Continuing our series of redesign posts, we are now going to talk about the new header. It could be argued that a header is more important than any single page. The header appears on all pages and is the main way to navigate a site. As was the case with our new homepage (and our overall redesign policy), our goal with the header was to make our site simpler and easier to navigate.

We started the process by asking "what could be removed"? After looking over the click data, we saw that very few people were using the search tabs. People were here for music, and wanted to only search within music results. Since we believe that less is more, we removed all search tabs.

The next issue we tackled was account-based. The old header showed you when you were logged-in by displaying your name with a drop-down to go to your profile and sign-out. It also had links to edit your profile and your profile settings. These were extraneous since people do not edit their profiles very often. It was also slightly hard to find the sign-out link. The new header shows you when you are logged-in with a quick link to your profile, playlists and sign-out. Much cleaner.

The final thing we changed was the biggest. In the past, we had 10 main navigation links. This posed a problem since we have a lot more than 10 pages. We decided to go with drop-downs on the main links to allow for quicker access to more content. We grouped our pages by type (videos, songs, etc) with tool-tip descriptions. We believe this will be a huge help in navigating our site.

Moving forward, we will put the new header across all our sites. We have a lot of work ahead of us, so things might seem a little weird as we continue to push this out. We also hope to add dynamic content to the drop-downs which will personalize the site according to the music you listen to and the news you read. Please let us know what you think. Your feedback is what drives us. Thanks!

When we sat down to redesign our site, the page everyone wanted to do first was the home page. We've felt for a while that our home page doesn't fully reflect all of the content and features that we have. Everyday we receive feedback asking us about particular features and where they can be found. Our main goal with the new home page was to make things simpler so you can find what you want. We also wanted to highlight some of our features and technology that you may not know about.

One of those features is CD Listening Party. Every week we feature 10-20 new albums that you can listen to for free. On our current homepage, this is buried low on the page. Even so, it is one of the most clicked parts of the page. For the redesign, we raised this much higher on the page. We also gave it some more breathing room.



Right below CD Listening Party is our new 'Real Time Music News' module. Here at AOL Music, we write tons of articles every day about artists, songs and everything else in music. Even though we cover a lot, we can't cover it all! There are many music news sources out there -- and since this is the Web -- we figured that linking to them would be pretty easy. The new News module will show the latest music news with up-to-the-minute updates. The best part is that it is customizable. You can now track news just from your favorite artists if you want.



Another new feature is the ability to see what other people on AOL Music are listening to -- in real time! Anyone with a public profile will be visible on this module. It is a great way to see what music is hot and sample it for yourself. You will also be able to see the last three songs you've listened to, plus a link to see more.



If you are logged in, you can also see what other people on your AIM buddy list are listening to now.



As we stated in our previous post about our redesign, our aim was to make our site simpler to navigate while highlighting our best experiences. We feel confident we have done this with the new home page. Look for it in the next few days. Of course our work is never done. We want to hear your thoughts -- tell us what you think.

It has been a couple of years since we last redesigned our site. Back then, things were a lot different. Our site was built for dial-up users with low-resolution monitors. Our goal was to modernize it by expanding the width and adding a bunch of new features, including streaming audio and video. We introduced a lot of things. Some things worked, others did not. Through it all, you responded with invaluable feedback. We have taken all of that feedback and thought hard about how we can take our site to the next level.

First and foremost, we hope the new design allows you to more easily navigate our site. Our main purpose was to showcase our best features -- features that you have told us you enjoy the most. We have done that by adding more prominent placements of key features. We have also done that by removing extraneous features that were not often used. If we removed something you liked, please let us know. While we have tried hard to keep everything, we understand that anything we remove will probably upset some people.

Starting soon, we will roll out the new design, page by page. The first pages to receive a makeover will be the home page, Artist Main, Albums and a new News page. We will also be rolling out a new header across all our pages. Things may seem a little weird as certain pages will look new and others look the same. Please bear with us. We have a large site! In the coming days, we will write about the new pages with screen shots. As always, we would love to hear what you think.

Update - Check out screen-shots of our new homepage.
Update 2 - Check out screen-shots of our new header.

--AOL Music Team

For a while now, Streampad has had an unofficial API. Unofficial in the sense that developers would look at the source code, hack on it, email me, hack some more and then build something cool. Well, the days of unofficial are officially over! I am very proud to unveil the Streampad API.

There are actually two APIs:

Embed API
The first one is the Embed API. You can find it here - http://www.streampad.com/embed-api. This API allows developers to customize the look and feel of Streampad as well as choose which features to include and exclude by setting options.

Javascript API
The second one is the Javascript API. You can find it here - http://www.streampad.com/javascript-api. This API allows developers to control the Streampad player via Javascript. Developers can play and queue songs, play and pause the player, receive events and perform other useful functions.

