Polymorphic website

Poly-Web-460

Brief:

  • Provide a platform for the online distribution of music.
  • Allows users to stream/download releases.
  • Dedicated content sections promoting artists, releases, mixes and interviews.
  • Provide an updatable news/blog section that could be syndicated via rss/atom feeds.
  • Provide a podcast for the sites content that syndicated other legal content from around the web.

Outcomes:
The build met all requirements and allowed digital music distribution via the internet upon going live in 2004. At this time, there wasn’t widespread adoption of digital distribution. The sites success was celebrated by heavy user downloads and featured in the BBC’s Click Online TV broadcast and web site.

The site was built using a custom Ruby/Rails content management system to allow easy maintenance of the required content. Animated Javascript techniques were incorporated, such as slick user interface components, long before Web 2.0 gained widespread popularity. The media player used HTTP streaming via a Flash media player. The music database was driven and populated by a script that scanned and extracted mp3 tags from the audio.

WebDesign




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