Wanted to also give a shout out to the Y! Live engineering team (you can see the team roster over in the right column of this blog). They’ve been working hard on some major nuts and bolts improvements to our streaming and communications infrastructure. Most of this is behind-the-scenes work you don’t see, but it’s critical stuff that will help keep the site running smoothly as it grows. We’re looking forward to soon being able to shift our focus to bringing you some brand new features which you can actually touch and feel and teach new tricks and stuff - so stay tuned!

The initial response to the developer preview of Y! Live’s API has been fantastic, and we’ve gotten a ton of great feedback from all of you. We’ve made some changes to the API in response to the things we’ve heard - here are the changes going live late tonight Thursday, March 20th:

• JSON Callback support. When making JSON requests, you can add an optional “callback” parameter to have the output of your request call a Javascript function of your choosing. This helps avoid cross-browser request restrictions. Read more about this parameter on developer.yahoo.com.
• Sorting on the /channel/PERMALINK/broadcasts request. You can now send an optional “sort” parameter with values of ‘recent’, ‘popular’, or ‘random’ to this request to get broadcasts for a specific channel in an order other than oldest first.
• Resource ID type. Due to some internal shuffling, resource ids are now explicitly strings. The only apps that will be affected are ones that are written in a strongly typed language and cast the id fields as integers. Most apps should require no code changes.

Please remember that the API is currently pre-1.0. This kind of feedback is exactly what we’re looking for as we approach a nailed down v1.0 of the API. So please continue to send us feedback/suggestions/complaints about the API to ylive-contact (at) yahoo-inc (dot) com.

Happy hacking!

Can’t make it out to South Beach for the annual Winter Music Conference this year? No worries, this year you can join the fun from the comfort of your own cube by checking out Y! Live’s Winter Music Conference streaming site. We’ll be there next week (starting Tuesday 3/25 and ending Sunday 3/30) and will bring you the biggest DJ’s, live interviews, and poolside cams (in between margarita breaks, of course).

What will you see? Some live sets we’ll be covering: Paul Oakenfold, Moby, Paul Van Dyk, Satoshi Tomiie, Adam Freeland, Mark Farina, Roger Sanchez, Armand Van Helden, Steve Lawler. Some concerts and parties we’ll be at: Oakenfold Bourne Sessions, X-Mix Productions, Marine Parade, Ultra Music Festival, Remix Hotel Beatport pool party, SAW Recordings, Stealth, Defected in the House, CR2 Live and Direct.

We’ll bringing you this live coverage in partnership with Birago Jones from the SAW Recordings XM Show and the Syndicated Beats podcast, and with special our special Y! Live guest host Tilly Key.

Catch all the the action at http://wmc.live.yahoo.com, this page will be dedicated to WMC all week and will feature the top WMC streams along with a schedule of upcoming events.

Also, drop us a note at ylive-contact (at) yahoo-inc (dot) com if you’ll be at WMC and would like to broadcast while there, or otherwise just hang out. Look forward to seeing you all in South Beach and on Y! Live.

Pattern is Movement 12pm
Port O’ Brien 12pm
Evangelicals 12:30pm
Shout Out Louds 12:45
The Weakerthans 1pm
Crystal Castles 1:30pm
Children 2pm
Grand Archives 2pm/10pm
Kaki King 2pm
The Slits 2:30
The Apes 3:30pm
Longhorne Slim 4pm/11pm
MGMT 4pm/10pm
Lightspeed Champion 4pm
Yeasayer 4:30pm
A Place To Bury Strangers 5pm
British Sea Power 5pm
Joey Cape 5:15pm
Why? 5:30pm
Mika Miko 6:15pm
Matt and Kim 7pm
Reykjavik 7pm
Woodhands 7:40pm
The Ting Tings 8pm
The Virgins 8pm
Phantom Planet 9:30pm
Pissed Jeans 9:30pm
X 10pm
Flosstradamus 10:15pm
The Cool Kids 11:00pm
Vampire Weekend 11:00pm
Nico Vega 11pm
A-Trak 11:30pm
Reckless Kelly 11:30pm
Akron/Family 12am
The Vines 12am
Kid Sister 12:10am
Paramore 12:45am
Thurston Moore w/Band 12:45am
Robyn 1am
The Legendary Shake Shackers 1am
The English Beat 1am
An Albatross 1:30am
Phantom Planet (DJ Set) 2am

DeVotchka (2:30pm)
Motorhead (3:05pm)
Okkervil River (3:50pm)
Clipse (4:30pm)
The Cool Kids (4:40pm)
Legendary Shackshakers (5:00pm)
Vampire Weekend (5:00pm)
The Blow (5:20pm)
The Slits (5:50pm)
Del The Funky Homosapien (7:00/10:45pm)
Hanson (8:00pm)
Hawnay Troof (8:00pm)
Islands (8:00pm)
Texas Burlesque Fest Revue (8:00pm)
N.E.R.D. (8:00pm)
Reykjavik! (9:00pm)
Yo La Tengo (9:30pm)
Manson Jennings (9:45pm)
MGMT (10:45pm)
Kaki King (10:50pm)
The Weakerthans (11:00pm)
YACHT (11:00pm)
Diplo (11:15pm)
El-P (11:45pm)
Zion-I (12:15am)
Serj Tankian (12:45am)
J Davey (1:00am)
Living Legends (1:00am)
NOFX (1:00am)
Dizzee Rascal (1:15am)

Natalie and friends will be in and around these events today:

British Music @ SXSW BBQ (12-3pm)
Blip Fesitval: Reformat The Planet (4pm)
Hot Topic/X Box/Rock Band Party (12:30-5:30)
MoneyMark @ Buffalo Billards (8pm)
Gonzo: The Life And Work Of Hunter S. Thompson (10pm)

If you’re at SXSW, come by and say hi to Natalie and the Y! Live audience!

Dame Lee II, the son of Dame and LaTamra Lee has made several appearences in Digga’s many live performances. Early in the morning on February 26, cries were heard out on the still-rolling Y!Live broadcast from a quite amazing show the night before. When I heard the wails were the result of 3 month old Dame Jr.’s death, my heart dropped.

Digga is pictured the night before the tragedy holding Dame Jr.

When Digga returned on camera, his 300+ viewers slowly started realizing what happened. The baby had died of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), which is an unexplainable cause of death in infants under the age of 1. After visiting Digga’s house to pay our condolences and offer any support we could, the Y!Live team was forever changed from this untimely loss.

For those who would like to help, a PayPal donation account has been set up in remembrance of Dame Jr.

Our hearts go out to the Lee family.

Sincerely,
The Yahoo! Live team

The annual Winter Music Conference in South Beach is coming up in the last week of March. It’s the largest annual gathering of industry professionals and artists in the electronic music scene. With some big DJ’s like Paul Oakenfold, Moby, Paul Van Dyk, and Tiesto, and an endless list of parties across South Beach every night - WMC is going to be a non-stop party. For those you you who won’t be there - don’t worry, the Y! Live team will be on-site, bringing you the best parties and music, streamed live on Y! Live.

For those of you who WILL be there, we want to hear from you! We’re looking for any Y! Live broadcasters who are interested in streaming from the event with us. We’ll work with you to get equipped and will be promoting our featured broadcasters during the event. We’ll be streaming all week, from Tue March 25 through Sat March 29. Drop a comment here or send a note to ylive-contact (at] yahoo-inc (dot] com.