2020 roadmap

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albummaster
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Gender: Male
Location: Spain
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  • #1
  • Posted: 01/13/2020 13:39
  • Post subject: 2020 roadmap
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This is the time of year when I traditionally spend a bit of time reflecting on the previous year and planning ahead for the next twelve months of BEA. This year, the survey results are helping to prioritise the sequence in which features are developed.

As always, the main bottleneck is the time that I have available to spend on BEA. My available time (like everyone else's) is affected by outside factors such as performing my day job and having a life away from here. The site is not a commercial venture, it's a 'hobby' which happens to consume a lot of my time. An extra pair of hands would help to do things quicker which I've spoken about before (if I'd had this from the start, it would have led to an extra 15 years of assistance and you can imagine the extra features that could have been developed).

I thought that last year, a better mobile experience for site visitors might lead to increased usage of the site. However, I overlooked the fact the design of the site itself was tired and consequently didn't spend as much time changing the look and feel as I should have done (this was mainly because it was just easier for me to implement a mobile-friendly version of the existing site given the time constraints that I run the site under and the fact that Google penalise sites in the search rankings that are not mobile friendly). I'll now look for external help to improve the layout. Now that the site is responsive, it's far easier to tweak the layout than before the changes were made. It was a common theme in the survey feedback that the current design was an impediment, and we are all more likely to enjoy using something that's aesthetically pleasing.

in 2019, visits to BEA were 17% down on the year before (2018: 7% down) and the 'falling off' happened around the time that the redesign was launched (mainly due to a big decline in desktop traffic - I obviously got something very wrong and a whole year's worth of work seemed to backfire on me Sick Embarassed !). FWIW, 56% of visits to BEA are now from some kind of tablet or mobile device (2018: 51%).

The average number of active users on BEA decreased by 7% during 2019 (and on the forums decreased by 11%). However, the site now contains 13% more albums than at the end of 2018 (152,238 albums compared to 134,263 at the end of last year) which is a similar level of database growth to previous years.

The number of outstanding (uncompleted) features on the 'to do' list (after processing the survey results) is 348 (2018: 437 items). A massive number of changes were made to the site in 2019 and this will continue in 2020 (if I can continue to afford to spend so much time on BEA).

The bigger goals for BEA remain improving the site design, upgrading the forums, improving the diversity of the overall chart, addition of genre charts, recommendations, chart editor improvements, further Spotify integration, premium membership, as well as addressing the smaller issues that are sometimes reported (as well as continuing to make sure the existing site runs correctly). (As you can imagine, it's quite a lot of work!)

Since the start of 2019, I've been more or less releasing updates on a weekly basis as this is the safest way to modernise the underlying code without re-writing it all from scratch in a separate branch. This has been slow and painstaking work, and not a lot of fun, and is still far from complete (most of the updates aren't 'announced' as they are generally quite small in terms of new features). The ultimate aim is to transform BEA into a more app-like experience so that is can work offline and be an integral part of your mobile experience (it's still some way off, but getting nearer every week - feels like Columbus crossing the Atlantic sometimes).

2020 will be a very important year for BEA. If the site doesn't make progress, there's a real possibility it might cease to exist come the end of the year, so I'm really hoping that I can do the site justice and get things going again in a good direction (the hosting costs for BEA are very expensive and it's commercially difficult keeping the site going when so many people use ad blockers - how else can I pay the fees?!)

On a final note, I'd like to thank everyone that's helped out in 2019. So, a big thanks (particularly) to the moderators: Romanelli, Jimmy Dread, Patman360, RockyRaccoon & ShaneSpear. I'd also like to thank the people that are helping in the background to moderate the data, particularly (again) to Romanelli, but also MickLord, Hayden, Steppenwolf666, TheDude85, pa, NoisyBeast, Cardboardfolder & babyBlueSedan (top 10 data admins in 2019), and also to everybody else on the site for your continued contributions, there's not enough space here to mention you all but everybody's input is truly valued.


albummaster


Last edited by albummaster on 01/05/2021 10:49; edited 1 time in total
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bonnequestion
What is this?


