CFTA's new face for the New Year

It has been a while since my last posting here, and while it does not speak well for the currency of the blog, I can say shamelessly that busy time and endless work in following the exciting evolution of CFTA are the reasons for keeping me away from here.

Indeed the excitement of how CFTA is taking shape and a soul of its own, keeps driving us here day and night in following and growing with CFTA. Numerous prominent music sites have noticed us with great approval and support, and our artist community has passed the 80 mark, making the 100 mark our next milestone.

But what I really came here for is to announce the slightly new look and face of the CFTA site. I say slightly because the changes are not radical, rather they are symbolic of how CFTA has evolved and grown since it’s humble conception in April this year. It really is like a baby. It’s the same face but much better formed with the natural beauty slowly coming out as our original baby face transforms to a more mature look.

Some of the elements taking the new, evolving look are the page header blocks, the option bar and the brand new CFTA Quick Listen player that now has an easy to find Close option. The conversion to the new player is taking place as I write this. I think some artists on the first and last page already have it, and we are hoping to have all the CFTA artists set with the new player for the first month of 2006.

While these changes are mostly cosmetic, we feel that they contribute measurably to making your visit, browsing and music discovery more pleasant and functional at CFTA.

But cosmetics are not the only changes we have made recently. We have also added new functionality to make the artist’s task of keeping her/his CFTA listing current, significantly easier. We have created a new tool dedicated to artists called the Links Manager. This tool makes it easy for artists to quickly review all the current links in their CD listing, and submit any changes quickly and easily as needed.

As we make CFTA an easier place for artists to stay current with their links, we also make CFTA a better place for quality browsing and functionality for music lovers who come to discover great Indie music and want to follow the links to the music they like

I hope that your year of music making and discovery was as exciting and fruitful as it was for us here in building CFTA for the new generation of online Indie artists and music lovers.

From all of us here at CFTA,

Season’s Greetings, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and a Happy New Year.

Harei Edom