iLike Beta launch: Tues 10/24/2006, 10pm! :-)

After 6 months in the labs, iLike.com is ready for a broad Web-wide Beta! :-)

To those who have helped us test iLike in the past few months, thank you for all of your feedback, bug reports, and suggestirons. Please help us grow by inviting all your friends. And for those who haven't used the site yet - go check it out, install the iLike Sidebar, invite some friends, download a Free MP3, and recommend a song! :-)

If you haven't heard from us recently and want to know what we're up to at a team level: our team at GarageBand/iLike is now 25 people strong. We now have ~13 people at the Seattle office (mostly engineers), and 6 people in the Bay Area (mostly engineers), and then a bunch of people working from other cities (including Australia!). Yesterday we had our first "office etiquette" meeting - with 13 people in one tiny Seattle office things are starting to get a little crazy. However, it's been a ton of fun. We're always interested in hiring top engineering talent - so if you're a programming guru, if you like what we're up to, and want to learn Ruby, send us your resume!

This week's quote of the week: "Hey, can somebody give Eugene some code to write so he can stop making math jokes?". (we're going to try to document the quote of the week from now on)

Comments

[Azhar]

Congrats guys!
Lets see if you van get on DIgg, Slashdot at the same time :D

Last.fm feeling the heat eh :D

[Michael]

My resume is on the way. ;)

[Alex]

Congrats on the launch! This very morning while walking to my office, I noticed ilike.com on the building next to ours. What's that, I wondered. Then, first thing to pop up in my RSS reader this morning: "iLike.com Launches". Cool! We're an internet company in the education sector located just down the street, let us buy you a beer some time at Linda's!

[Allan R.]

This application has a lot of potential. Congrats on the launch...

[Eugene Gordin]

Congratulations on the launch. I have only been using the site just today and I like it a lot already.

I have taken the feedback survey, I have taken the music quiz. Are there forums for this site? I think creating an avenue for feedback other than the survey would be a great resource for you. Just an idea.

Also, if you need any help moderating them, I have quite a bit of experience running and moderating forums for sites similar to this one.

Thanks,

Eugene

[Eric L]

Looks awesome and can only get better! Looking forward to a way to integrate to my blog. Perhaps RSS.

Also, thanks for the Mac support.

[Stacy]

I'm loving this site! Ya'll have done a great job so far, and I'm happy to be a part of a new revolution!

[Jordan]

Site is great... just read about it in the Wall Street Journal and decided to check it out. Put song lyrics in the sidebar. Thats my only suggestion

[Ryan]

Love the service. Lots of potential indeed. The inclusion of indie artists is awesome, something I appreciate as a podcaster.

Seconding the inquiry about a forum, or some general way to interact and send feedback. I took the survey, but would love a way to submit bug and especially feature requests (besides posting here, or blogging them and waiting for your CEO to browse by).

What y'all are doing is awesome, but of course we'll want more, more, more! A shared area to discuss feature requests would save you from getting a million different e-mails or comments with the same thought.

That said, Santa, I'd like:

+ The ability to search for people by region (since you do have our ZIP codes).

+ The ability to organize friends. Friends with whom I share a specific interest but don't know personally, and I have some friends who I went to high school with, people I work with, etc. Contact groups would also further improve recommendations and compatibility, I think.

+ I love that web widgets were developed so quickly to post playlists on other websites. How 'bout one using a dynamically created image (a la Last.fm)? Javascript code is smartly rejected by lots of systems, including message boards.

+ Even better, how 'bout an RSS feed on each profile page with the songs and artists updated for inclusion in aggregators or outside sites?

+ I wish we could choose our "pretty URLs" for our profiles. I can't even figure out what system you're using. When I signed up, my URL was firstnamelastname. When my wife signed up, it was First_L. I'm sure lots of folks wish that could be customized.

+ Will your system eventually expand to allow a customized, streaming radio station of favorite artists mixed in with recommended ones?

+ I'm all for fleshing out the profiles -- integrated music blogs (with feed, remember!), more photos, maybe interest pivot tags, and the like. But don't go overboard. We don't need another MySpace, we just need the best, simplest, most elegant social music site... which iLike very nearly already is.

[ohwhen]

What a great idea :) Congrats on launching!

[James]

What a fantastic idea & service! You guys deserve a standing ovation.

Biggest request from me: A little more privacy with the ability to turn the "tracker" on & off. When I do mp3 cleanup, I play quick snippets of tunes to see if I want to keep them in my library. I would hate for all these tracks to register as being "listened" to.

Overall though - wonderful job, I look forward to seeing this service grow & evolve.

Any job openings? ;)

[ben]

I really like what you're doing and the huge convience iLike provides in discovering new music, but I think the sidebar might go better if it was horizontally under Itunes instead of to the right of it. That way, when browsing the music store and music, you just scroll down (the natural way) instead of to the right and down.

Just a though, anyway, keep up the good work

[Deron Dantzler]

It seems that the iPod played songs aren't adding to the count at all, regardless of what the FAQ says, even though mine is set to auto sync. My playcount in iTunes varies from the playcount on iLike.

[Jesse]

I really like this so far. Only thing I could ask for at the moment, or think of rather, is an optional to only recommend downloadable music rather than commercial music.

Thanks. :)

[82times]

awesome quote of the week.

[Eric L]

I know the FAQ says that iLike doesn't recently played songs from iPod. This would be a wish item for a next update since I play more songs on my iPod then iTunes. Thanks

[macubu]

Bravi, ragazzi!

[parishernandez]

The only reasoN Im here is cause Andrea G is here and she's cool..Everything after that is easy. But she will have to fall in love with me,
I will see how this Ilike will fit into my Life. Its a great concept I've been waiting on this for a while. Can't wait to see it develop
Cheers to you!

~Paris Hernandez
Web Design/ Promotor/ Sales
(Talks to Homeless)

[geronimo]

Great concept. Love the plugin. Why the terrible sound quality??

[Robb]

Can you download mp3's from this site?? I am willing to pay for the dam thing but when I search and find a song i click it some green thing moves across my screen (like its downloading something) then goes to the next song and the next!! I want the one song I clicked on thats it, HOW CAN I DOWNLOAD IT SO I CAN BURN IT???????????????? I WILL PAY FOR IT IF I HAVE TO SOMEONE TELL ME PLEASE

[Ashley Guzman]

Hi guys,
Very nice job on the site! I love it, finally something new besides Myspace, and Facebook! But I do suggest adding more features to profiles and maybe letting us customize our page! After I added all my music and setup my profile... I really have nothing else to do! Keep adding new things to keep me and others busy :P