How it was built
Thousands of pages, most of them generated from one database, on four servers in a Baltimore data center.
Platform
The whole site ran on Windows NT 4.0 with IIS, written in Active Server Pages (ASP) with some JavaScript. Several hundred pages were static HTML; most were built on request from the SQL database: artist pages, song pages, member pages, genre pages, region pages and the popularity charts.
Servers
- Main web server for www.listensmart.com, users.listensmart.com and ubb.listensmart.com.
- SQL server holding the Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 database, reached through ODBC. Each artist and song was catalogued with dozens of metadata fields.
- Song server (songs.listensmart.com) for streams and downloads.
- Conversion server, which took MP3 uploads from a staging area and converted them to lo-fi MP3, RealAudio and Windows Media with Sonic Foundry Sound Forge 4.5, and wrote the playlist files (m3u, smil, asx).
The bulletin boards
The boards ran on Ultimate Bulletin Board, written in Perl (ActiveState Perl on NT), with no connection to the main database. That is why forum members had separate profiles, and why the boards survive in the archive as plain HTML pages. On October 3, 2000, someone broke into the boards’ control panel and sent a forged email to every registered board member; the passwords were changed and the server logs reviewed (Sean Fenlon’s post).
Download tracking, CDs and royalty accounting
Revenue sharing was to be based on downloads, so downloads had to be counted honestly. Sean Fenlon described the system on the boards in April 2000: “four methods to secure the system and prevent abuse, including IP tracking, cookies, unique email addresses (which should explain why we require this function), and a secret method devised by a world-class hacker. All these components will generate a security tracking authorization code for each and every download.”
- Royalty accounting built from the ground up, to balance “traditional royalty payments, with CDs/Merchandise sale royalties, with advertising revenue distributions, all down to the penny.”
- CDs on demand. Automated CD burning and printing was tested by May 2000. Artists uploaded their own art for the front cover, inside and back cover of the booklet (one sheet folded into four pages), and the company built its order-fulfillment system from scratch.
Sources: bulletin-board posts, April 15, 2000, May 2 and 4, 2000 and October 3, 2000.
Features built on the database
- Collapsible modules on every page, remembered for each visitor.
- Search by similar artist and similar song, and “People who have enjoyed…” recommendations.
- Daily popularity charts by downloads, ratings, reviews, favorites and CD sales.
- Song reviews and 1–10 ratings from listeners and artists, tracked separately, with counter-measures against gaming.
- Free member home pages built with an “EZ Builder”, and daily statistics for artists.
- A six-step artist sign-up that created the artist and song pages in real time.
- An avatar chat room on The Palace chat server.
Development, test and beta copies of the site ran on separate “prog.” hosts; the screenshots in the business plan were taken there.
Today
None of that runs now. This site is static HTML. The Learn articles and the Genre Guide are pages; the archive shows the database pages as the Wayback Machine saved them, with the database functions switched off, and the Original Site rebuilds the screens from the plan.
Sources: ListenSmart.com offering memo, 2001 (Production Environment, Platforms, Site Structure); business plan, 2000; development environment notes, 1999.