idiomag

We have now launched what has been one of the most-requested features for idiomag - a personalised mp3 player to accompany the magazine. You will now receive a playlist of suggested tracks, based on the selection of articles that you are reading.

Previously, relevant music was targeted to each article, but there were few playback controls. This independent player now allows you to have complete control whilst reading the magazine, with integrated click-to-buy links, and optional intelligent-skip functionality: to fast forward the playlist to the relevant track when the page is turned.

Hope you like it as much as we do. Please let us know how we can improve it - and it goes without saying that we will be increasing coverage of artists and improving the quality of selected tracks over the next month or so.

Just realised that I never made a post about our redesign… It went live a while ago, and if you like or loathe it, please let us know so we can keep improving it. Based on feedback and traffic stats, we could see that the interaction buttons weren’t entirely useful or understandable previously, so we have cleaned everything up a bit. Hopefully it is easier to use now!

We also added in loads of new contributors, and more content types such as the funky photogalleries. idiomag is now running about 6000 articles a month!  And growing…

Just a quick post for now…

We have signed up loads of new contributors over the past week. These include the (self-proclaimed) “world’s premier music publication” - Billboard.com. Well, perhaps we are the “universe’s premier music publication”… ha.

The web design tyrannosaur, .net magazine, who have featured us on no less than 3 occasions, are holding their annual Awards. So please click here and vote for “www.idiomag.com” in the following categories:

Best New Site
Web App of the Year
Interactive Award
Innovation Award

If you are feeling suitably generous and want to go the extra mile, you could also vote for “www.thrusites.com” as the best Design Agency of the year. They have done a great job helping idiomag develop.

Now relax with that warm fuzzy feeling, knowing you have helped us. Thanks!

In the last 2 weeks we have driven 3000 miles, visited 16 universities, and talked to over 100 representatives from student music and journalism societies across the country. Lots of fun!

We had a superb response, with almost 200 students signing up to be associate journalists with idiomag. So now, in addition to the great content we are syndicating from top publications, we will soon have local articles about your local music scene.

So now the fun stops and the hard work begins (yeah right!)…

If you want to get involved, whether contributing some articles, or helping us get the word out about idiomag, just drop us an email. Our new about page has those. And I have been warned that team photos will be uploaded there soon. Ouch.

We’ve been keeping our heads down for the last month - lots of stuff happening though. You can now see the new homepage at http//www.idiomag.com - very sexy. There’s lots more behind it which will be announced next week.

Anyway, so back to the post. We are in the running for a People’s Choice Award at the Digital Music Awards. We’d very much appreciate your vote! Just click on the image below to do it. Easy!

Well, a lot has happened since we last posted here. The big players have been buying up the online advertising market, Facebook has allowed external apps in its social network, and last.fm has finally been bought by CBS (last.fm: please don’t change - we love you as you are!).

We have some very exciting developments in the pipeline for this month. We have been working hard on tweaking idiomag’s algorithms and content-base, as well as making the magazine more readable. Also, at some point in the next month or so, we will jump on the (very appealing) bandwagon and create some groovy Facebook applications.

We have had a good range of new contributors come on board, including JunkMedia, Ground Up Hip Hop, Losing Today and Chronic Magazine. This will really help deepen our content-base, enabling us to deliver a more relevant and interesting magazine. In addition, we are now broadening the content beyond gig and album reviews, to include interactive competitions, feature articles and some podcast-style sections.

One major improvement that we are just completing, is that readers will soon be able to join idiomag using their last.fm, iLike, MOG, or MyStrands username. From this we can immediately create a very relevant magazine, from their past listening habits. Much simpler and quicker.

Its also nice to see that idiomag is still picking up some great press, with recent mentions in WebUser magazine and Precision Marketing magazine.

Well thats about it for the moment. As usual, let us know your thoughts and suggestions.

As part of a large campaign to promote their personalised shoe range, Nike have advertised through idiomag with a funky little interactive ad. This is the first campaign that we have run in idiomag that promotes a non-tech/music product, and I am interested to know what you all think. I feel it fits well within the overall interface and doesn’t interfere with the content. And it’s a bonus that the product carries the personalisation theme… you can now read a personalised magazine, whilst wearing your personalised running shoes… now I know that’s something you could only dream of a year ago!

To check out the ad, just go and view your magazine at http://www.idiomag.com (quick and painless sign-up process if you haven’t already)

Just a quick post to let you all know about idiomag v1. We had lots of great feedback on the beta version, most of which we have included in our development roadmap. The new version is now live at www.idiomag.com

Basically, the new version is more powerful (better personalisation engine), sexier (UI redesign), more robust (it doesn’t break when there are more than a thousand users reading it), and “more full” of great content!

For those who are interested, the key improvements from the beta version are outlined below.

Content
We have used the beta period to hand-pick the best contributors for idiomag. Now numbering around 70, our content providers range from respected bloggers, to mainstream publishers - all providing quality feature articles and reviews in the music subject area. The biggest names at the moment are Blogcritics, Music Emissions and SoundFires.

Tagging
We were very aware that the beta version’s tagging system was not very usable or scalable, and we have redesigned this so that the emphasis is placed on the magazine learning your interests, rather than you teaching the magazine. The interface should also be much easier to use.

Multimedia player
For v1 we have built a robust audio and video player, so that more engaging content can be easily included in the magazine.

Magazine layouts
We have ‘prettified’ the magazine interface and improved the automated page layout engine, so that magazine pages present the content in a more visually pleasing manner - including the use of automated colour themes.

Magazine interaction
In v1, readers can comment upon any article, share it with friends, and save it in a personal archive. We didn’t want to head down the networking route too quickly, but these features start to build in that direction, and set the ground for future releases. Watch this space…

Content delivery
Although idiomag doesn’t directly follow the “wisdom of the crowds” doctrine (we want to deliver to you what you want, not what your friends want), we have added a rating system for quality to complement the current relevancy rating system. After selecting the articles that you will most probably like to read, idiomag takes into account whether other readers have rated the content’s quality positively.

Content upload system
idiomag has been described as “glossy RSS” and we have vastly improved/streamlined the process by which content is transformed from RSS feeds (basic text) into a glossy magazine page. This makes the whole publishing operation a lot more scalable.

Those are the main improvements, but there isn’t enought space to mention all of them here. Anyway - if you like what we are doing, do tell all your friends to sign-up at www.idiomag.com. As always, please drop us an email if you have any comments/suggestions.

The Register/Tech Digest have listed idiomag on a run-down of UK startups. We are alongside some great companies, including last.fm and DropSend.

The list is very diverse, with some really interesting companies being mentioned. It is great to see that the UK startup scene is alive and kicking.