Where can you browse the world of music by genre and by artist through a map?
At ArtistServer.com :)
http://www.artistserver.com/map.cfm
This page will load a map of the world - and a listing of genres down the side. For best results, login before visiting, otherwise you won't be able to download.
Click on a genre, and it will load icons on the map of artists who have songs in that genre.
Click on one of the headphone icons, and a small container will load with a listing of all the songs by that artist which are 'in' the selected genre.
You can click on the map to 'set the focus' - then use the controls on the right side to zoom in. You can also click-n-drag the map to move it around. If you zoom in too far, or move too far off the sides, you'll see gray or white and no longer see a map. Zoom out if this happens.
You can also click on the 'hybrid' overlay on the map - this will show you boundry lines, state and city names, roads, etc. You may also click over to standard 'map' if you wish.
The end result, is that you can browse ArtistServer's music through a map while filtering by 'region' and by 'genre.'
This page is in beta - and Yahoo! Maps is in Beta - so you may see some issues, if you do, post to the forums and list your browser and platform.
One issue the page currently has, is that it doesn't tell you the genre you are currently looking at - so I'll need to set that up.
Some questions aritsts on the site may have:
Where am I? I can't find myself on the map.
This is possible. I believe the map can only load 100 items, I'll have to look into this more. If you are 'brand new' to the site, it is possible that I haven't 'geocoded' your location yet.
Are you telling people where I live?
No. These locations are only displaying the very same information on your artist pages, which is: Country, State, and City. Your actual address is NOT used. If the map actually shows your true location, it is purely random. But if it bothers you, I can alter your geocode to move you.
My location is wrong. How can I correct it?
I'll have to work out how to do this, my concern is that if I give people the option to click on a map to place themselves, they'll put themselves in the ocean or Antartica, etc. So I may create a setting where you can tell the system to re-run your Country/State/City settings through a Geocoder which would update your data if the location was found.
Hey Yahoo!
Thank you Yahoo! and the Yahoo! Developer's Program - Your new Maps API was VERY easy to work with, and I look forward to experimenting with it some more.
But wait, there's more...
You can also see maps integrated on every 'genre' page on ArtistServer.com. Here is an example: http://www.artistserver.com/DownTempo
I'll have to click around and check my competitor's sites, but I'm fairly sure that this kind of map integration isn't being done on music service sites. If you'd like to check yourself, try this listing of Music Hosting Services. So far, the only one I've seen is TagWorld, and all they provide is a map on the artist/member pages showing where that person is. If you find anything like this, let me know!
