SLAY Radio gets an adrenalin boost!

[Slaygon]

Hello SLAY Radio listeners!

We have some exciting news about the SLAY Radio website! Regular web and IRC visitors may have heard that the website was in the process of being updated, and we can now say that all work is almost complete and the new site will be launched on SUNDAY 27th MARCH 2005, to coincide with the One-Year Anniversary edition of The Z Show.

The main man behind rewriting the old crap that Slaygon produced for the old web site is none other than Boz!
Slaygon handed him a static image of what he wanted the page to look like and said;
- This is what I want to do. Can you do it?
- Sure, not a problem, said Boz.
A few days later Boz emailed Slaygon the first draft of the new site!

Yey for Boz! =)

So, what does the new site have? Well, first off, it's been completely redesigned! The old format did it's job, but because of the new features
we also wanted to include, the old menu system would have been too clumsy.
So it gave us the opportunity to write the new site from scratch. There's a whole new look and feel, which includes a two-tier menu system
for easier navigation. Also, every page has a left-hand column (the LeftBand) that allows you to:

* Listen to SLAY Radio, in three levels of quality, or bring up the Java-based player;
* View the currently-playing song (when on the automated playlist), and VOTE on it (which gets added to a TOP TEN list);
* View (and optionally add) the "Shoutbox" - a quick way of getting your views across on the website;
* List new additions to the Downloadable Shows
* View the latest song available on R:K:O;
* View the latest news from www.c64hq.com.

VOTING

As mentioned above, there is a new voting system on the LeftBand which allows you to vote either "GOOD" or "BAD" for the currently-playing tune on SLAY Radio. These votes are tallied up and are used on a new feature, "Top Ten Rated" (which is available from Top Ten -> Rated on the new menu).
These show you the most popular songs playing on SLAY Radio. Anyone visiting the site can press the cross (bad) or checkmark (good) once for each tune. It's a great way for people to show us what they think is hot in the playlist and what is not.

REQUEST SONGS

In the regular playlist hours, you can request a tune. You have to be logged in as a member (more info below), at which point you can go to Member Area -> Request Song. From here, you can search the big database of songs by name or artist, then click on [Queue] to add the song to the queue.
You can also view an ETA of when your song will be played by going to Member Area -> Current Queue.

The following rules apply for request:
* You can only request 5 songs per hour
* You can only request 20 songs per day
* The same song can't be played more than once every 4 hours
* The same artist can't be played more than once every 30 minutes

All this is done so that the songs played on the station aren't going to be repeated too often!


MORE INTERACTIVE - IT'S YOUR RADIO STATION!

We've made the site more interactive for you, the listener, to participate in. There's the messageboard (like the old site), the Shoutbox and the song requester (see above) to get your point across and hear the songs you want, as well as the voting system to tell us what you think of each of the tunes. The Top Ten lists have been updated, which directly show what you've been listening to and rated.

DOWNLOAD PREVIOUS LIVE SHOWS

One of the most-requested items on your wish-list has been the facility to download previous live shows. Perhaps you've missed a show that you really wanted to catch, or there's a classic moment that you want to hear again. We have good news - the downloads will be available this Sunday! We have decided to use BitTorrents for this purpose. All we ask is that you leave your Torrent client open and share the wealth. This helps us spread the shows quicker and easier, without overloading our servers.
And it's your way of saying "thanks for the download!"

At this point, Slaygon would like to thank the following people who already have "signed up" to seed the available shows:
Makke (gooooooood!)
Sonic Wanderer
fnordpojk
Eric "bamsefar" Jonsson
UL-Tomten
Dj_C
Jon Algra
Sonic Wanderer

MEMBER AREA

Some areas of the new-look site will require you to become a member. For instance, there's the new Member's Area; and the Shoutbox and messageboard will need you to be logged in as well. Membership is free and easily accessible by clicking on "login" at the top-right of any page.

AND IT DOESN'T STOP HERE!

Now that the new structure is in place, we will be adding new functionality on a regular basis; so keep your eyes on the website in the coming months!

Once the new site is up and running, we'd really like you to have a look around; and of course, we'd love to hear from you!

See you online soon!

- The SLAY team
http://www.SLAYRadio.org/

[w-ber]

Excellent! Change isn't always good but this seems like a leap in the right direction. Keep the good stuff coming!

[Slaygon]

Excellent! Change isn't always good but this seems like a leap in the right direction.

That's what we're hoping for.
We've tried to implement as many of the most-requested features as possible.

[dan gillgrass]

/me whistles

It all sounds good Slaygon!

[weblaus]

Sounds very good indeed...

I particularly like that we can once again view the song library.

I guess someone surely must have thought of these things before I did just now, but I'll write them down anyway:

Will there be some sort of indication like a 'new'-icon to point out songs that have recently been added to the library? It's always nice to see new stuff coming in.

And I remember seeing this once or twice on the old-style "what's playing"-history: sometimes a song had a link added to the corresponding page on RKO so listeners could instanly download it there, which is quite nifty.

And finally, I'd like to see the "now playing"-info styled the way it's on the forum, i.e. not just song name and artist, but also the number of listeners as well (obviously not really important, but fun to see anyway).

Ulrich.

[merman]

(Not only does it sound good Dan, it looks good too )

[dan gillgrass]

(Not only does it sound good Dan, it looks good too )

U been peeking at my ass thru the window again ?