• February, 24 2015
  • adrien joly

Thank You For Everything Adrien

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Being in a start up is like being in a family. In our case a band of brothers united by the common desire to make the internet work for us, fusing it with music in a way that no one had done before. There is adversity, there is achievement, and there are emotions, emotions that we all share together. Just like in a family, losing a family member means sadness. The sadness of knowing that they won’t be there when you arrive in the morning, adding events to their multiple Gmail calendars. The sadness of having one fewer mouth on pizza day. The sadness of knowing that they won’t be back. 

Oui mon p’tit gars, c’est comme ça

Today marks the official departure of one of the strands of the DNA of Whyd. The developer responsible for coding and building nearly everything we enjoy today. The rocker responsible for some epic jamming. The friend responsible for endless laughter, mouth trumpeting, and GIFs. The man responsible for the care taken towards each of his teammates and every visitor that came through Whyd. Dr. Adrien Joly is leaving us for the next chapter in his life and career. 

Oui mon p’tit gars, c’est comme ça

Adrien was here from the very beginning, coding remotely in cafés and in Whyd’s first incubator. He ventured with Gilles, Jie, and Loick to San Francisco to alternate sleeping in a one bedroom apartment in Chinatown for three months while the young team soaked in the charged atmosphere of California’s legendary tech mecca. 

He expertly directed the team through a few pivots before the mission became music, and it was here that Adrien truly excelled. He had already hacked together multiple music apps, like his location-based Foursquare app “Hear I Am” that he built with Loick, and “GigFM,” for creating playlists from upcoming concerts. Whyd was a natural extension of his passions. One that kept him working with us for over four years. 

Oui mon p’tit gars, c’est comme ça

As the team expanded both in terms of numbers and in terms of geography, Adrien led the development and release of our 5-star iOS app. He tutored interns. He kept an impossible number of moving parts aligned to ensure that music lovers could listen on Whyd. And, perhaps most importantly, he tempered the team’s expectations to protect the functioning of Whyd - to keep it from becoming too complicated, from becoming too heavy to stay afloat. There could have been no replacement for that potent combination of ability, intelligence, and demeanor. Something that is so perfectly summed up in his classic phrase, said with acceptance that some things are not to be changed, but with the hope that there will be another, better option: “Oui mon p’tit gars, c’est comme ça.”

Adrien is moving to the next challenges that he will face, as he navigates his career helping dreams become reality through technology. We have absolutely no doubt that he will be successful in every problem and opportunity he comes across. We believe that few people on this planet have his methodical ability to break apart obstacles into manageable pieces, then take out each of those pieces with precision. And we will be jealous of each and every person that gets to work with him. 

Oui mon p’tit gars, c’est comme ça

Never stop jamming, man. 

New Design, New Functionality, New Whyd

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We’ve been quietly working on improvements for Whyd which hit the light of day yesterday. We are very proud to show off the new web version of Whyd, which brings the design in line with our iOS app and blog. You probably saw the changes! 

There are some big differences and some subtle changes. The overall design is cleaner, brighter, and largely more modern, eliminating the boxy feel the old version for a flatter design. We brightened the experience from the darker days of black and gray. 

Most importantly, we incorporated the ADD button into the search box, so now you can search for a track directly instead of clicking the button to add a track, then searching for it. Don’t worry, it’s the central feature of Whyd, we wanted to make it better and more intuitive! 

The new version also includes better navigation, with a drop down menu to access your playlists and the hot tracks from any page. We also opened the landing page so that people can see the tracks trending in our community without creating an account. 

In the next few weeks we will also release a new version of the bookmarklet which will let you import multiple tracks/entire playlists from different sources, so you can add everything you want to Whyd! 

We’d love to hear what you think, so tell us how you feel about the new version here: [tony at whyd dot com]

Never stop jamming! 

3 Awesome Jamendo Contest Playlists

The Jamendo Playlist contest is in full swing, and we have been enjoying the music that people have been finding across Jamendo, from independent artists from all over the world. There are artists of all kinds: creative souls who are truly expressing themselves; composers who have put together soundtrack-worthy tracks; experimental beats makers pushing the envelop; crooners; strummers; seducers; rockers. 

If you want to win two tickets to the concert of your choice, here are the rules. 

Now, for your listening enjoyment, here are 3 playlist contest entries that you should listen to right now! 

Rwan - 15 tracks

Pierre Poupardin - 10 tracks

Adrien Joly - 10 tracks

Never stop jamming! 

BBQ is Back! [PHOTOS]

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It’s been nearly two years since the infamous BBQ that crippled our ability to host parties in the little garden behind our incubator, but it was too nice of a day to sit by without pulling out the old charcoal and roasting some merguez. Damn it feels good to be a grillster. 

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Adrien making some serious bread:

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Getting that fire going:

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Hot day in Paris, perfect for beer and BBQ! 

Next week, get your iPhones ready

Nearly every single music lover on Whyd has asked for it, and what a long project it has been: expertly managed by our lead dev Adrien, beautifully crafted and polished by our lead design Loick, and meticulously constructed and optimized by our tireless mobile dev Damien all the way out in San Francisco, we are proud to announce to you, our faithful community, that the Whyd iOS app will be out next week!

The significance might be lost on some people, who just assume that everything should also come in app form. But music is social at its core, and it is inseparable from our favorite life experiences. Music accompanies us through the difficult times, through the laughs and joys, through the stress and anxiety, always there, always helping, always enriching. 

To bring the Whyd experience to mobile is to help you get the most from your moments in life, by making sure that you always have the right soundtrack. If you’re in Paris come to our launch party and Play Off on Sunday afternoon, June 22nd to celebrate with us! 

Never stop jamming!

