Limited Functionality in 7digital API

105 views
Skip to first unread message

Scott

unread,
Jun 20, 2011, 10:39:23 AM6/20/11
to 7digital API Developers
I may be missing something, but I have tried to get the following
functionality through different parameters in API calls and have not
been successful. However, it seems that most of the functionality I am
looking for is found on 7digital.com's music store site so I figure it
is possible. I am looking for:

1. How can I get results similar to those returned at
http://us.7digital.com/cms/US-new-releases/new-releases.aspx. I'm
looking for *popular* new releases. Also, is there a way to specify
type=album in release/bydate?

2. How can I get the bio tag in artist objects? It always seems to be
blank/not exist.

3. The artist/toptracks method seems to return a not-so-accurate
representation of the artist top tracks. They more so seem to be the
artists most recent tracks. However, track/search with the a search of
the artist's name seems to return a larger variety of songs and a
better representation of the top tracks. How are track/search results
returned? As in, what order? Popularity?

4. the toDate and fromDate tags never seem to work, even in your own
API documentation. They return 0 results. Examples:

http://api.7digital.com/1.2/release/chart?period=month&todate=20080801&oauth_consumer_key=YOUR_KEY_HERE&country=GB

http://api.7digital.com/1.2/track/chart?period=week&toDate=20090301&oauth_consumer_key=YOUR_KEY_HERE&country=GB

http://api.7digital.com/1.2/release/bydate?fromDate=20090610&toDate=20090603&oauth_consumer_key=YOUR_KEY_HERE

5. It seems that about half of the queries I make return a list of
releases and tracks with NO price, whatsoever. Shouldn't the price be
on EVERY release and track? It makes your API seem very unprofessional
and my music store portrays that.

6. Any chance of getting a track/tags, track/bytag/new, and track/
bytag/top API methods?

Other than that, I am so far liking the 7digital API. Good work :).
Looking forward to hearing some answers.

Scott

Christine O'Dell

unread,
Jun 20, 2011, 11:47:08 AM6/20/11
to 7digit...@googlegroups.com
Hi Steve,

Please see below.

Thanks,
Chris

On 20 June 2011 15:39, Scott <sgri...@gmail.com> wrote:
I may be missing something, but I have tried to get the following
functionality through different parameters in API calls and have not
been successful. However, it seems that most of the functionality I am
looking for is found on 7digital.com's music store site so I figure it
is possible. I am looking for:

1. How can I get results similar to those returned at
http://us.7digital.com/cms/US-new-releases/new-releases.aspx. I'm
looking for *popular* new releases. Also, is there a way to specify
type=album in release/bydate?

This feature does not exist - if it's not in the documentation then we most likely don't provide it.

2. How can I get the bio tag in artist objects? It always seems to be
blank/not exist.

Correct - these don't exist.  The nodes have been added as stubs so that we might add this feature in the future.
 

3. The artist/toptracks method seems to return a not-so-accurate
representation of the artist top tracks. They more so seem to be the
artists most recent tracks. However, track/search with the a search of
the artist's name seems to return a larger variety of songs and a
better representation of the top tracks. How are track/search results
returned? As in, what order? Popularity?

Do you have an example of the artist/toptracks not being in the expected order?  The artists I've tried seem fine: http://api.7digital.com/1.2/artist/toptracks?artistid=7515&oauth_consumer_key=YOUR_KEY_HERE&country=GB
These queries are for really old chart data and we don't keep the chart data that far back (generally people aren't interested in charts 3 years old!).  If you remove the 'toDate' parameter you will get the current chart data, as per 


 
5. It seems that about half of the queries I make return a list of
releases and tracks with NO price, whatsoever. Shouldn't the price be
on EVERY release and track? It makes your API seem very unprofessional
and my music store portrays that.

As per the documentation (http://api.7digital.com/1.2/static/documentation/7digitalpublicapi.html#Price), if a price is not returned then the release/track is not purchasable in that country or the track cannot be purchased separately.

If you have any examples then we can investigate them specifically and confirm this behaviour.
 
6. Any chance of getting a track/tags, track/bytag/new, and track/
bytag/top API methods?

This features is in consideration but not yet available.
 
Other than that, I am so far liking the 7digital API. Good work :).

Thank you :)
 
Looking forward to hearing some answers. 

Hope these help.
 

Scott

Scott

unread,
Jun 20, 2011, 1:12:32 PM6/20/11
to 7digital API Developers
Thanks for the quick reply.

In regards too..

1. If something like http://us.7digital.com/cms/US-new-releases/new-releases.aspx
is not supported, how did you get the desired results on your site?

2. Again, I see the biography's on the site, such as at
http://us.7digital.com/artists/coldplay/. Why exclude it in the API?

3. One example could be
http://api.7digital.com/1.2/artist/toptracks?artistid=8293&oauth_consumer_key=YOUR_KEY_HERE&country=GB.
All of the top 10 "top tracks" are from the same, most recent album
"Wasting Light". And none of there truely top tracks (I think it's a
general opinion :)) such as Everlong or My Hero or The Pretender or
Learning to Fly are not there.

However, when I do a search such as
http://api.7digital.com/1.2/track/search?q=foo%20fighters&oauth_consumer_key=YOUR_KEY_HERE&country=GB,
I get much more varied and true results.

