New Noise
The past few months have brought hundreds of thousands of new users to Blip.fm. In fact, we are currently doubling the number of DJs every 10 weeks. Thanks to your efforts, we have rocketed up the charts on all the definitive website ranking sites and continue to see people stick around Blip.fm for DJ sessions way longer than most other social networks. Fortunately, we’ve been able to bolster our infrastructure to keep ahead of the new traffic and we will continue to make improvements along the way.
Today, Papa’s got a new bag of tricks. What tricks? Well, for starters we’ve just increased the number of songs in the song catalog by more than double, with even more to come. Yep, there’s a whole lot more stuff to blip. We’ve partnered with imeem to deliver all the full-length tracks they offer. And, because imeem stores all of the songs on their own super fast servers, you’ll see far less “unavailable” tracks from now on. You don’t have to do anything different, Blip.fm will pretty much behave the same as it always has; you search for music, preview and select a song just like before, but there’s just a whole lot more music to choose from.
The other big update is the addition of Ping.fm in the external services. Which effectively means we’ve added about 30 new social networking sites you can broadcast to. Ping.fm is like the swiss army knife of updating social networks. You set it up once and from then on it’ll update all your accounts with one post. You can automatically post blips to facebook, myspace, imeem, identi.ca, and all of these other sites. Just sign up over at Ping.fm, set up all the accounts you want to broadcast to, and add the external account in your Blip.fm settings. Happy broadcasting, blippers.
Some of you might also notice that we’ve changed “props to give” to “credits”. There’s a good reason for this: it was confusing. It was hard to explain the difference between props given to you and props to give. So, now you have props and credits. You use one credit to give props, and the person getting props also gets one credit. When you invite someone to sign up, you get a credit, etc. See? Simpler, right? OK, maybe there’s another reason for the change in nomenclature, but you’ll have to wait for that one.
Finally, there’s a long list of bugs and updates that are like candy sprinkles to make things even sweeter.
- New badges for 5,000, 10,000, and 25,000 listeners
- Cleaned up the UI just a bit
- Less short clips in the search results
- Fixed the playlist player for Windows users
- Last.fm correctly shows last 10 scrobbles again
- Changing account info on external services correctly verifies the info
- More less-interesting-but-good bug fixes
We’re always working to improve the service. Keep the feedback coming, we’re here all day looking at the computer screen and your emails give us a nice little break, and sometimes a good laugh.
Cheers,
-ian
41 Comments
BeardyBrave on April 21st, 2009
Agreed - the 30 second clips are a pain.
I do like the update and am intrigued by the credit thing… but the 30 second clips are beyond annoying. I have only come across a couple of them ( maybe the fact that I play music barely anyone knows has something to do with it 
)
yo on April 21st, 2009
what the *blip* have you done?
this bloody imeem player doesn’t work at all thus rendering the blip.fm totally unusable.
you’re killing blip.fm!
Rockr_2_dot_0 on April 21st, 2009
i agree with the former comments. what about these 30sec blips? can you please remove them or at least make kind of an option to take’em out of my stream?
please don’t get me wrong. blip.fm is a great social music service! i recommend it to my friends all the time. but the short clips are a pain in the ass…
Ealz on April 21st, 2009
I totally agree with the above comments. The very reason I started gravitating towards Blip.fm instead of other music sites I used to stream was my mission to ESCAPE that lousy iMeem player.
You have now officially killed Blip.fm for me.
wanbaclone on April 21st, 2009
It would be very helpful to add a “flag” function to a blip for reasons such as “30-second clip” or “unavailable”, and if flags pile up, it would alert Blip.fm to look at certain tracks for possible removal.
Keep up the good work! Blip.fm is absolute GENIUS!
Jacidbazz on April 21st, 2009
For the people asking about the 30 sec clips, if you click preview, you’ll notice it start to play in the imeem player on the right. If you click the timer, it will change from time played to time left to play, allowing you to get a good idea of the song length before blipping.
Personally, I noticed the difference in available tracks immediately, which bought me over here to find out why. All I can say is - thanks heaps blipstaff, this site continues to rock more and more each day…
Miss_Bella on April 21st, 2009
The player is interesting…for now.
And the song catalog pretty much just blew up with amazingness.
I love it! Great work guys 
wanbaclone on April 21st, 2009
The “shift+click” command to not play a track you blip doesn’t seem to be working for me. Is anyone else having this problem? VERY annoying.
fuzzygroove on April 21st, 2009
Maybe I should have been more clear – there should be very few 30 second clips now, and none from imeem. If you run into one, send us an email (support@blip.fm) and we’ll check into it.
