There's a form on the upper left corner of the page to help you find recordings. You can now filter by topic and can also say that you want results recorded before or after a certain date, or between certain dates.
Some of the recordings now have descriptions (for example) and better cross linking so that when you're listening to one sermon it just takes one click to find more sermons by that minister or preached in that location.
Because the site is brand new there are a couple of things that still need to be ironed out.
- The "Request this event be made available for sale." link doesn't work.
- Though on the About page it says that many of the recordings are available for downloading, there is no obvious way to do this.
- Certain recordings are separated into separate tracks for hymns, lessons, and sermon (for example). Currently, clicking on a later track does not play that later track.
I also have 2 suggestions/hopes for the site (which they may be working on implementing or have chosen not to do).
- It would be awesome if it would be possible to download/subscribe to different sermon feeds (by minister or location) as podcasts.
- It would be cool if there were a "Share this sermon" link or button to make it easy for people to recommend a sermon to their friends by email or on Facebook.
1 comment:
Malcolm,
Thanks for taking the time to review the new New Church Audio website and to provide both and overview to your audience and feedback about what's not working and future features that would be nice to include.
The following is an update for you and your audience regarding these points (not in the same order you listed in your posting).
Bugs corrected 5/14/09:
1. The "Request this event be made available for sale." link doesn't work.
2. Certain recordings are separated into separate tracks for hymns, lessons, and sermon (for example). Currently, clicking on a later track does not play that later track.
Items that are a work in progress:
1. Obvious way to download a file - there is an obvious way to do this for files currently set to allow downloading but many audio files have not yet been "flagged" to allow for this. We have to work through the database to identify sermons and services without music and set them as allowed for downloading. This process has begun manually but we are also looking to automate this process where possible to make this service available to users as quickly as possible. We are prohibited from allowing downloads with any services containing music due to Music Copyright laws (reason we turned off downloading on the old site).
Future enhancements:
1. Podcasts of sermons - this is on our future wish list but with the significant database and website changes we just did not have the budget to do this at this time. We hope we can do so in the coming fiscal year.
2. We have added the request regarding the "Share this Sermon" to our documented future feature wishlist along with hopes to at some point have a video player (for New Church Live and other content) and maybe an iPhone app or 2 at some future point. Budgets and resources will affect timing for some of this, but we have them on our list.
Thanks again for thoroughly reviewing the site and sharing your thoughts and ideas.
Warm Regards,
Tracy
NCA Website Project Manager
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