Best Ever Albums

Re: 2013 roadmap

Evandar — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:10:39 GMT

Author: Evandar

Posted: 04/12/2013 16:10

Those two main forthcoming features sound awesome, I wish you the best of luck in implementing them. 😄

Re: 2013 roadmap

Anonymous — Sat, 9 Mar 2013 16:39:33 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 03/09/2013 21:39

This is an amazing site and has really helped me for my high school project. I love the idea of an iPhone/iPad app because the website is quite difficult to use in Safari. However, the app would have to be free.

Re: 2013 roadmap

pearljammer13 — Thu, 7 Mar 2013 11:11:04 GMT

Author: pearljammer13

Posted: 03/07/2013 16:11

Just subscribed to the newsletter so I'm a bit late to seeing this thread, but yeah like everyone else said thanks for everything you do albummaster. I've become beyond attached to this site. A little disturbing how big a part of my life it is now, but I'm not ashamed to profess my love for it. All these updates planned sound great, also hoping the logo will be fit in there somewhere.

Re: 2013 roadmap

Shadow23 — Mon, 4 Mar 2013 10:45:23 GMT

Author: Shadow23

Posted: 03/04/2013 15:45

Some very good ideas! Good work, albummaster!

Re: 2013 roadmap

Anonymous — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 13:29:09 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 01/19/2013 18:29

I know I've only been here for a month, but thanks A.M.

I can't wait until I can make custom charts. All the charts I will have planned.

Re: 2013 roadmap

Anonymous — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 09:05:08 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 12/24/2012 14:05

What everyone else said. Thanks for all your hard work in keeping this site running and improving. Have a lovely Christmas and New Year.

Re: 2013 roadmap

Anonymous — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 08:57:18 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 12/24/2012 13:57

Yes, thanks AM, it's been a great experience since joining BEA! All those planned ideas sound exciting!

Re: 2013 roadmap

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 16:35:01 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 12/20/2012 21:35

Thanks for all your efforts albummaster �'�

Re: 2013 roadmap

Norman Bates — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 16:29:20 GMT

Author: Norman Bates

Posted: 12/20/2012 21:29

Thanks AM! Great site, great job, more still to come in the way of greatness: perfect.

Re: 2013 roadmap

Jasonconfused — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 15:38:35 GMT

Author: Jasonconfused

Posted: 12/20/2012 20:38

Thank you albummaster! I'm fairly new here but since I joined, hardly an hour goes by that I'm not doing something on BEA (For this reason an android/iphone app will work wonders for me).

Re: 2013 roadmap

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 15:34:16 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 12/20/2012 20:34

Thank you albummaster! This site is fantastic and has really become a part of my day to day life. I appreciate all the effort you put into this for our enjoyment!

Re: 2013 roadmap

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 15:15:40 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 12/20/2012 20:15

thanks master

Re: 2013 roadmap

CellarDoor — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 11:35:40 GMT

Author: CellarDoor

Posted: 12/20/2012 16:35

Merci AM !! 😁

2012 has been another great year for BEA. Love what you're doing !

Re: 2013 roadmap

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 11:23:26 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 12/20/2012 16:23

Can't begin to thankyou enough Albummaster. BEA is a staple of my day to day life and that's all because you've crafted something amazing here.

Re: 2013 roadmap

RFNAPLES — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 11:17:16 GMT

Author: RFNAPLES

Posted: 12/20/2012 16:17

Thanks albummaster for all you do too!

2013 roadmap

albummaster — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 10:17:21 GMT

Author: albummaster

Posted: 12/20/2012 15:17

Once upon a time, on a sofa far, far away, BEA was born because I was looking for ideas to add to my music collection. I threw some crude code together which aggregated a few lists, and gradually a website grew up around it. BEA started out as a hobby where I'd spend a few weekends a month adding new features; and this gradually continued, until seven years later, I'm still trying to finish it! 🧱 😁

So, this is the time of year when we take stock of where the site is currently at, and think more strategically about what features are needed to take the site forwards. Gradually, BEA is growing in both scope and volume. At the start of the year, there were about 18,000 albums on the site and there are now about 30,000 (a 66% increase in the size of the site); and with the introduction of Custom charts, there should now be enough for people to do and keep people engaged with the site. The servers were upgraded three times in 2012, so there's enough spare capacity (hopefully) to take us through the busy end of year period, and well into 2013.

The membership ladder that was born a couple of years ago is now complete, and there are only two big items remaining from the original list: 'premium membership' and 'charts by tag'. Both of these will be added in 2013. I lost time in 2012, mainly due to my day job getting in the way during the first half of the year, and despite my best efforts, I was unable to make up the lost ground in the second half. The number of outstanding features on my list remains at about 200 suggestions, which was the same as at the end of 2011 (numerous items have been ticked off and added during 2012).

There are now seven moderators including myself who help to keep a bit of sanity order on the site, and I'd like to thank here everyone that has helped out this year with the site. So, a big thanks (particularly) to the moderators: an_outlaw, Jhereko, joyofdivision, Magenta, Necharsian, Romanelli, 19loveless91 & ShaneSpear who have all been involved and been a great help. I'd also like to thank the people that are helping in the background to moderate the data, which is a vital task that often goes unnoticed. So, thank you to everybody that contributes, but particularly (again) to Romanelli, Mirek & harkan as they are the biggest contributors, because without these people, the site wouldn't nearly be so up-to-date. On the forums, I'd like to thank Jhereko, Hayden and harkan for running some great tournaments this year, and all the usual suspects for entertaining us so well over the last twelve months. We have a great community here, and everybody has helped contribute to that.

2013 roadmap (and estimated delivery date*):

Premium membership

Premium membership (Q1 2013) - pay a small fee, bypass the need to earn member points, and gain acceass to some exclusive premium member features.

Charts by tag

Charts by tag (Q2 2013) - Carried over since 2011, 2013's most important improvement will be some kind of tagging system that will allow people to generate lists filtered by 'tag' e.g. filter the overall chart for the best soul/r&b/metal albums etc, or generate a chart of the best 1970s soundtrack albums. Supporting this feature, people will be able to assign tags to anything across the site, and the tag can then be used as a filter for any of the charts.

Alongside the above
There are quite a few other things on BEA's radar for 2013, but the following seem the most interesting at the time of writing (mostly harvested from the forums):

iPhone/Android application
Add an album/chart of the day page where all winners are listed
Ability to 'add friends' and make recommendations to each other
Provide a BEA API (to allow 3rd party apps)
If album by more than one artist, allow each to get a credit
Find a better way to deal with artist name variations
Show a list of possible entries for your chart
Allow multiple versions of each release
Upgrade the forum software
Extend the search page to search within member names and chart titles
Show a graph of the rank history for each album to see the movement over time within the overall chart
Add an option to show more items on a single page, e.g. 10, 25, 50, 100
Filter band stats by year or decade to see best bands in each decade
Tidy up presentation of wish list page
Separate reviews and user comments
Recent 'activity stream' per member or object (or whole site) e.g. posts, mods, ratings etc

Priorities may change during the year, and lots of other changes will also be implemented in 2013 (this is a subset of 200 items!)

Unfortunately, my day job is taking up about 60 hours a week right now, which is limiting the amount of time I can spend on BEA. The site would grow a lot faster if I could work on it more often. 2012 has been another good year for the site, and I look forward to 2013.

Thanks to everybody for all of your support.

albummaster

* The timescales have the same caveats as ever: BEA is not a 'job'. It is a hobby. I'd like to spend more time on BEA, but I also need to make a living. Being able to deliver 'on time' depends on other commitments outside of BEA.