We would love any and all feedback on these. What works, what doesn't, what else you would like to see. Thanks!

For all you last.fm fans out there, we have some good news! You can now scrobble tracks that you listen to right inside of Streampad. To get started, click on the little person icon on the right side of the player. That will open up the profile drawer. Click on the Last.fm section.



Click on the "Log in to Last.fm" button. This will open up a permissions window on Last.fm.



After clicking "Yes, allow access", close the window. It is important that you close the window as that will notify Streampad to log you in.

Once you are logged in, Streampad will scrobble your tracks and show you your last 10 songs. Please note that tracks will only scrobble if they have artist and song names. So remember to tag your files if you are a publisher.

We are very proud to announce the all new Interface video show. The Interface has lived for years inside Spinner as a series of blog posts and an accompanying video podcast. Over the years, The Interface has showcased up and coming artists including Amy Winehouse's first US appearance in 2007. While the blog format has served everyone well, we felt it was time to truly give The Interface the love it deserved.

The Interface now lives at http://www.spinner.com/interface. There you will find links to past episodes including Sigur Ros, Grizzly Bear, Neko Case and more. Over the coming weeks, we will add all the past episodes, hang in there. We love Spoon's 2007 performance as much as you do!

Once you click on an episode, you will be greeted with an all new widescreen video player. You can easily skip songs, view performance pics, read about the artist and leave your own comments. You can also subscribe to the Podcast within iTunes or any other media player.



We hope you enjoy the new format. As always, we welcome your feedback - we would love to make this even better!

We are pleased to announce the latest addition to our family - Where It's At. Where It's At is the ultimate pop culture treasure map. Have you ever wanted to know where the hospital from Grey's Anatomy is really located? How about the real Hotel California? You can find all these historical pop culture spots and more on Where It's At.



Know something we don't? You can submit spots to us and get on the map.



Go ahead and explore. Have fun! We bet you'll find a spot you never knew existed.

We just pushed some new features live on Streampad - full screen mode and real time buddylist.

Full Screen Mode

Let's say you are having a party. You have lots of friends over and you are all grooving out to a Streampad playlist. It would be really cool if you could show off that playlist on your monitor or big screen tv. Well, now you can! On the bottom right of Streampad, you should see a new full screen button. Click that and you will be taken into full screen mode. You can use your mouse to advance through tracks, pause or adjust the volume. Hit ESC or the close button on the upper right to exit full screen mode. You can also use keyboard shortcuts:

Play/Pause - SPACEBAR
Next Track - RIGHT ARROW
Previous Track - LEFT ARROW
Volume Up - UP ARROW
Volume Down - DOWN ARROW





Real Time Buddylist

Streampad now can show you who on your buddylist is listening to music - in real time! If you open up the 'Profile' drawer, in addition to seeing a 'HISTORY' tab, you will now see a 'BUDDIES' one as well. Clicking on it will show you who on your AIM buddylist is listening to music at that exact moment. You will see buddies that are listening in Streampad (as long as they have enabled the 'Update AIM status with current song') as well as buddies who have set their AIM status to show their current song on Winamp or iTunes with their AIM client.

Yesterday we introduced a new and exciting product on The Boot. It is called Socialthing and allows you to connect with other people on the site as well as your buddylist. It sits unobtrusively at the bottom of the page, and offers features such as chat, IM and site updates.



Once you sign in, you will get access to your entire buddylist. You can send and receieve instand messages as well as easily send your buddies a link to the page you are on.



There is also a chat feature will will allow you to chat with other people that are on the site the same time as you. This is a great way to connect with other country music fans.



In addition, when you leave comments on the site, you will have the opportunity to share those comments with your buddylist. You can optionally send your comments to your buddy feed. This feed shows up in AIM for your buddies to see.

We hope you enjoy Socialthing and all the new features it brings to The Boot. We'd love to hear what you think about it.

The all new Streampad site is now live! We've made things even easier for you to put Streampad on your site. In addition to supporting Tumblr, we now have custom plugins for Wordpress, Blogger and Typepad. If your site is running on something else, don't worry, we have you covered too.

Streampad has always been customizable, but until now you had to have some basic web development skills to know what you were doing. That is no longer the case. We have rolled out an all new Customize feature right on the site. You can choose colors from a drop down as well as choose which features you want to include on your site. It's simple and fun!



We also rolled out a Who Has It section which features sites sporting Streampad. It is a great way to find new music. Click around and discover some of the best music sites on the web.



In addition, we now have a Developers page. At the moment, it is pretty basic, but we will soon be documenting all the events and ways you could mashup Streampad on your page.

We hope you enjoy the new site and we hope you enjoy Streampad. We are continuously adding new features and want to hear from you. Tell us what you love and tell us what you hate. We are comitted to making Streampad the easiest and best way to deliver music on your site.