Live data from Hacker News

Myspace previews complete redesign

new.myspace.com

151–160 of 275 posts

Re: Myspace previews complete redesign

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company I work for (Josephmark) was hired by MySpace to redesign the site and create something radically different. The interface you see was created by a few talented designers, the video you say was staged is definitely not staged. What you are seeing is what the new MySpace will look like when it's ready to launch. Yes, the site is focusing music - the new MySpace is going to be a social music platform because…

I have to say as a fellow designer. Great work! It looks stunning I hope it works as well as it looks cause that is probably more important than the visual aesthetics.

Thanks mate, I'll pass the praise on to the design team. I'm on the dev team here, so my involvement hasn't been as great as theirs. The response from the video seems to be pretty positive, hopefully everyone is just as impressed when the final site is ready for the public to use. I am a bit biased here because I'm proud of the work my colleagues have done, but it definitely is one of the nicest looking music products out there.

Visually I think it's rather pleasing. It's different and the horizontal scrolling might not be everyone's cup of tea, but screens seem to be getting wider so it makes sense that sites start adopting a more horizontal oriented approach to web design to accommodate larger resolution screens.

I do find it kind of ironic the design team use Mac's and people are saying that the new MySpace looks like it got inspiration from the Windows 8 Metro / People Hub, haha.

Re: Myspace previews complete redesign

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about detecting features. It's about testing: When you're developing a web app, each new browser you choose to support increases your testing time: starting out developing for chrome, adding safari support usually is just a formality. adding firefox support means a couple extra hours of testing, but everything usually works. adding opera support means your tests are going to start failing, and a bunch more w…

"Hey friend, it looks like you are using Opera. Beware, pal, that we don't go to the opera down here on the ranch, so there may be rough-riding ahead! Try one of these nifty browsers buddy, or sally forth into the unknown. OK, pardner?"

You can put all the disclaimers you want before a use and they will "venture forth into the unknown". However, they will ignore (if they even read/understood it) your warning and then bury you in support tickets, complain loudly to their friends, and leave you with a mess to deal with and no real clean/easy way out.

Re: Myspace previews complete redesign

#153
post #38

Just watched the video [1] in entirety. One point, you can tell this is a total work in progress/concept, and that the UI is also most likely staged at this point. (I make this observation based on the fact that every post had "12 Connects", "3 Comments" and "2 Shares". Surely if you put this much effort into production of a video you would change these numbers?) Anyway, features which I picked up from the video... -…

Am i wrong in saying that Myspace seemed to stay relevant for longer than it possibly should have purely because musicians and bands seemed to have an affection for it, for whatever reason? I know that even up until recently, when i've searched for local musicians, their Myspace page is still very high in search rankings, and i still often (somehow) find myself listening to local band's music via Myspace. If they're…

Musicians like myspace because you can customize your homepage. And it's accepted to send invites to random people. On Facebook you don't have either of these. Also they added music friendly features such as letting users select your tune as their homepage theme song. As a musician I've found Myspace to be invaluable.

I think they face stiff competition from soundcloud. But a big problem with soundcloud is the amount of spammy bands that comment on songs and the lack of casual listeners like on myspace.

Re: Myspace previews complete redesign

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you could do that if you had unlimited developer time and people using old browsers are an important market. but that isn't always reality, you've got to choose where to focus your efforts.

No, you don't need unlimited developer time to do feature detection. It's just good practice, after it's ingrained it doesn't take any more time than not doing it.

Don't mix "development cost" with "overall support cost".

Overall support will include specific feature testing, regression testing, and user testing. Additionally, support tickets may be opened and introduce support costs in ticket management, escalation, and assessment.

Re: Myspace previews complete redesign

#155
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opera doesn't support websockets. I'm sure some socket.IO fans will tell me that's not a big deal, but it kind of is. modern browsers support websockets. and i know, this demo doesn't use it and will work fine in opera if you spoof the UA, but it's a lot easier to develop if you pick a feature set you're going to support, and skim out any browsers that don't support that feature set.

Or you could just use the features you want to use and try to fail gracefully when you can't. (Old IE could be a special case, as it is solid chunk of FUBAR.)

Degradability died as an industry desire about 6mos after it emerged.

Re: Myspace previews complete redesign

#156
post #100

As a computer scientist and an Opera user this actually insults me: http://i.imgur.com/7k0bN.png Ironically Opera was the one who proposed the -tag which this site uses for it's rotating LP, in 2007. [1] Way to exclude users. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video#History_of_.3Cvideo...

