I'm just letting my listeners know that the "Now Playing" and "Recently Played" widgets on the station's webpage have been updated to newer versions, mainly because I had no choice. The old versions are being phased out to the point where artist images were completely eliminated, and I don't even have the ability to custom-upload my own image choices on them.
The new versions have a fairly reliable stock library of artist images, and I can upload my own when necessary; obviously, the more obscure the artist is, the less likely the stock library will have something. I can't stop you from mentioning that an artist's image is missing or could be better, but trust me, I am well aware of the issues and will strive to perfect them the best I can.
Most artist images will have biographies attached to them on the "Now Playing" widget, and all tracks on that widget have a Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down feature. The "Now Playing" widget has a player attached to the top of it if you don't want to click on the blue "Listen Now" button above it(which leads to a more robust player, but that's just my opinion). Gone are the Wikipedia, "Tweet Song" and Amazon purchase links; the widget developers probably don't think they're relevant anymore, and they're probably right. Everyone knows how to use Wikipedia and Mr. Musk made it financially impossible for anyone to autopost on X/Twitter anymore.
The "Recently Played" widget shows a history of the last 100 tracks played. It refreshes at a rate of every 90 seconds, and I can't do much more than that without the distinct possibility of the widget missing a track. Be aware that the refresh isn't instantaneous due to the sheer volume of tracks in the history. 100 tracks is the maximum capability, so please don't ask me if it can show the last three days, the last week, etc.
I apologize if I don't sound overly positive about these changes. Maybe I'm in the minority, but it seems to me that these days the phrase "New And Improved," whether it refers to technology or the foods we eat, isn't worth a hill of beans anymore. I MISS THE OLD, and that especially means the pre-2016 days of internet radio. I'll let Satchmo conclude this post: "And I think to myself, what a wonderful world..."
UPDATE: After hearing such phrases as "craptastic" and "amateurish," I have reverted back to the old widgets. Hopefully, the company I deal with will at the very least let me upload my own artist images to them if they do in fact no longer have access to the old third party image provider.