4. So.. the todate and fromdate parameters are not supported?

5. An example could be a link in answer #3,
http://api.7digital.com/1.2/artist/toptracks?artistid=8293&oauth_consumer_key=YOUR_KEY_HERE&country=GB.
No prices are given, and I assume you can buy Foo Fighters songs in
GB?

Thanks again,
Scott

On Jun 20, 11:47 am, "Christine O'Dell" <christine.od...@7digital.com>
wrote:
> Hi Steve,
>
> Please see below.
>
> Thanks,
> Chris
>
> On 20 June 2011 15:39, Scott <sgrin...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I may be missing something, but I have tried to get the following
> > functionality through different parameters in API calls and have not
> > been successful. However, it seems that most of the functionality I am
> > looking for is found on 7digital.com's music store site so I figure it
> > is possible. I am looking for:
>
> > 1. How can I get results similar to those returned at
> >http://us.7digital.com/cms/US-new-releases/new-releases.aspx. I'm
> > looking for *popular* new releases. Also, is there a way to specify
> > type=album in release/bydate?
>
> This feature does not exist - if it's not in the documentation then we most
> likely don't provide it.
>
> 2. How can I get the bio tag in artist objects? It always seems to be
>
> > blank/not exist.
>
> Correct - these don't exist.  The nodes have been added as stubs so that we
> might add this feature in the future.
>
>
>
> > 3. The artist/toptracks method seems to return a not-so-accurate
> > representation of the artist top tracks. They more so seem to be the
> > artists most recent tracks. However, track/search with the a search of
> > the artist's name seems to return a larger variety of songs and a
> > better representation of the top tracks. How are track/search results
> > returned? As in, what order? Popularity?
>
> Do you have an example of the artist/toptracks not being in the expected
> order?  The artists I've tried seem fine:http://api.7digital.com/1.2/artist/toptracks?artistid=7515&oauth_cons...
>
>
>
> > 4. the toDate and fromDate tags never seem to work, even in your own
> > API documentation. They return 0 results. Examples:
>
> >http://api.7digital.com/1.2/release/chart?period=month&todate=2008080...
>
> >http://api.7digital.com/1.2/track/chart?period=week&toDate=20090301&o...
>
> >http://api.7digital.com/1.2/release/bydate?fromDate=20090610&toDate=2...
>
> These queries are for really old chart data and we don't keep the chart data
> that far back (generally people aren't interested in charts 3 years old!).
>  If you remove the 'toDate' parameter you will get the current chart data,
> as per
>
> http://api.7digital.com/1.2/track/chart?period=week&oauth_consumer_ke...
>
> > 5. It seems that about half of the queries I make return a list of
> > releases and tracks with NO price, whatsoever. Shouldn't the price be
> > on EVERY release and track? It makes your API seem very unprofessional
> > and my music store portrays that.
>
> As per the documentation (http://api.7digital.com/1.2/static/documentation/7digitalpublicapi.ht...),

Christine O'Dell

unread,
Jun 21, 2011, 10:58:20 AM6/21/11
to 7digit...@googlegroups.com
Steve, more replies below.

Chris


On 20 June 2011 18:12, Scott <sgri...@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks for the quick reply.

In regards too..

1. If something like http://us.7digital.com/cms/US-new-releases/new-releases.aspx
is not supported, how did you get the desired results on your site?

For this functionality we go straight to our internal database and don't use our API.  We are gradually moving our products over to using our API and adding new functionality to it as we go along.

2. Again, I see the biography's on the site, such as at
http://us.7digital.com/artists/coldplay/. Why exclude it in the API?

Currently we are unable to licence this information for third-parties to use, but we are working on it.  

In the meantime you can get biography information from our partner EchoNest's API using their Rosetta Stone Project to query via our Artist ID e.g.


3. One example could be
http://api.7digital.com/1.2/artist/toptracks?artistid=8293&oauth_consumer_key=YOUR_KEY_HERE&country=GB.
All of the top 10 "top tracks" are from the same, most recent album
"Wasting Light". And none of there truely top tracks (I think it's a
general opinion :)) such as Everlong or My Hero or The Pretender or
Learning to Fly are not there.

However, when I do a search such as
http://api.7digital.com/1.2/track/search?q=foo%20fighters&oauth_consumer_key=YOUR_KEY_HERE&country=GB,
I get much more varied and true results.

The Top Tracks take time in as a factor, i.e. newer releases are boosted slightly as people purchasing are generally more interested in an artist's more recent popular releases.

4. So.. the todate and fromdate parameters are not supported?  

Yes, but they are optional values.  If you don't supply them the API takes the current date.  If you do supply them, just bear in mind that we don't keep chart data for more than a few months.
 
5. An example could be a link in answer #3,
http://api.7digital.com/1.2/artist/toptracks?artistid=8293&oauth_consumer_key=YOUR_KEY_HERE&country=GB.
No prices are given, and I assume you can buy Foo Fighters songs in
GB?

The prices are found on the release/details and track/details responses, e.g. http://api.7digital.com/1.2/release/details?releaseid=1192901&oauth_consumer_key=YOUR_KEY_HERE&country=GB

HTH,
Chris
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages