CUE Music Database 6 Months On - By: Gary Simpson

Just over 6 months ago, I found myself (not for the first time) idly surfing the web looking at a variety of different popular music websites. They're dotted about all over the place, taking part in many mini-battles with each other, trying to gain number one status with their own particular target audiences. Then it occurred to me; who's trying to attain number one status with ALL target audiences?

I thought that the best way to achieve this was to create a website that had a page for every band and artist there is or has been. The page should contain news articles, pictures, videos and MP3 downloads. Great idea... but how the heck would I do that? NME has a battalion of researchers running around the globe for them. The BBC has an army! I have… er… me!

After a lot of deliberation and failed attempts, this is what I came up with: fill a database with as many bands and artists as possible then scour the web. Or, more importantly, since there are only 24 hours in a day, develop some automated routines that would do it for me. The CUE Music Database automated routines regularly check tens of RSS feeds for news, check video download sites for videos, check royalty free image sites for photos, check ticket sites for concert tickets and MP3 download sites for downloads. These automated routines run continuously, keeping the music database as up to date as possible at all times.

Sure, automation is not 100% accurate and I guess having 100 staff doing the work manually would lessen the mis-matches, but hey - I don't! As time has gone by, the search routines have been tweaked, the site design has been altered and now, on it's 6 month birthday, CUE Music Database boasts pages for over 3000 artists, with 12000 news articles, 1400 photos and 80000 videos!

The CUE Music Database front page is constantly dynamic, showing you the latest music news headlines with accompanying artist photos and showing our Top 10 videos, Top 10 artists along with the latest bands, artists and videos we have added.

Whether you're in to Jay-Z, Coldplay, Metallica or Madonna, CUE-mdb has a page (or a hundred) for your tastes!

The website has a feedback form where you can contact me to add bands and artists that have been overlooked. I am always happy to receive feedback on ways in which the website can be improved and I get a particular thrill when new, up and coming artists contact me direct to say, “hey, why aren’t we on your site?” Rest assured, when they do, they are quickly added to one of the most vast music resources on the web!

About the Author

Gary Simpson is Systems Development Manager with one of the largest consulting and business services groups in the UK. He is also the founder of CUE Music Database.

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