Thanks Open Source Bridge

Today marks the end of Open Source Bridge 2011. This year Discogs chose to be one of the sponsors of the event, as a way of giving back to the open source community and supporting the awesome Portland tech scene.

We attended the various sessions this week and enjoyed learning and hanging out with other developers and systems people.

Thanks to the organizers for putting together a great conference! We're looking forward to another Open Source Bridge in 2012!

API v2.0

Today we are rolling out an updated version of the Discogs API! Our original API was released in 2007 and we've seen many interesting applications come out of it. This new version lays the foundation for more enhancements like user login, managing your collection/wantlist/sales inventory, and other cool things we'll be working on this year.

Some of the major changes:

• The API uses a new url: api.discogs.com
  
  
• An API key is no longer required
  
  
• We have removed the 5,000 requests per day limit*


• We are offering an official Python API client. Check it out on github. Feel free to fork it and submit pull requests. You can help us improve it!
  
  
• Responses are returned in JSON format now. You can still request XML if you prefer that.


• JSONP support

NOTE
We are phasing out the old API and it will be shut down on Dec 15, 2011. We will email all users with an API key asking them to migrate to the new version.

* API requests are still throttled, but if you are interested in unrestricted access, we are developing a premium API, please get in touch.

Exploring Discogs

Do you have a hard time finding J-Pop releases on vinyl? Maybe you want to give Viking Metal or Emo, Thug Rap a try, but just don't know where to start. However popular or obscure your musical preferences, the new explore page on Discogs can help you slice and dice the over 2.3 million releases in our database into a much smaller and relevant collection of releases, videos, lists, and reviews based on your superb taste in music.

New Release Updates via Facebook

Have you used the Facebook Like button on Discogs artist, label or release pages? We've just launched a new feature that will notify you through Facebook when artists or labels you like have new releases. Taking advantage of this new feature is easy as going to your favorite artists, labels, or releases on Discogs and clicking on the Facebook Like button.

Listed below are some of the artists and labels we like here at the Discogs office. Who are some of the artists and labels you like?

Artists We Like

Joy Division
Roy Montgomery
Venetian Snares
Milosh
Boards Of Canada (anxiously awaiting a new release update)
Weekender

Labels We Like

Factory
Kranky
Plug Research
Svek
Ninja Tune
Warp Records

Buy Music

The holidays are coming to a close and some of us may have a little gift money to spend on music (better than bill money, right?)! When looking to buy music on Discogs, and you do not already have a specific artist or release in mind, you can start with the Buy Music page. Linked from and previewed on this page you will find the bestselling mp3/wav files in Discogs Digital, recommendations for you, items from your Wantlist, items recently added to the Marketplace, and options for filtering the Marketplace browse page.

So go, have fun, and don't blame us if you order more than you first intended to.

Gone Fishing

Are you a seller that is going to be gone on holiday and unable to handle orders for a while (or just want to take a break)?

You can expire your for sale items from the Manage Inventory page using the Expire For Sale Items button, located at the bottom of the page. This saves your data but removes your listings from the Marketplace. Upon your return, use the button to Relist Expired Items and your listings will reappear in the Marketplace shortly. It's that easy!

Discogs Mobile

We are proud to present to you, Discogs Mobile! Over the past week, we've been hard at work getting a basic version of Discogs accessible to most modern mobile devices. We're targeting iOS and Android first, since they account for 90% of our mobile traffic, with more devices supported in the future.

To access Discogs mobile, simply navigate to www.discogs.com using your preferred mobile browser. By default, you'll see the mobile version of Discogs with an option to switch to the full site if desired.

Here's what you can expect to see when using Discogs Mobile:

* Search

* Artist page

* Master release and release page with 150px album artwork

* Sales history

* Reviews

* Collection & Wantlist management

* Recent activity

This is only the beginning.