Check out yesterday's update. Don't know about you, but I can't get excited about "Hits Counter Returns!" Why did they have to drop it in the first place?
It's all too typical of these Web 2.0 "renovations." Ditch perfectly good features, then claim that you're giving us a new and "improved" version. Arrgghhhhhh. . . .
Please stop doing things that way!
Posts
The Times is broken
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It gives me no satisfaction to say this — indeed it fills me with
trepidation for the nation — but The Times is broken. I know some of you
are thinking,...
1 day ago
The new Hits counter, as numerous people have pointed out on the CD Baby org forums, is not as straightforward as it used to be... still, its presence helps explain why sales of CDs, particularly, are so much lower for ourselves, and other artists, since the relaunch of the site.
ReplyDeleteAs I've posted there, and on Richy's blog:
I have to echo the comments of other folks here - our hits are now but a fraction of what they were pre-launch. The "sounds like" links appear to not be working for us, either. The great majority of the vastly reduced number of hits are now coming directly from links on our own website.
Have to agree with everyone else pointing out that the Hits data is now more complicated to review. Still, maybe it's better that way. I'll not spend the extra effort to be depressed about how things that once were great and working simply are now diminished.
It is sad to spend years building up a profile, and generating good business - only to see such efforts negated by messed-up programming etc.
I've been too busy with music activities lately to monitor progress of the CD Baby site. Is there anything positive happening? Any sense of a recovery happening?
Or, are people simply moving on - and/or away? If the latter, what sites are proving to be viable alternatives?
cheers, Ad
There are tons of positive things happening. I'm not going to go into a bunch of details here, but I will say that I've been at Disc Makers headquarters for the last couple weeks (why wasn't THAT an option on the poll?) and I've been meeting with top IT staff and management, as well as training some folks here to help out with overflow phone calls.
ReplyDeleteThings are getting fixed, period. But everyone needs to understand that this stuff takes time, and that it's even worse if we screw up the fixes. So we need everyone to continue to be patient with us.
We've learned some valuable lessons over the last few months and if you guys trust me, also trust that everything is going to be awesome and back to normal soon.
By the way, while I'm here in New Jersey, is there anything you guys want me to ask for?
at this point talk is cheap, many of us worked hard to get cds out and build a little business and have stuck around in hopes that things are going to improve but so far NOTHING has really happened but more watered down fixes on a site that was working great. Cdbaby should be apologizing to us and talking about something special in the way of bringing some business back to us that they chased away.
ReplyDeleteThere's an old saying in show business "Trust Me" means "Fuck You" so Pony why don't you "Trust ME"
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, major corporations do upgrades all the time with software. I've been involved with several of those projects. While cdbaby can say they "have learned things", the stuff they are learning is pretty simple concepts that most out in the business of doing upgrades already knows. I've never seen an upgrade go quite as bad as this.
ReplyDeleteSo I don't buy for a minute that somehow they are now "inventing air itself". They obviously didn't test it and had no plan for how to work with it. They didn't even have extra people in place to deal with the problems it seems. Whoever is in charge of this upgrade must have beans for brains. That's the only way it makes sense.
I have no confidence in cdbaby and I have no expectation that they will do the right thing in the future. They have proven otherwise. I'm moving on and pulling my cd's off of their site. My hits are dismal and my sales are piddly. I just want to know where the "money" is disappearing to?
It is sad because cdbaby used to be a good place for independents but now they are becoming nothing more than a footnote.
Pony we still need sales widgets for facebook and such!
ReplyDeletenothing short of a full and frank confession of all problems, an audit and a restorating of the old site is good enough now. The damage is done.
ReplyDeleteBtw CDBABY was never 'awesome' it just worked and that was good enough. As it happens places like Zimbalam, Tunecore, RU and others are 'awesome' in how they work and how fluid their back ends are.
Seriously CD BABY *NEEDS* to check out some of the SUPERIOR competition to see how it should be done and stop soft soaping us with BS 'sorrys' and little action.
Well.. I don't care that much, all my new release have gone elsewhere and I will pull the rest off CD Baby when I can. (when they actually respond to emails!)
Hi Pony ~ If this is genuinely you, I'm encouraged that yourself and other CD Baby employees are still working to fix things from within.
ReplyDeleteAs to what I'd want from New Jersey, we're now three months into the relaunch, and, my most fervent wish is for a rollback.
That seems unlikely to happen, so, while there's a myriad of elements I'd like to see restored and/or fixed, looking at the big picture, there's two key things:
1) search functionality - casual visitors to the CD Baby site are no longer discovering our CDs; the titles don't show up in search functions as they did, nor does the "sounds like" entries we've used turn up our titles. Consequently, our physical CD sales, and visitor hits, have been decimated by the relaunch - this is one thing I'd want from New Jersey
2) Digital Distribution partner sales - are either absent, incomplete or delayed; our digital sales represent the bulk of our revenues, and, with physical CD sales now pretty much wiped out, these DD partner sales are even more important to our business. For years, we could operate knowing that there was a steady stream of DD partner revenues coming in - and we knew when to anticipate the big lumps, as well as the smaller paying weeks. Since the relaunch, this is all screwed up. The rhythm is no longer there, and we see weeks in a row with zero DD partner sales. It's out of whack with our historical patterns established over the years and in all seasons. What I'd like most from New Jersey is to have our revenue streams fixed so that we see a return to previous income levels, and to the reliability and intuited predictability of the figures we once enjoyed.
thanks very much! Ad