New URLs, no more weirdness.

UPDATE: It seems there is still some weirdness going down. We have reverted back to the old URL structure for now. We'll get on to fixing it tonight. Sorry about that. -- YS Team.

Hey y'all. We spent a large part of Saturday in making changes to the server and architecture of the site. As a result you may have experienced some anomalies, disruptions or general weirdness with the site over the weekend. Our apologies for this. Specifically the 'save to web' feature should work again now. On the plus side, we have a bunch of nice, shiny new URLs. Your homepage - for instance - should now be www.yourspins.com/username. There are a whole load of other readable, predictable, hackable, guessable URLs - which we will blog about later. In the meantime, thanks to Tom Coates, whose excellent presentation on this subject was the inspiration for the change.

YourSpins Podcast No.1

OK - so we've finally hopped on the podcasting bandwagon. Follow this link below to hear our first podcast. Finally you can listen on your iPod of some of our favourite mixes from YourSpins in the last few weeks. We'll probably do this on a more regular basis if it proves to be popular, so get downloading and give us your feedback!

YourSpins Podcast #1 - July 2006
(30MB mp3 file - right click to save)

Featuring:
Kinath - Beatrugged (Rossi's Rugged Ibiza Mix by armando_rossi)
Spooky - No Return (Muzack Remix by Djzackattack)
Public Symphony - (Moments by NighHuntA)
Alex Bluesound - Nervous Breakdown (Minimalist by junglist)
Take 5 - Take 5 (Sweet Soft Lovely by junglist)

Robbie Williams remix news

As many of you know, you can now remix Robbie Williams' 'Sin Sin Sin' using YourSpins technology at the following URL: http://www.liebejedenremix.de

What is amazing is that we have had over 750 mixes of the one track to date. And the competition is barely a week old. So if you are German and want to win VIP tickets, or even meet Robbie himself, get spinning. If you're not in Germany, a phrasebook will help you simply play around with the mixer and make your own Robbie remix!

GLIDEASCOPE COMPETITION DETAILS

Hi all,

Sorry it's been a while coming, but here are the details for the Glideascope 'Big Big Disgrace' remix competition.

The competition runs until 14th August at midday London time. After this date, Glideascope will listen to the mixes and decide on the overall winners.

The prizes for the winners are the following:

1st Prize: iPod Nano
2nd Prize: iPod Shuffle
3rd Prize: Promo Glideascope DVD
4th Prize: Signed "Audio Cinematography" album
5th Prize: Signed "Big Big Disgrace" single

PLUS (yes, there's more) there will be some random prizes awarded sporadically throughout the competition where certain mixers will win a nice Glideascope t-shirt. You might be lucky enough to win a spot prize of Glideascope's "With Strings Attached" EP as well.

At the end of the competition, winning mixes will be available from the Glideascope site as a freely-downloadable podcast.

So what are you waiting for - get spinning now!

Screencasts coming soon

"Screencasts? What are they?" I hear you ask. Well they are little movies of what happens on the screen when a user performs certain tasks. We'll be making a couple of these to augment our help files and FAQs to illustrate how to make a mix, how to save it, how to make ringtones etc. I just need to find a USB microphone and we'll be up and running. Stay tuned.

New track, new prize!

The latest track available to remix on YourSpins is a new genre for us - classic techno in the style orginating from Detroit in the late 80's - when hissing hi-hats ruled and basslines broke many a speaker system. This track however, originates from Romania and the studio of Alex Bluesound. Alex is very much involved in the Romania techno scene and this composition - Nervous Breakdown - is his first for YourSpins.

To make things interesting, Alex is also offering a prize to the first 10 composers of the mixes he likes best. Winners will be offered a special mp3 DJ-set from Alex - exclusive to YourSpins. To win this great musical journey, simply tag your mix with 'djmp3' and make sure it is one of the first and best mixes!

YourSpins - video star!

Many thanks to YS member blogdon who has created a fantastic promo-video for YourSpins.com. Check out the video on his site here: http://blogdon.net/?p=274

Congratulazioni Azzuri!

Many congratulations to Italy for winning the World Cup! There are some wonderful photos of the final on this site - and it is always interesting looking at photos of the fans faces at full-time. So, no more football - for a few weeks at least - until it starts all over again in England. What will we do without it?!

World Cup photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/worldcup/clusters/

YourSpins & Robbie Williams!!!