PS: Yes, Android users out there, we know iPhones get all the cool apps first. But we are already developing the Whyd Android app, so have no fear!

PPS: Windows phone users might have to wait a little bit longer…. 

Man Is Not A Bird: Help Them Crowd Fund Their First Studio Album

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For those of you who have been with us for a while, then you might have had the pleasure to meet one of the most genuine, helpful, and thoroughly good-natured Frenchman in all the 101 departmentals: our Lead Software Engineer, Adrien. Adrien not just a PhD in Computer Science, is also a furious drummer, and his epic post-rock group Man Is Not A Bird - who regularly top the Whyd hot tracks and who just released their first official music video - has been solidly gaining in notoriety in France and abroad. Now, after being together for a few years, they are going to release their first, full length studio album “Survived the Great Flood,” and they need your help. 

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A Huge Opportunity for Man Is Not A Bird, and THEY NEED YOUR HELP

Hello everyone! Hope you had a nice weekend, we celebrated Thanksgiving in Paris, with the Whyd team and our buddies coming together to give thanks for everything that we are lucky enough to have. One thing that we are very lucky to have are great friends and co-workers, who have become big parts of our lives. One of those people, Adrien, the man who makes everything at Whyd possible, needs our help! 

As you surely know, Adrien is the drummer for the post-rock group Man Is Not A Bird (MINAB), who have been buzzing lately around northern France after their tour last week in Angers, Strasbourg, and Paris. They are playing a concert on Wednesday (December 4) here in Paris at Batofar, and it is very important that you are all there

The organizer of the concert is also organizing a concert of MINAB’s favorite group: And So I Watch You From Afar, in the spring 2014 here in Paris. He said that if we can get a big group together, Man Is Not A Bird might be able to open for And So I Watch You From Afar! It would be a dream come true, a completion of the cycle of creation and inspiration, and would be the type of story that everyone wants to see. This week, we can make that happen. 

So go to this link: http://www.fnacspectacles.com/place-spectacle/manifestation/Pop-rock-Folk-DADS—-MAN-IS-NOT-A-BIRD—JEAN-JEAN-BFD04.htm and reserve your places today. If there is ONE concert that you are going to attend, please make it this one. The music is excellent, the venue perfectly suited, and the possibilities are powerful. Let’s do it! 

One Step Closer to Mobile

Even though it was recently the long holiday weekend here in Europe, our dedicated programmers were hard at work. We are still working on our native mobile apps for iOS and Android, but in the mean time, our guys hacked a quick fix. 

Now you can go to whyd.com/mobile and see a list of your tracks, search for any track, and add tracks to your profile from the search. This will give you the chance to go directly to the media and play the tracks that you want. It won’t play everything in a row and it doesn’t have playlists, but at least for those with iPhones you can get to your music, plus any other song in the world, and listen to it. 

It is merely a simple cover for the bigger roll out of the mobile platform and apps coming very very soon. But since it takes a while to make a killer mobile app, you can at least continue the jamming with less of an interruption.

Do You Like That Song? Playlist Contest Enters Second Week

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The fête de la musique came and went with a heavy amount of music, street dancing, and partying. At one point we saw our favorite crazy-ass Tusbar, and then promptly witnessed him trying to scale a barrier into a construction site. But a powerful combination of common sense and gravity (mostly gravity) kept him safely in the street.

Of course, the night would not have been complete without the revelers taking advantage of the cover of chaos to sneak a forced look around the inside of Adrien's car after his post-rock group Man Is Not A Bird's concert in the northern French city of Lille. 

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But here at Whyd, everyday is a fête de la musique, we don’t need an excuse to jam! We never stop! 

So, with the Do You Like That Song? Playlist Contest entering its second week, we’ve had the pleasure of listening to some incredible playlists and some really interesting tracks. And, since the DYLTS team made it interesting with the “If I had to pick only ONE song” category, we see how people’s taste in music really comes through (click their names to see their playlists). Here’s a sampling of some music lovers’ favorite songs:

Benjy Larcher: Coldplay - “The Scientist”

Clément P.: Noir & Haze - “Around” [Solomun Vox Mix]

Music and other shit: Daft Punk - “Around the World”

Disco Jelly: Donna Summer - “I Feel Love”

And a special shout out to best commentary on a track so far. It’s also from Music and other shit and refers to his selection of Kid Cudi - “Pursuit of Happiness” (Steve Aoki Remix) for the Partying at 5AM track: “Blablabla , I know fucking mainstream ‘n’ shit but come on , its 5 AM you are drunk as hell , You just want to party one or two last hours. THATS the song i want to hear in this moment.. ”

You can see the full list of participating playlists here under the playlist tab. And make your entry today and start sharing, still plenty of time to claim the prize! 

Track of the Weekend #39: Man Is Not A Bird - “Sounds of Spring”

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Daft Punk’s new single “Get Lucky" has been so popular on Whyd that for the last three weeks different versions of the song, and various covers, have dominated the Hot Tracks. But there is another release rustling in the bushes, flapping its wings, and starting to soar. French epic rock group Man Is Not A Bird — instantly recognizable to the Whyd community because our always-rational programmer moonlights as their banging drummer — dropped their new single “Sounds of Spring" last week, and held a concert on Wednesday in Paris to celebrate the release of a new joint album with the dark rock group Puzzle. “Sounds of Spring” is perfectly timed, and the catchiest song without vocals you’ll ever hear. Recently covered by Soundsearch, it is the culmination of a musical adventure, that builds on such MINAB classics as “Bringer of Rain and Seed.” It destroys expectations, stereotypes, and pre-conceived notions like the first bud of a flower on a still-leafless tree. It is complete, harmonious, and an absolute pleasure to listen to. Get ready to fly.