Our New Player And App

I don't usually use this podcast to talk about technical changes for the Sounds of Christmas station, but there are a couple significant changes this week and I wanted to share them.

First, we have a brand new player.

You'll see it when you go to the Sounds of Christmas website on both the homepage and the Listen Now page.

The new player is significant for several reasons.

First, it has a pop-out feature that lets you literally pop out the player into a small window and then go wherever you like on the web while taking the Sounds of Christmas or, as it is right now, the Sounds of Halloween with you.

there's also another new feature that will let you vote for specific songs when you hear a song that you really like or even love just click the love this song button and it will register your vote in 2027 i'm going to compile all the votes and reveal the 5 000 most loved songs on the sounds of christmas i'm trying to keep things positive so there's no down vote option I had like and dislike buttons on a player years ago and found that groups of people, mostly fans of certain artists, wouldn't just click for their favorites, but would also click dislike for all the rest.

You also get only one vote per song or at least per airing for a song.

That will hopefully make this as fair as possible by keeping people from voting for one particular song 50 times.

But if you hear a song you really love on another day, you can click to vote for it again.

I hope that all makes sense.

I want this voting process to be fair and to accurately represent the most loved songs on The Sounds of Christmas, at least as accurately as this kind of process will allow.

Next, our apps are now available.

Actually, it's just one app, but it works for Android and Apple.

You can get it for free from our website.

As Google and Apple seem to change their terms pretty often, and some people have some concerns about both companies, I thought the easiest way to get this out there was just make it available at soundsofchristmas.com. And the voting function will work on the players on our website, the pop-up player, and the player in the app.

By the way, the app is for the Sounds of Christmas station.

Since this podcast is available on so many different streaming sites, including YouTube, it didn't seem necessary to add it to the app.

If there's enough interest in it, it might be something that I revisit down the road.

If you'd prefer to get your apps from the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store, I recommend using the app mRadios, that's spelled E-M radios, and you'll find it in both the Google Play and the Apple App Stores.

When you open that app, just search for The Sounds of Christmas, and you'll find the station there.

And you can listen for free.

And if you favorite The Sounds of Christmas on the mRadios app, it'll be right there waiting for you the next time you open that app.

All of this is new tech, and it's quite possible that some of it may not work exactly right, but I'm hoping to have all the bumps smoothed out by the time the new season of The Sounds of Christmas rolls around on November 1st.

If you click the link to listen to The Sounds of Christmas down in the show notes, you'll find our new player and directions on how to download the new app to your phone, tablet, PC, or other device.

Hopefully, this will make it easier to find and listen to the sounds of Christmas in whichever way works best for you.

I don't usually use this podcast to talk about technical changes for the Sounds of Christmas station, but there are a couple significant changes this week and I wanted to share them.

First, we have a brand new player.

You'll see it when you go to the Sounds of Christmas website on both the homepage and the Listen Now page.

The new player is significant for several reasons.

First, it has a pop-out feature that lets you literally pop out the player into a small window and then go wherever you like on the web while taking the Sounds of Christmas or, as it is right now, the Sounds of Halloween with you.

there's also another new feature that will let you vote for specific songs when you hear a song that you really like or even love just click the love this song button and it will register your vote in 2027 i'm going to compile all the votes and reveal the 5 000 most loved songs on the sounds of christmas i'm trying to keep things positive so there's no down vote option I had like and dislike buttons on a player years ago and found that groups of people, mostly fans of certain artists, wouldn't just click for their favorites, but would also click dislike for all the rest.

You also get only one vote per song or at least per airing for a song.

That will hopefully make this as fair as possible by keeping people from voting for one particular song 50 times.

But if you hear a song you really love on another day, you can click to vote for it again.

I hope that all makes sense.

I want this voting process to be fair and to accurately represent the most loved songs on The Sounds of Christmas, at least as accurately as this kind of process will allow.

Next, our apps are now available.

Actually, it's just one app, but it works for Android and Apple.

You can get it for free from our website.

As Google and Apple seem to change their terms pretty often, and some people have some concerns about both companies, I thought the easiest way to get this out there was just make it available at soundsofchristmas.com. And the voting function will work on the players on our website, the pop-up player, and the player in the app.

By the way, the app is for the Sounds of Christmas station.

Since this podcast is available on so many different streaming sites, including YouTube, it didn't seem necessary to add it to the app.

If there's enough interest in it, it might be something that I revisit down the road.

If you'd prefer to get your apps from the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store, I recommend using the app mRadios, that's spelled E-M radios, and you'll find it in both the Google Play and the Apple App Stores.

When you open that app, just search for The Sounds of Christmas, and you'll find the station there.

And you can listen for free.

And if you favorite The Sounds of Christmas on the mRadios app, it'll be right there waiting for you the next time you open that app.

All of this is new tech, and it's quite possible that some of it may not work exactly right, but I'm hoping to have all the bumps smoothed out by the time the new season of The Sounds of Christmas rolls around on November 1st.

If you click the link to listen to The Sounds of Christmas down in the show notes, you'll find our new player and directions on how to download the new app to your phone, tablet, PC, or other device.

Hopefully, this will make it easier to find and listen to the sounds of Christmas in whichever way works best for you.