esnippers' den

Celebrating Spring

Every once in a while, we get the entire eSnips team together, find an excuse to open a bottle of wine, and generally have a ball.  Today we celebrated the arrival of spring - as good a reason as any other to raise a glass.  This was a great opportunity to get all of us together for a rare group photo... and I couldn't resist putting it up here for all of you.

Yes, this is what we really look like, yes, the wall behind us is really orange, and yes, that's his real hair.

Have a great spring!

Happy Birthday!

Put on your dancing shoes!

Exactly one year ago today, on March 21st, 2006, we launched what we call the social version of eSnips.  Social meant that for the first time, users could tag their content and, more importantly, click on those tags to find other users who used the same tag to describe their pictures, music, videos and other content.  Almost overnight, we noticed an explosion of tags, and with it, an increase in the amount of time people spent exploring eSnips.  Yes, it's obvious that tags are the way to go, but we were still surprised at the immediate jump in every stat: from the number of people joining eSnips to the number of page views per person.

This next year should bring lots of exciting new features and great communities based on amazing new content!  As we look ahead, I'd love to hear your feedback on eSnips in the past year, what you liked, and what you think is missing.

Now, where's the cake??

Austin & music

I’m at the South by Southwest Interactive show in Austin this week, a show that I thought was all about recent web trends but in reality is attracting so many digital creatives. What I’ve really enjoyed is the music scene around the show. I’m not sure that it’s because of the show or because Austin is a “center of music” (so I’ve been told) but the sheer amount of live music just wafting through the air is amazing. From rock to blues, Austin has got it all.

Today I attended a conference session dedicated to music and the web and now my head is full of the lingo used by DJs: I now know what stems and loops are! DJs on eSnips – if any of you feel like leaving me a comment with more lingo, I’d love to read it.

Music on eSnips: new communities and new playlist features

Yes, it’s been a while since I posted anything on this blog, but it’s not for lack of wanting. We’ve been very busy here at eSnips putting together a new version totally dedicated to MUSIC!

First off, our R&D team has done some amazing work with playlists.  With this release, you can not just put together playlists, but also save them, change the order of songs, add more songs at a later time, and widgetize them to put on other sites.  Here’s more about playlists on eSnips.

Based on the requests that we’ve gotten from you users, we’ve also put together 8 new music communities: Electronic, Metal, Industrial, Rap, Reggae, Jazz, Blues, Hindi and Elvis communities.  Go listen to some of the great songs that eSnippers have shared in these communities, and let me know what you think about them. Also, let me know if you have ideas for more music communities.

Finally, we’ve upgraded each account to 5 GB, and, yes, it’s still free! I think it goes well with the new musical features.

Enjoy!!