The Hype Machine

If you want an example of beauty through simplicity in web design (and a kickass music site), check out The Hype Machine. Every aspect of the site from the graphics to the navigation is streamlined and simple. In fact it's so simple that most people don't get it at first because it's so unconventional compared to the other social music sites that have been sprouting up over the last couple years like Last.fm and Pandora. Sites like these generally require you to login to access a playlist and then the site will suggest similar music where you might hear stuff you like or you might not (although you can generally skip over your "dislikes"). Hype Machine takes the approach of an online digital jukebox.

Go to the site>Type in an artist or song>Play it

Simple. Beautiful. Try it out.

Blogger vs WordPress

Before starting this blog, I compared a few different blogging platforms (mainly Blogger and WordPress) before finally deciding to go with Blogger. Luckily, it was the hardest part of starting the site other than deciding what to write for my first post. While Blogger's community is larger in number, WordPress is the more preferred platform for veteran bloggers due to its greater versatility.

What made me decide to go with Blogger was my heavy use in Google's other products. I usually have Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Reader open in my first three tabs of Firefox through the day and I consistently use Picasa, Docs & Spreadsheets and Bookmarks. Blogger offers slick integration with Picasa Web Albums and Google Docs, and Google has been really good about keeping their upcoming betas and current projects updated so I feel confident in using their blogging platform (which they use for their own blogs).

Setting up everything with Blogger has been pretty straight forward and easy including using a custom domain, although I did spend a little while searching how to redirect traffic. I was looking for a "redirect" link while my domain provider referred to it as "forwarding."

With that said, it feels good to get the first post out of the way. Enjoy.