Some thoughts have crossed my mind that might help fine-tuning. -When is a play considered a play? Page reload? Press play button? 30 seconds? At least a minute? Or full duration? -Those that upload files, are they excluded from play count on their own music (and does that include collaborators? (preferably yes imho). Additional food for thought: "For example, if people with different accounts listen to the same song on the same computer, it will only count one play." -What about households with multiple computers? -Is it detecting browsers, and if so, is it possible using multiple browsers to game the system, and if so, are there ways to prevent this? -VPN?

Good points nothinK ! I noticed that a comment can't be made to a song while it's playing...maybe this is a good tactic to prevent driveby listening/commenting. (but personally I comment as I'm listening, but I'd give up that option for something more sincere. Plus I wonder if a minimum character requirement for a comment would be useful. In order to encourage a full sentence rather than a quick 'good job'...sounds great...you know, all the short comments that we've all seen.

Elaine, the fact that you couldn't comment while a song was playing -- that was a mistake on my part. It should be fixed now. Try it out to confirm.

nothinK, you asked about what makes a play a play. Code in the web browser tries to determine if someone has listened to the song for 20 seconds, and if so, it sends a message to the server. The server looks at the IP address and compares it against what it has in the database. If there is already a record there less than 7 days ago, it will not count it as a play. So you actually can listen to a song more than once and increase its play count -- as long as you wait 7 days. Perhaps this is being too stingy. Maybe I should make it only 24 hours. What do you think?

quote: "nothinK, you asked about what makes a play a play. Code in the web browser tries to determine if someone has listened to the song for 20 seconds, and if so, it sends a message to the server. The server looks at the IP address and compares it against what it has in the database. If there is already a record there less than 7 days ago, it will not count it as a play. So you actually can listen to a song more than once and increase its play count -- as long as you wait 7 days. Perhaps this is being too stingy. Maybe I should make it only 24 hours. What do you think?" I think that's a pretty fair to have a 7 day window and the validation the the ip address etc. Not sure if totally related, but icomps had a 7 day window for the 'popular song list'...seems that 7 is a good number! Something that often happened on icomps was a word in the song/vid title would trigger a bot response and bump the count. Also so that happening when someone would share to twitter. I also knew that ip address hiders/changers/non trackers were used by users so they could bump up listen counts. Will there be a way to determine their use? Moderators could see ip addresses when necessary. I suppose if multiple ip addy's from a variety of locations were detected some action might happen.

Excellent call. It's not a matter of stinginess. There will always be people who will try and game the system for their ego. May as well put some hard rails in early. BTW - this is an excellent rebuild! People are going to be stoked.

I might still shorten it -- either to 24 hours or somewhere around that. If someone really likes a song well enough to come back the next day to listen again, shouldn't the song get credit for being so well liked?

If you do change it, I think it should be more than 24 hours. Perhaps 3 days? That keeps people from clicking on their own songs all weekend maybe? I do like that it doesn't add a play count every time. I have one play on each of my songs right now because I tested them, and that's fine, but luckily it didn't add the three or four other times I clicked while testing. :)