Although we are constantly making little enhancements to the website, we have committed ourselves to releasing significant new features across the MusicStrands products quarterly. And this week is that time once again. Just in time for the holidays, we are introducing a bunch of new features and we hope you’ll let us know what you think.

The release is headlined by a new, easier-to-use website design. We’ve listened to your suggestions and added a few of our own including new graphics and new content.

MyStrands, our downloadable real-time recommender client has also been redesigned with several new features. You’ll be able to discover in real-time what others in the MusicStrands community are listening to. Give MyStrands a few songs or tags about music you like, and MyStrands will build a playlist of music in your library. And behind the scenes we’ve completely revamped our recommender technology to give you more and better recommendations.

Perhaps the biggest thing in the new release, though, is the rollout of some new social networking tools we’ve have been developing. New ways to tag, discuss, and discover music including member pages. And a person-to-person recommender to help you find other members who are listening to and dicussing music you might like, but don’t yet know about.

So the changes start rolling out in just a few days, and we get to start sleeping again.

In the meantime, to keep the adrenaline flowing for the sprint to the finish line, I’m off to spin an original release (it’s far from pristine so the crackling analog joy is worth the wear) of Neil Young’s seminal Time Fades Away that I have come across. You Young fans out there will know the rumors why this third album in the Young’s early 70’s “Ditch Trilogy” has never been released on CD, even though some argue it is his best and most important work. All I know is that I haven’t heard anything else matching tracks like “Don’t Be Denied” and “Last Dance”.