We launched a very basic site with the idea of updating and improving the site on a frequent basis. Here's a record of the upgrades to iTunesCharts.net (formerly DownloadCharts.net).

0.12.0 - Domain Name Migration & Sitemaps

17 November 2012

The site migrated from www.DownloadCharts.net to www.iTunesCharts.net. Mostly to see what affect that might have on our Google ranking and traffic to the site as a result. Also, additional of an XML sitemap.

0.11.0 - International Artist Directories & Artist Pages

2 October 2011

We've now added international artist pages. These artist pages give an overview to the chart success (or failure!) of albums/songs/podcasts/TV across all the territories that we cover.

Bugfixes for 404 and 500 http errors. We're getting much more adept at handling error conditions. Google Webmasters Tools is our friend in this matter :)

0.10.0 - Artist Directories & Artist Pages

14 October 2011

We've now added artist directories. For each country we now have artist A-Z pages for each 'type' of content - music, television and podcast. The artist pages link to songs/albums/TV episodes and podcast channels that have charted.

Each type page e.g. /uk/artists/music/, /uk/artists/podcast/ and /uk/artists/television/ highlights the most active artists over the past 7 days.

0.9.4 - Domain Name Migration

24 August 2011

The site migrated from www.iTunesCharts.net to DownloadCharts.net. The old domain name infringed Apple's copyright of the trademark 'iTunes', so we changed it. The old domain should redirect to the new domain for the forseeable future.

0.9.3 - Summary & Synopsis

27 July 2011

Summaries and synopses are now displayed for TV Espisodes and Podcast channels where available and meaningful. Short summaries are displayed inside the 'About This Item' box along with the cover art and price. Longer summaries have their own box in the right column. Even longer summaries are split into two and have a 'read more'/'read less' switch.

The homepage copy changed a smidge too. The previous copy was booooring.

0.9.2 - Targeted Tweets

16 July 2011

We're now using @twitter_id in tweets - where the musician/band has a known twitter account.

Also - a minor tweak on item pages where the artist is listed as "Various Artists" - this used to link to other releases by "Various Artists" which was pretty dumb. That's fixed now! Hooray!

0.9.1 - Localised URLs for Podcast Channels

30 June 2011

Performance improvements for the 'item' pages. URLs for individual podcast channels.

0.9 - Localised URLs for Songs, Albums & TV Episodes

26 June 2011

We've added individual URLs for each chart entry. These pages are accessed by clicking on the song/album/episode title in the charts themselves.

Chart pages display statistics including: release date of the relevant item, chart debut, highest position, most recent position and days on chart. There's also links to the other localised URLs if that song/album/episode has charted in other countries.

Additionally, there's a full run-down of the chart history in tabular form and a graphical representation of the chart history. The graph is provide by Google Charts and is limited to 140 chart positions.

These pages feature a 150x150 pixel packshot (or 'cover art' if you prefer) with a link to the iTunes store where available. Navigation back to the referring chart is via mini-chart in the right column.

0.8.4 - Goodbye Film & App Charts

29 April 2011

Due to lack of interest, we've stopped offering film and app charts. The archive is still available via the footer navigation - just click on the 'all charts' link. New charts will not be available however.

There's more details about the decision to stop supporting charts for film and iPhone applications here. We apologise for any inconvenience and hope you understand - you're a grown-up now, so be brave. Consider it a life lesson in love and loss.

0.8.3 - Baby needs books

31 March 2011

Leaderboard advertisements added to every page. All revenue generated goes to ensuring that iTunesCharts.net can continue to exist :)

0.8.2 - Domain name consolidation

7 March 2011

We were running on two domains: www.itunescharts.net and just itunescharts.net (no www prefix). That was a massive oversight. A sysadmin has had his privileges revoked until he can prove himself worthy once more.

0.8.1 - Baby needs shoes

17 August 2010

Advertisements added to chart pages. All revenue generated goes to ensuring that iTunesCharts.net can continue to exist :)

0.8 - Australian Charts, iPad charts

7 August 2010

iPad Application Charts for UK, US and Australia.
Australian Charts for a full range of formats
'Winners & Losers' boxes added to chart pages detailing highest new entry and biggest climbers and fallers.

0.7 - RSS feeds, Twitter

19 July 2010

RSS feeds for all charts - populated with news-worthy highlights from each chart.
'Follow us on twitter' boxes on the UK and US homepages.
Significant changes to the data import process.

0.6 - iPhone Apps charts, adding Spain & Italy, server-side caching

23 June 2010

Slightly re-modelled homepage including mini-charts for the most popular charts (song charts for UK, US and France)
Server-side caching for performance improvements.
Updated country-less content-type hubs (limiting the mini-charts to four for appearances sake)
TV mini-charts now showing the TV series name as well as the episode name.
Added iPhone Apps charts for United Kingdom and United States.
Two new countries added - Spain and Italy. Bienvenida! Benvenuto!

0.5 - Non-Regionalised Hub Pages, bug fixes, plus a weird graph

24 April 2010

Hub pages for chart types showing all charts across all countries. This means we have navigation on all pages, not just country specific sections. Country-specific navigation links to the latest full chart rather than a hub page showing the top 10.
Country-specific chart hubs display a graph comparing the number of new entries / climbers / non-movers / fallers over a 12-day period.

Contact us form now takes upto 400 chars in the textarea and the error messaging is more helpful :)

"Days on chart" figures now make more sense (despite being a teeny bit less accurate, according to the prissy dev).

0.4 - Contact Us Form & Buy Links

16 January 2010

Addition of a contact us form.
Chart entries now have links to iTunes for purchase.

0.3 - Right column wizziness

02 January 2010

The right column archive navigation on chart pages now collapses using javascript.
The right column 'chart statistics' box can filter chart entries.
Fixes for Internet Explorer (versions 6 & 7) wonkiness.
Also, added an FAQ - "What are podcasts?" and "What's iTunes?" (these for Gareth's mum!)

0.2 - More charts and some bugfixes.

15 December 2009

Adding charts for Germany and France.
Fixed broken links in the primary navigation in the French section.
Extra stability to the XML importer and coarser-grained error reports.

0.1 - Initial Launch

01 November 2009

Basic charts for the UK and USA.

Technicalites

• This site is powered-by the Django framework.
• Hosted by the good people at Webfaction.com.