You can now "embed" any of our albums on your blog or web site.
This means that visitors to your web site can listen to the music you have chosen (as I have, above). Try pressing the triangular > play button to see how it works.
This is especially useful if you are blogging about a Magnatune album, and would like people to listen to the music while they read your review. Or, if you're a Magnatune musician and want people to listen to your music on your web site.
To do this, click on the "embed this album" link, visible on any album page:
This is what the embed page looks like:
The embed page lets you change some settings:
a) can change whether you want a large or small player. The small player looks like this:
and is especially suited for putting in the margin of your blog.
b) you can change whether the music starts automatically when the page loads, or whether visitors need to click the play button.
c) You can change the height and width. On a wider player, the song titles don't have to scroll by, since there is enough place for them on the player.
You then copy the code in the text box, and paste it into the appropriate place on your blog or web site.
Just as on the Magnatune web site, at the end of each song you will hear a woman telling you what you just heard.
If you click on the album art, or the "click here for artist info" link, you will be taken to the Magnatune web page for that artist. I preferred to not have a "buy it now" button (though lots of people suggested it), as I felt that was heavy-handed, and anyone who was interested in buying it, would first click "artist info" anyway.
My friends at Jamendo have a feature like this, and they tell me that they have more people listening to their music from other sites than on their Jamendo web site.
John, this is outstanding! I love to recommend your music, but it's hard to get people to go to new sites. Not that I have a lot of my own traffic *grin*, but I can at least add a FEW potential new listeners and purchasers this way. Thanks.
Posted by: Ken Kennedy | June 01, 2008 at 01:23 PM
Cool!
Why no "Buy / License" button anywhere?
Posted by: Piers | June 01, 2008 at 09:26 PM
Hey !
Our friends of Magnatune have their widgets ! Great move John ...
--
Laurent
Posted by: lkratz | June 02, 2008 at 12:23 AM
Cool! But I can never figure out, being uninformed, why box.net and youtube things embed well in livejournal, but widgets like this don't do as well.
Posted by: gurdonark | June 12, 2008 at 08:18 PM
This is indeed a great idea, and I endorse Piers' suggestion that you include buttons to let people buy the tracks or the albums. SNOCAP apparently is succeeding in this aspect, and Magnatune could do this too. :-)
Posted by: Pedro Rosario | June 21, 2008 at 07:47 AM
I prefer the non-intrusive nature of these. Though having a "buy" button optional would be nice.
Posted by: Jade | August 01, 2008 at 12:49 AM
Excellent, John. I'm about to launch 2 new domains and revamp a third. This feature will definitely go on at least 1 of 'em. If web masters and persuasive bloggers/reviewers can help grow your biz, hopefully you'll consider launching an affiliate program (tied to Piers' suggestion) so that we might reap a modest reciprocal reward.
IMHO, monopolistic recording companies are "heavy-handed". Intrusive swf ad banners on web sites are "heavy-handed". However, an easy to use embedded player with your user-friendly option NOT to autoplay combined with a discrete "BUY IT" button right on the player face couldn't possibly be misconstrued as heavy-handed or crass or intrusive. It's a convenience. Take it from a marketing pro, the more hurdles/steps you put between a listener and an impulse buy, the fewer sales you'll make. For every listener smitten enough with a song to drill down and read a bio - and chance upon a buried "buy it" option - how many won't? Dozens? Hundreds?
Posted by: Ed | August 01, 2008 at 05:11 AM
Great idea! I use Wordpress - I'll give it a go now, not too good at these things ... but will let you know what happens.
Posted by: adam | August 01, 2008 at 05:44 AM
Huh - looks like Wordpress will only take a link that takes the reader away from my blog ot the album page on Magnatune .. anyone got any hints?
Posted by: adam | August 01, 2008 at 05:56 AM
Wordpress is very specific about what kinds of flash content they allow to be displayed in their posts. Standard 'object' and 'embed' tags get stripped out of the HTML before it is displayed. This is because many believe that Flash content can be potentially unsecure. When I was working at an internet video company, we had to contact the makers of Wordpress directly to get them to add a 'shortcode' for us to use that would allow our videos to be embedded in Wordpress posts.
Posted by: Travis | August 01, 2008 at 03:10 PM
This is really marvelous! The Magnatune catalog is something I know our customers will love.
One question - any chance of adding autoresume, shuffle or FF/REW on the slim player? (I noticed the FF/REW buttons on SourceForge and the other features mentioned at http://www.boutell.com/xspf/ ) I think these features would really help showcase the artists - not everyone would realize that these are embedded albums, nor would they think to right-click for Next/Previous options.
At this time, the larger player isn't an option - but just so you know, we may go that way at some future point. Initial reason not to was because the art that shows up in your xspf player doesn't show up on the embedded version - and our site is about art.
Again, the above is all meant in the positive - many thanks for this capability!
Posted by: Earl | August 02, 2008 at 05:11 AM
Travis, thanks for the comment. Bummer!
Posted by: adam | August 02, 2008 at 07:29 AM
I love this player object to embed... only better - would be to enable custom playlists of songs to embed. Perhaps a list of 10 to 20 of my "favorite" songs, "current" playlist, or "theme xyz" of songs to set the mood for a particular website. I wish I could do that, yet also still provide unobtrusive convenient links for visitors to check out the full album website for artist of each track. Thanks magnatune!!! Please keep up the fresh ideas!
Posted by: Brian | August 07, 2008 at 09:07 PM
Done it, used it, sensational! Thanks!
Posted by: Mia | August 18, 2008 at 03:16 PM
As a subscriber to Magnatune for years now, I'm glad to see this app come alive. Great for subscribers and really good for non-subscribers. Magnatune is great for discovering new independent music. In my opinion it's completely affordable (I spend more on coffee than I do on Magnatune!). Really, who doesn't? Thanks!
Posted by: Lee | January 04, 2013 at 04:44 AM