The Web 2.0 craze is leading us back to the "Best viewed with" insanity of the 90's. And is only going to get worse, with WebGL is not just "Sorry your browser is not supported, please download a different one." , but "Your video card drivers are not supported, buy new hardware and/or install a different Operating System"

Making choices is a part of web development and choosing not to include an audience based on the technology they use is a choice. It's perfectly valid to make that choice--even if it excludes people--but it's a choice (that should be) dependent on the audience you are trying to serve.

For example, I support a few websites aimed at farmers. The sites are simple and degrade gracefully, because farmers tend to use older technology; small, because farmers don't typically have access to broadband internet; and mobile-friendly, because data access via cell phone is often more reliable for them than a consumer internet connection. These sites are not impressive, but they suit their purpose and their audience. So, obviously, the technology choice can go backwards as well.

Side-note: one of my favorite games is "breaking" websites by opening them in IE8 and reloading them with "Compatibility Mode" turned on.

Re: Myspace previews complete redesign

#157
post #141
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Web 2.0 craze is leading us back to the "Best viewed with" insanity of the 90's. And is only going to get worse, with WebGL is not just "Sorry your browser is not supported, please download a different one." , but "Your video card drivers are not supported, buy new hardware and/or install a different Operating System"

So what exactly do you propose? That we just halt all technological innovation on the web so that people that don't feel better about having old browsers and/or computers? This is a ridiculous idea, and a ridiculous comment. I'm a web developer and I'm so excited about making awesome things and the fact that the web is evolving and enabling us to do this, and share our creations with the world. People like you and co…

>So what exactly do you propose? That we just halt all technological innovation on the web so that people that don't feel better about having old browsers and/or computers?

Straw man.

>This is a ridiculous idea, and a ridiculous comment.

He didn't propose anything, just stated the problem. You're the one putting words in his mouth and jumping to overwrought conclusions.

Relax dude.

Re: Myspace previews complete redesign

#158

Just watched the video [1] in entirety. One point, you can tell this is a total work in progress/concept, and that the UI is also most likely staged at this point. (I make this observation based on the fact that every post had "12 Connects", "3 Comments" and "2 Shares". Surely if you put this much effort into production of a video you would change these numbers?) Anyway, features which I picked up from the video... -…

The company I work for (Josephmark) was hired by MySpace to redesign the site and create something radically different. The interface you see was created by a few talented designers, the video you say was staged is definitely not staged. What you are seeing is what the new MySpace will look like when it's ready to launch. Yes, the site is focusing music - the new MySpace is going to be a social music platform because…

It looks great. You guys are really pushing the design/interface envelope.

Re: Myspace previews complete redesign

#159

Just watched the video [1] in entirety. One point, you can tell this is a total work in progress/concept, and that the UI is also most likely staged at this point. (I make this observation based on the fact that every post had "12 Connects", "3 Comments" and "2 Shares". Surely if you put this much effort into production of a video you would change these numbers?) Anyway, features which I picked up from the video... -…

I loved the lyrics to the song:

    Maybe I'm ashamed to want you back
    Maybe I'm afraid you'll never stay
    Thought I hated you a long long time
    There was my mistake
Those were my thoughts exactly.

Re: Myspace previews complete redesign

#160
post #141
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Web 2.0 craze is leading us back to the "Best viewed with" insanity of the 90's. And is only going to get worse, with WebGL is not just "Sorry your browser is not supported, please download a different one." , but "Your video card drivers are not supported, buy new hardware and/or install a different Operating System"

So what exactly do you propose? That we just halt all technological innovation on the web so that people that don't feel better about having old browsers and/or computers? This is a ridiculous idea, and a ridiculous comment. I'm a web developer and I'm so excited about making awesome things and the fact that the web is evolving and enabling us to do this, and share our creations with the world. People like you and co…

> So what exactly do you propose?

Sane and simple standards that can be implemented in any platform without requiring hundreds of man years of effort.

Nothing done in the web today is particularly technically advanced, we are about the same UI level as standard apps were more than 10 years ago (hell, I doubt you can build a photo manipulation app today that can compete with where Photoshop was 10 years ago).

Most of the complexity burden the web has is purely gratuitous and product of how flawed the standards it is built on are.

How JSON replaced XML is a good illustration of what is the right direction to go. Now if for example JavaScript was replaced with something considerably simpler, like, say, Scheme, instead of trying to bolt even more OO-crud into it and turn it into another pseudo-Java, that would be another good step.

There is little doubt the DOM and CSS could be dramatically simplified without reducing functionality, same goes for HTTP (as a recent post to hacker news illustrated).

Post reply on HN