TheSixtyOne, new Scrabbel Video, and CDD voting
I have a new hobsession (obsession/hobby), it’s watching the Crate Digger Death-match votes as they come in. I tend to keep a tab open and check the current CDD poll status as I’m waiting for another page to load. It’s been exciting, Bomarr had an early lead, but D-Form has had a slow, but steady rise that eventually overtook Bomarr’s lead. In the last 24 hours though, The Evolution Control Committee’s track has really taken off. Can Boom-a-lakka-boom more than double it’s votes by midnight? Maybe today’s WFMU article will help give it that push.
Speaking of obsessive online behavior, I’ve recently joined theSixtyOne after reading Scott Beale’s post about it on Laughing Squid. TheSixtyOne is a music based social ranking network, like a Digg for artists and musicians. I’m usually skeptical about joining networks like this, but I’m glad I did. Within one minute of posting my lolCats song I already had 3 “bumps”. In three hours, 15 more new listeners bumped the song. Worst case scenario, 18 people that had never heard of me, listened to the song, and enjoyed it enough to help push it up. Even if no-one else hear’s the song, that’s enough to make me happy.
TheSixtyOne’s community seems very welcoming, and the voting system is very unusual When you log on, you are given a certain number of points (20) that you can spread around to songs you feel are “bump” worthy. If you bump a song, you lose some of that score, but if other people bump the song after you did, you double the score you have invested. So it is in a listener’s best interest to promote songs and artists they like (to get their score back). It reminds me of playing the stocks. Listeners can leave comments on a song, or on an artist’s profile, as well as follow what their friends are listening too or create their own playlist. Right now, I’m listening to Jay Hathaway’s playlist.
For musicians, the site has proven itself as an exciting way to promote work to new listeners, and an easy way to get music hosted for free. Anyone can listen to your songs without having to be a member, and the site offers options for downloading, etc. TheSixtyOne also offers the ability to sell your songs DRM free, making it a great (and super easy) alternative to iTunes for distributing your music electronically.
Perhaps the most useful of TheSixtyOne’s features (for artists and listeners) is it’s embedded mp3 feature. If you find a song you like, simply click the “share” button and it will offer email, links to social sites, basic hyperlink, or the flash music player html. 4 hours after uploading my song, I found this!
The only problems I’m finding with the site tend to stem from it’s non-intuitive format. It took me five minutes to figure out how to log on as a new user. How difficult is it to have a “register” or “new users click here” button next to the sign in options? My biggest beef, however, is that artists are not allowed to bump songs (even by other artists). The site requires that you are either a “listener” or an “artist”. So even though I’m thoroughly enjoying the artists on Jay’s playlist, I can’t bump them without logging out of my account and creating a new “listener” account. That is plain stupid!
An addition of a “lyrics” feature would rock, and I’d also like to see more room to let fans interpret songs they like by uploading their own fan art (album covers, etc) or videos of them rocking out or whatever. I can tell that the community is very interactive (I’ve gotten tons of great messages and comments), so I’d like to see the site grow that interactive feeling.
In a final bit of news, one of my favorite bands, Scrabbel (who aren’t on the61), have recently uploaded the music video for “Emily, I” a song of their forthcoming third album. Apparently the song has already made it to youtube’s front page, that’s great news guys.
January 12th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
The sixtyone site looks really interesting but like you said it is hard as hell to navigate. I signed up easily enough (even got 50 bonus points to start) but how do you upload your tracks?
For the CDDM do you know if the judges are going to provide write ups of their selections or are they just going to vote? It would be cool to get some feedback from the judges.
January 12th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
D-
You have to log out and create an artist page (versus a listener page). I’m assuming you are on a listener account because artists don’t start off with any points… unless I’m totally wrong. If you are an artist, then the upload song button is right below the “profile” button.
As for the judges, that is completely and totally up to them, but I am going to suggest it to them. We didn’t want to require it because listening to and reviewing [up to] 12 albums in a week is a daunting task in of itself.
I’m also going to encourage all the artists to write up any reviews on their own sites (all but one of the albums are linked on the cdd01 page). Hell, maybe we’ll do a secret peer judged voting on the next round.
January 12th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
I found your page http://thesixtyone.com/dform
it looks like you are an artist, so go to the profile section then “add songs” then drag that song into your profile space (on the right) so other people can hear it. That’s so fucking complicated, right? But it’s totally worth it.
I just found another listener/artist problem, i can’t freaking follow you. So I have no idea when you add new songs etc… Why do they make me have two accounts?
January 12th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
found some artists I like:
thesixtyone.com/zealous1
thesixtyone.com/PaulDateh
thesixtyone.com/DanTheAutomator (new song?!)
thesixtyone.com/chancesend
BTW, there’s something pretty fucked up if thesixtyone.com/ars is the number one hip hop artist. They are a good artist, but I don’t see how some folky/electro is the number one in the hip hop genre.
January 13th, 2008 at 2:57 am
Nice review, my first impression, when I joined about a month ago, was that the navigation was a bit unusual, but then, as one obviously becomes an addicted obsessive user
after 2 or 3 days it’s very intuitive. You simply know where to find what. The larger interactive part you are asking for is interesting. It is being debated in the forums, but some people want to keep it basic, others would support the idea of being able to put on more stuff, as there isn’t the usual profile section, with add-ons, demographic data, “about me” sections and more…so people tend to stay more anonymous than usual on the61.
Then, the genre list is still very basic and needs to be reviewed anyway, there is no soul and no folk genre, there should be tagging and subgenres, as many songs are simply miscategorized because of a lack of genres and subgenres.
In total though I am totally in love with the site, I have found so much music I’d never have heard otherwise. There is a lot of interaction between the users and between users and artists.
Cheers!
January 13th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
For some reason, I am not able to edit my profile… well, at least my genre and where I’m from and such.