Also, we’ve checked the imeem player in Safari, Firefox, IE7, and Chrome on Windows and OS X (where applicable). If you’re getting funky results, make sure to clear your browser cache and upgrade your flash player. If that still doesn’t fix it, we’ll gladly help you work out any bugs that might still be causing trouble.
Thanks,
-ian
Yan on April 21st, 2009
Also BTW @wanabaclone this is now fixed. Slipped through the cracks last night
-yan
BeardyBrave on April 21st, 2009
@fuzzygroove - obviously not the case I’m afraid. Imeem have a FAQ specifically about it.
http://www.imeem.com/faq/category/6/media-features#Music
It’s happening more often for me now and is quite jarring when it happens. Don’t get me wrong - the choice “explosion” is more than worth it … any site that can provide me with Amon Tobin -Rhino Jockey is just fine by me
daveraleigh on April 21st, 2009
Not 100% sure….but don’t think i’m getting ‘new listener’ emails (checked my settings….all good)
Am getting prop/reblipped emails, though.
wanbaclone on April 21st, 2009
@daveraleigh I’m having the same problem. Many of my new listener e-mails aren’t actually getting to my inbox. (Some are. Some aren’t.)
Overall, blip.fm staff, I’m SUPREMELY impressed with how much blip.fm has changed for the better in one day. 
daveraleigh on April 21st, 2009
are we suppose to get emails when ppl accept suggested DJs? (that’s all I can think of)
Overall…I’m not digging the update. Seems I’m finding less variety…unless its an imeem track.
Previews also seem to be hit/miss.
ChaCha Fance on April 21st, 2009
Added my Ping.fm account but it’s not working 
ptneves on April 21st, 2009
This iMeem or whatever *blip* changes you’ve made today turned blip.fm unplayable in my firefox.
No play > no fun > no more blip.
It was good while it lasted
RIP blip
P.S. Overall, blip.fm staff, I’m SUPREMELY impressed with how much blip.fm has changed for worse in just one day. What is going to be your next kill?
Gerry on April 21st, 2009
The change to imeem just distroyed the very reason I was using blip. So sad.
Gerry on April 21st, 2009
How about an option in our profiles to exclude blip results? Can you do that??? Please!
Gerry on April 21st, 2009
^that should have said “imeem results”
Shahi on April 22nd, 2009
1. I-meem player doesn’t play all previews (now I have to preview all the found blips to exclude 30-sec, and I cant understand why the same artist can have full time blip and 30-sec)- it plays some, then just freezes and I need to reset results of my search. Very annoying.
2. LOADS of blips, as I was saying, have just 30-sec length. I looked for some blues by Muddy Waters - and checked out at least 10 of them from the beginning, and all these were 30-sec. Then i-meem preview player stuck again.
I use Firefox 3.08 and usually it works perfectly.
What’s going on?
And after all I’m joining Gerry concerning “an option in our profiles to exclude imeem) results”
I hope for the best, you are doing a great job!
Shahi on April 22nd, 2009
I would like to add I sorted it out with iMeem player. Seems like it works only with songs from iMeem (I didn’t know that) so it doesn’t freeze, just doesn’t work if the song isn’t from iMeem. And it’s very good because it means that the song is full-time. Right?
23ish on April 22nd, 2009
Bye Bye Blip.
Gerry on April 22nd, 2009
It’s almost funny that you called the entry “New Noise”. You’re dead right on that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise
“In common use, the word noise means unwanted sound or noise pollution.”
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=noise
1. sound, esp. of a loud, harsh, or confused kind: deafening noises.
2. a sound of any kind: to hear a noise at the door.
3. loud shouting, outcry, or clamor.
4. a nonharmonious or discordant group of sounds.
5. an electric disturbance in a communications system that interferes with or prevents reception of a signal or of information, as the buzz on a telephone or snow on a television screen.
6. Informal. extraneous, irrelevant, or meaningless facts, information, statistics, etc.: The noise in the report obscured its useful information.
7. Obsolete. rumor or gossip, esp. slander.
Ian White on April 22nd, 2009
Gerry: It’s actually in reference to a song by the Swedish punk band Refused: http://blip.fm/profile/fuzzygroove/blip/7975212
You can read more about them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refused
pyrrho on April 22nd, 2009
Way too many 30 second clips from imeem. Please filter them all out, waste of time.
