A trip down thesixtyone

Posted by Flick in Music on 09 28th, 2009 | no responses |

While searching for new music sites I came across a site called thesixtyone (think Route 61). Mashable describes thesixtyone as “Mp3.com meets Digg.” What do they mean with that comment? Digg is a voting-based site where popular stories filter to the front page. Mp3.com was the first music social site where artists could climb charts and distribute their music as people listened. Let’s take a look to see if this description is correct.

When you’re creating a site you’re asked to create one of three types of accounts: listener, artist, or record label. Obviously, only an artist or record label is supposed to upload music. Creating an account is painless (you’ll need to confirm your email address). Preventing everyone from uploading music is their first move toward avoiding a lawsuit.

The first page shows a list of the 15 top songs on thethesixtyone. Hover over the album cover and click on the play button and the song will kick on. You’ll notice that the player is at the top of the page, so you can browse away from that particular page without the song cutting out. While you’re listening to a song, you’ll see small (but not annoying) bubbles in the lower righthand corner with a liner note about the song.

This is what you can do with each song:

After listening to a song for 60 seconds you can favorite the song by clicking on the heart.
You can save the song into your list of saved songs, and if the song is copyrighted via Creative Commons you can also download the mp3. We’ll give them huge points for this!
After you favorite a song you can tag the song with a mood (mellow, upbeat, relax, sad, or whatever you wish to tag).
Click on similar and you’ll have a list of similar songs (similar to Last.fm).
Sharing the song gives you an option to post the song to Facebook, Friendfeed, or Twitter. You can also embed the song as a standalone player or email it to your friends. Nice and viral.

Besides the Top Songs, you can find out what’s Hot Right Now or Recently Posted. You can also select the top Creative Commons songs, or listen to music according to your mood. After you’ve listened to a few songs and interacted with the site and follow a few people, Just For You will suggest songs to listen to (when someone you’re following has hearted a song, it’ll show up in your Just For You list). All of these options can be filtered according to music style, along with how recent the song was discovered, or made popular.

thethesixtyone introduces a point and level system as well. The levels are based on the number of plays, the number of hearts you’ve used (your level determines the number of hearts you can use in a 24 hour period), and your reputation.

What’s your reputation? It’s similar to a pyramid scheme surrounding the songs you heart. If you heart a song before anyone else does (or before it becomes popular), then you’ll get points as other people heart the song. You can discover a song and make it popular, or revive a song.

To revive a song, you bid against your reputation points:
“A ‘revive’ allows you to push your favorite song back to the top of the home page ‘new’ tab. You can revive a song by bidding reputation for it. The song with the highest bid will be chosen every few hours and posted to the home page, at which point all prior bids expire. You will only be charged if your song wins the revive bid.”

thesixtyone also has Quests that you can undergo. A Quest called This Just In challenges you to: “Listen to seven songs on the first pages of the recently posted section of the home page under the ‘all’ genre.” This particular quest awards you with 10 reputation points and 3 extra hearts. Click on Finish and you’ll be given a new Quest.

Besides following other users and having followers, you can also join Listener Groups… but one group at a time. The listener groups provide a message board, enjoy their own list of songs to share, or listen to the group’s radio.

Last.fm users can scrobble their songs, so don’t feel like you’re abandoning your Last.fm love while you’re on thesixtyone.

Gaining levels unlock features on the site, such as the Browse menu (the search bar works right away). Once you reach level 5 you can heart a song more than once. I’m sure there are other features that unlock but I’m still new to the site.

Artist pages have a bio, news, a list of upcoming shows, songs, photos, and a comment wall. It’s nice and simple.

thesixtyone also has a Bazaar, a shop where you can purchase music. The site claims that artists make $7 per purchased album. Not bad!

After reading all of this, be sure to check out the visualizer. Hover over the song in your player and click on Veg. It’s not as nice as the iTunes visualizer, but pretty cool considering that it’s streaming.

To be honest, this site has some great music, and it should only improve as more artists/labels utilize the site. I’ve been introduced to a number of new artists that sound really good that I would never have heard, and was surprised to find artists such as Arcade Fire and The National on the site.

If you’re an artist, this might be a nice way to find new listeners. You have the option of giving your music away (via Creative Commons) or selling it. This site has the potential to explode, which means that getting involved now could be a great opportunity for you.

Considering all of this, I would say the “Mp3.com meets Digg” description is spot on.

Follow: Puddlegum on thesixtyone