Gender: Male
Canada

  • #2
  • Posted: 01/21/2020 01:37
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Thanks a lot for taking the time to keep us updated and for all the hard work you are putting into this website!

I'm relatively new to this website (been using it since the summer of 2018), but I can't imagine my life without it now. I'm literally going on BEA everyday, I discovered an incredible amount of great albums because of it, I really hope this site is gonna live forever. I encourage everyone to disallow their adblock on BEA, it is so easy and so important, please do it!
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mickilennial
The Most Trusted Name in News


Gender: Female
Age: 35
Location: Detroit
Poland

  • #3
  • Posted: 02/15/2020 20:07
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I have already removed my adblock, though I don't know how much help that would do. I'd like to BEA to still be around, but if 2020 proves inefficient financially thats just how the chips fall, I guess. I'll probably start exporting my charts to RYM and AOTY around Summer just in case then.
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dianwessels





  • #4
  • Posted: 10/28/2020 18:08
  • Post subject: Design
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Hi there,

I just joined the site and started exploring the Suggestions forum and read your 2020 roadmap. I'm a UI/UX designer and love to help you in any way that's useful to you. My time is very limited, but things like logo refresh, colour scheme (with # codes), etc. might be a start.

To get an idea of the standard of my work, you can check out my latest website design (bank.tech) for my employer BankTech in Stellenbosch. My studio portfolio is on sunflood.co.za

I'm passionate about music and would be honoured to help shape a website that I find essential and use regularly.

Cheers,
Dian
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RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad



Location: Ground Control
United States

  • #5
  • Posted: 10/29/2020 02:45
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Gowi wrote:
I have already removed my adblock, though I don't know how much help that would do. I'd like to BEA to still be around, but if 2020 proves inefficient financially thats just how the chips fall, I guess. I'll probably start exporting my charts to RYM and AOTY around Summer just in case then.


Somehow I totally missed this.

That's really hard to realize for me as someone has been more or less using this site daily since about 2016, and then somehow a lot on 2011-2012ish... interestingly enough around the time-frame I had a musical journey of my own that kinda abruptly ended in 2016, which brought me back.

The behind the curtain music friendships made here have been great, even if I am a dork. I guess I'm even more glad the discord server got setup to keep in touch if not on other music sites.

RYM is just an ocean I don't feel welcome in even if I rate things there now because I'm embarrassed by how many points I have on this site.

These forums will be greatly missed if the site had to go down.
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NoisyBeast
Lefty


Gender: Male
Location: Phoenix
United States

  • #6
  • Posted: 12/19/2020 14:36
  • Post subject: Re: 2020 roadmap
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albummaster wrote:

2020 will be a very important year for BEA. If the site doesn't make progress, there's a real possibility it might cease to exist come the end of the year, so I'm really hoping that I can do the site justice and get things going again in a good direction (the hosting costs for BEA are very expensive and it's commercially difficult keeping the site going when so many people use ad blockers - how else can I pay the fees?!)

albummaster

Looking forward to much better year in 2021, and I sincerely hope BEA will continue to exist (and thrive) for many more years to come! Applause
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Repo
BeA Sunflower



Location: Forest Park
United States

  • #7
  • Posted: 12/19/2020 15:48
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Gowi wrote:
I have already removed my adblock, though I don't know how much help that would do. I'd like to BEA to still be around, but if 2020 proves inefficient financially thats just how the chips fall, I guess. I'll probably start exporting my charts to RYM and AOTY around Summer just in case then.


Shit! Crying or Very sad

I had no idea BEA was struggling. I'll have to do the same. My reviews are pretty important to me, and I'd hate to lose them. I guess I'll try to figure out RYM since that's a big one.
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