Yes - it's true, the boy from Stoke has released his new single, 'Sin Sin Sin' in YourSpins.com's .di format. As of today, Robbie fans will be able to mix the great new track as part of Saatchi & Saatchi's campaign in Germany for VISA. This is the press release that went out over the wires a couple of hours ago, in full:

Interactive Music From Robbie Williams And New web2.0 Interactive Music Technology From YourSpins.com Harnessed By SAATCHI & SAATCHI For VISA Campaign

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 7, 2006--Robbie Williams said: "I am very excited about the online remix campaign developed by SAATCHI & SAATCHI for VISA in Germany. The technology from Yourspins.com is great for the fans, giving them the chance to interact and experience the creative magic of music in a completely new way. It is the first of its kind taking place entirely on the web and it is great to be part of that."

The technology behind www.yourspins.com is being used by SAATCHI & SAATCHI to launch an innovative campaign for VISA in Germany. By visiting http://www.liebejedenremix.de/ , Robbie Williams fans in Germany are able to remix "Sin Sin Sin" online and enter their mix into a series of competitions for prizes awarded by VISA. The technology, which is patented by Digimpro Ltd, allows an unprecedented level of interactivity with music. SAATCHI & SAATCHI is the first agency to apply the technology directly into an advertising campaign, "love every remix" which is based upon the "love every day" strategy of VISA.

Robbie Williams fans are also able to use YourSpins proprietary technology to remix "Sin Sin Sin" and then create their own personal ringtones from their unique mix of the track . The ability to personalise ringtones in this way is a market first.

Harry Otto, project leader at SAATCHI & SAATCHI, said: "Online activity will increasingly be at the centre of campaigns. VISA, as the Official Payment Partner of ROBBIEWILLIAMS.com needs to appear as an authentic partner within the target group. So we wanted to feature something exclusive from the artist, and which is only available at the VISA/ROBBIEWILLIAMS.com promotional Website. So we chose YourSpins.com technology as it is designed to give our target group something new and fun, but most importantly something that will really hold their attention."

Wendy Schoonjans, Country Marketing, VISA Europe said: "Visa is very excited about the campaign based around www.liebejedenremix.de, which combines Robbie Williams' music with YourSpins.com technology to create a new interactive music experience. As part of the VISA's Love Every Day advertising campaign and the www.robbiewilliams.com partnership, fans have the chance to remix their own Robbie Williams song and win fantastic prizes!"

Rupert Evans, MD of YourSpins, said: "The whole of the YourSpins community is about entertaining people online. The fact SAATCHI & SAATCHI have used the technology directly in VISA's campaign underlines the technology's value as something which can, with the right music, grab and hold peoples attention. We are also delighted to be able to offer Robbie Williams fans the ability to remix and personalise their ringtones."

About YourSpins

YourSpins is owned by Digimpro, a privately-held UK Limited company specialising in interactive music software applications. Its technology has been developed over a number of years and is patented in the EPU and US, with a patent pending in Japan.

A number of artists have recorded in Digimpro's format including Moby, Roots Manuva, Glideascope, Sasha and Erasure and now Robbie Williams.

Digimpro was the winner of the CON4 award for innovation; a runner-up at the Popkomm 2005 IMEA awards, and accepted a Sputnik award honouring Moby.

Website: http://www.yourspins.com

RSS feeds on YourSpins

Some of you will have seen little orange buttons popping up on the site over the last few days. These are links to the RSS feeds for various elements of that page. An RSS feed is simply a data stream which is activated each time something changes on the site. The BBC do a better job of describing it here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3223484.stm

You can subscribe to RSS feeds with an RSS-reader, such as the online version at http://www.bloglines.com.

Whats the advantage of this? Well, you don't have keep visiting the site to see if someone has left a comment on your mix, if there is a new di track available, if a new mix of your favourite track has been made, or if your friend has uploaded a new mix. If you subscribe to the relevant feeds, then you will get alerted via your RSS reader. This means you can switch off the email alerts and still stay in touch with what you want to know about.

As an example, here is the RSS feed for all mixes that I make. You know you can't live without these!
chrisle1972's RSS mix feed

Just cut and paste the URL into your RSS reader and away we go. Don't forget to comment on the mixes as I make them!

Weekend update

Well, apart from the trauma of the World Cup (at least for England fans) this post is a quick update on what's been going on in the world of YourSpins for the last few days. Last Thursday and Friday we were at the excellent London Calling exhibition in Earl's Court in London. We met many wonderful people there and saw a killer set from Glideascope. You really should go and see them if you get the chance.

Things were brought to a somewhat premature end by the screening of the Germany v Argentina game in the bar area - which meant that we were standing in a stuff, blacked-out room on one of the hottest days this year in the UK!

Also on Friday, we messed-up big time with our mailer programme. Read all about the sorry episode here:
http://www.yourspins.com/newforum.aspx?g=posts&t=174

We promise it won't happen again :-(