The Blog of Givemebeats.com

GMB UPDATES: New Features + Profile Themes

May is coming fast, and quickly I want to get GMB out of beta and show the producers the full potential of the site.

Before I get to the big update, let me tell you real quick about some features that are implemented to facilitate the buyers finding your beats.

Popular Tags. Tags are keywords set by the producers to describe how their beats sound like, or who they think could be singing or rapping over their beats. It allows users to browse beats by a common name, genre, location etc. If you want to find beat that may sound like Jay-Z's, you can go and check it.
History Beats, Favorite Beats, Popular tags are linked on the side and can be identified easily with distinguishable icons. The Favorite Beats link has a folder and heart on it, the Beats History link has a clock to bring you back, and the Popular Tags link has a tag.
In the BeatBox page the search box is cleaner, right on target, and more intuitive.
The BeatBox Search is fixed. You can also sort results by Most Favorited,
The beats are played faster.
... and a few tweaks here and there :)

But now, the major update: PROFILE THEMES.

Profile Themes allow you to design your profile the way you want it, by applying your own color and background, images etc. No need to know any HTML or CSS code to design your own. The editor is intuitive, all you do is applying colors, upload images and that's it.

I also added some pre-made themes to allow people to quickly update their profile and make it look unique.

After several weeks of testing, GMB will be out of beta in May '08.

Mardix

Posted: 04/29/08

GMB V6 Beta , part of the story

Once again Givemebeats.com has released a new version of its beats website dubbed GMB V6. As usual this new version brought a lot of new features that will facilitate the users and producers experience on the site. I will talk about the features in another post.

Whenever there is change some bugs may cause stuff to function properly, therefore I had to release the new version in BETA, GMB V6 Beta 1, on March 12th 2008. During this period I was monitoring the activity of the site, what was not working, where the users had problems, etc. And in the meantime I was fixing the errors, and figured out certain tricks to make stuff work. Beta 1 was really buggy, a lot of stuff were working properly on localhost, but on the real server it was a pain in the behind. I spent several nights adding and tweaking stuff. Well stuff started to work fine.

Some of the stuff that weren't working right are: the Beat Box was slow, people had difficulties loging in, viewing their favorite beats, the mailbox was not working, and the list went on.

After fixing, and making sure everything is ok, I released Beta 2 early April, most bugs were fixed. The Beat Box Store operate faster now. All the problems that the users had in Beta 1 were fixed in this one.

After I released beta 1, I had to stop the posting of the beats on the site. But as Apr 18 2008 it's working now, and working better than the previous GMB. Now when producers post beats, they don't have to wait for their beats to be approved by admin. Their beats are processed and available instantly for sale. The posting was a problem in the old GMB because admin had to approve them. Sometimes, I gotta admit that one, it took me several days even weeks for them to be processed. But this one is over though. However, admin will check on them and if there is anything wrong with the beats they will be errored out and the producer will have to re-upload them.
Also, to make sure that we have the best quality beats available to the artists, GMB added a new ranking system from 0 to 5, which is here to weed out the beats that are 'WHACK'. The lower a beat's rank is, the lower this beat's position will be i the Beat Box, and vice versa. Some people may not like it, but some producers do have some whack ass beats on the site.

Weel, as I'm getting closer to release the Complete Version which will come with the front page, a few stuff were added here and there. The player played the beats faster, the knowledge base is fixed, I started to post in the blog again, etc.

To come: Front Page, Profile design and more.

1

Posted: 04/23/08

The Blog is back

Welcome back to the GMB's Blog.

After a hiatus of posting in the Blog due to the work of GMB V6, I'm starting to post again in the blog.

As you can see, this blog is cleaner, and as usual you will get the updates on Givemebeats etc.

Well....

What more can I say... enjoy GMB V6

Peace!

Mardix :)

Posted: 04/23/08