listen.to.tubalr@gmail.com
another attempt at getting better results
Over the past week I’ve been trying to tweak the way playlists are put together, and I think I’m at the point where I just want/need to get feedback and adjust from there.
So with that being said, as you’re using Tubalr, if you’re unhappy with a playlist’s results… please shoot me an e-mail at listen.to.tubalr@gmail.com with the artist/band you searched and why you’re not happy with the results, so I can continue making Tubalr better.
Thanks friends!
UMG Blocked Videos :/
Well, I’ve been trying to track down why certain artists have tons of videos that skip. Today, I figured it out, and it sucks. UMG blocks their artist’s videos from being embedded on external websites, meaning certain artist like Nine Inch Nails and Lady Gaga will always have videos that skip… that is unless I can find hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase licenses.
You read right, hundreds of thousands of dollars is what it would take to prevent the skipping. I reached out to UMG and was told that the base price for a license starts at $1,000 PER VIDEO. I was hoping they might have some type of program for non-profit website/organizations, but that does not seem to be the case.
With that being said, I’m going to try and figure out a way to at least play the videos that aren’t blocked, but at some point, for some artists… I’d expect all their videos to be blocked :(
What features would you pay for?
The title really says it all, what features would you pay for? I’ve been asked over the past few days how long I plan to keep the site ad free and if I have any ideas for making some cash off Tubalr. You’ll be happy to know the answer for both questions:
- Forever, Tubalr will never have ads, besides the ones in the YouTube player itself… which benefits only the owner of that video and maybe YouTube?
- I do have some ideas and they dont involve ads at all.
That leaves me with some questions for you guys:
- Do you think there would be value in paying a low monthly fee for a premium account that gave the account holder extra functionality?
- If you answered ‘yes’ to #1, what features would you like to see? If you answered ‘no’, is there any particular reason?
A few features I’m considering for premium accounts If it happens:
- ability to ban videos from ever playing while logged in
- custom playlists aside from your favorites
- custom background and colors(kind of like twitter)
Anyways, if you’d like to contribute in this community question shoot an email to listen.to.tubalr@gmail.com with your answers and any other feedback pertaining to premium accounts.
P.S. - If you’re totally against premium accounts, no worries, this would in no way effect users not signed up for a premium account.