GR8FL on April 22nd, 2009
when i pause a blip, it either starts from the beginning or plays another one.
when I try to type in a new song to preview, the blip currently playing stops - this is before I preview
reblip is random at best… if I look for it in another tab, the blip is not even there… have to keep refreshing and draining memory.
dave on April 22nd, 2009
a few other things I noticed
I’ve experienced the same thing as GR8FL…sometimes when you click ’search’ it stops the song you’re playing.
Sometimes preview doesn’t work. Noticed it hangs sometimes when waiting for “http://ad.imeem.com” or something like that….
During a few searches ALL previews get “strikethroughs” even songs from different artists with different song titles…
I take it not all imeem songs are available? did a search on blip.fm for something available on imeem but came up with nada.
GR8FL on April 22nd, 2009
adding to the interruption when trying to search another song and the current blip STOPS, when trying to resume playing, even though it says playing “current selected song” another is playing instead. Even when purposely pressing play on the correct song… it still plays some other.
DJstromer19 on April 22nd, 2009
Fantastic update ! I love it. The library is amazing. I have been blipping songs left and right I couldn’t find before ! Awesome ! I have no complaints.
I think you guys are the ultimate ninjas !
Jason.
BlondieATC on April 22nd, 2009
I can’t PLAY anything.I can log on and search songs, but my preview and play buttons aren’t working. Everything was working fine Saturday, but not yesterday or today. I uploaded the new Adobe, am using IE…what did I miss?!?!? (beside two days worth of blips to get me through my work day!!!)
Yan on April 22nd, 2009
@all hey guys, while we read the blog and its comments, it’s not the easiest way for us to keep track of support requests so most of the stuff here goes unattended. That said, please email us at support@blip.fm with these concerns. Thanks,
@briangreene on April 22nd, 2009
Yan, yes email is a good way to reach support, but how can Dave know what GR8FL experienced if all support is email. Best i’ve seen above is a request to opt out of imeem search results. There is a way, put imeem on for basic users and keep it opt out for those with “Enable advanced and beta features” set to YES I’m Cutting Edge (not cutting hedge).
The blip library catalog doubled? I considered two branches of my local library merging when I read this. The number of books would double but the range of books would remain the same.
But imeem but imeem, adds massively to the task of pre clearing a song to blip, many do not pre clear (BOO) and the streams are a wash with 30 second samples. Entire albums from Entire artists collections from opt out labels are now here in 30 second samples. It is intriguing to hear a sample but it makes me fire up Spotify to hear the whole track. Now I could bugger off to Spotify but its anti-social and i love blip for what the DJs put into selections by choice and additional text.
The volume of new 30sec samples can’t be wished away. The blip DB was always the cleanest. Please allow a setting so we can keep it clean.
as always thanks for the platform - blip rocks.
kalsangikid on April 22nd, 2009
This is great! You guys rock!
Just wondering, do you have plans for blip and tumblr integration? I was hoping that anything I blipped would come out as an audio post in tumblr instead of just a link to the blip.
Gerry on April 23rd, 2009
Thanks Ian White for the background. Although I think you missed my point.
I’m glad most here like the idea of the imeem filter, but I’m getting the the feeling that it might be too late, or there was some cash involved in this deal that the Blip guys don’t want to have to give back. They also could be doing it to keep the copyright guys off their backs (even though linking isn’t really a breach of copyright). Regardless of what the reason, it will still blow hard if we can’t get that filter.
Off topic side note: I’ve gotta give the Blip guys major credit for one thing though. My last comment bagging them out had links in it so it automatically went into a sandbox where it had to first be approved by a moderator. Most web companies would have abused their power and deleted the comment, but the Blip mods still let it through! You gained back a lot of respect from me because of that, so now I wanna help you guys work out this issue if possible or is it option not available to you?
Gerry on April 23rd, 2009
Damn wordpress and it’s lack of edit on comments. The end of that comment should have said:
.. work out this issue if possible. Is the filter option doable or is it option not available to you?
ilbis on April 30th, 2009
Hi, just added a Ping.fm but seems not working from blip
sagopal on June 3rd, 2009
Hi ,
Do you have blip.fm T-shirts ready ? i badly want it. Let me know if its ready & available for purchase. I would be happy to design the graphic for the T-S if its still not ready
–Gopal
andrewmadinc on January 24th, 2010
How can we get songs put on blip that are indie released? If it is a copyright issue what if I have permission from the artist?
Shahi on April 21st, 2009
But what can we do now with a good half of blips which have 30 seconds length only?? They are not marked in preview window not to blip them, they are cluttering up all the broadcast. Now it’s not a radio any more, this is just set of 30-sec ad musical (s)craps and listening is not interesting at all. Suggest ban 30-sec blips at all not to litter good radio. Let it be less songs but all of them full length!