May
16th
Sat
16th
May
12th
Tue
12th
psych? and one more thing
hey guys, the “hearting/saving” changes have been rougher around the edges than we’d like, so they’ve been rolled back as we reevaluate some design choices. thanks again for your patience!
p.s. you may notice that the “history” tab in the miniplayer is now fully-persistent…no more losing your play history when you leave thesixtyone!
back/forward controls
it’s long bothered us that non-firefox users (chrome, safari, opera, ie) couldn’t use their browser’s back/forward buttons while on thesixtyone. well, i’d like to recitify the issue: we’ve added a nifty set of controls that appears when you mouseover the top left corner of your screen. enjoy!
May
11th
Mon
11th
quick update
sam and i have been very busy squashing bugs (thanks to our loving users!) and experimenting with some interesting concepts behind the scenes…so much so that we accidentally made one of the concepts (unifying favoriting/hearting) public before it was fully baked. eek!
the basic idea here is to consolidate the “verbs” on thesixtyone (saving/hearting) and simplify the user experience. additionally, we’d also like to see if we can reinforce the significance of “hearting” by encouraging listeners to only heart songs that they genuinely enjoy. we’re still experimenting and rounding out the rough edges (i.e. *persistent* play history is returning), so expect upgrades to the “favorited songs” and “stats and achievements” tabs in the near future.
as always, sam and i appreciate your patience (and awesome feedback!).
Mar
31st
Tue
31st
reinventing the brand
it’s pretty simple. we’re tired of people forgetting our name, so we’ve chosen a new one: thesixtynine. it’s catchy, screams “7 deadly sins” (hello max levchin), and, face it, it’s way more memorable than the lowly, often-overlooked “61.” who the heck is bob dylan, anyway?
more importantly, the switch has put us at the top of the heap as far as search engines are concerned. chief technical officer sam hsiung says “since rebranding to thesixtynine, we’ve seen a 234% jump in referral traffic. i’ve poured months into SEO (search engine optimization) tweaks with minimal results. i guess marketing trumps engineering.”
so remember, we’re not just a number anymore.
we’re thesixtynine.
screenshot by brian mcculloh
Mar
13th
Fri
13th
zomg reputation
by now some listeners have likely experienced a huge reputation boost on login, leaving them wondering: is this a bug? a wonderful dream?
“pinch me,” they say.
the recent jump was the result of completing our transition to the new heart-based reputation system. as such, reward structures have been updated accordingly.
so it’s not a bug, just the feature. er, “future.” :-)
Feb
26th
Thu
26th
shuffle shuffle
tonight we finally introduced a way for people to shuffle their music. listeners should now see a new sort tab appear under “favorited songs” — this functionality extends from your recently favorited tracks all the way down to your specific tag lists. enjoy!
Feb
23rd
Mon
23rd
tag radio
we’ve added a really sweet tag radio to the homepage! it makes for the perfect background music to fit your mood.
Jan
30th
Fri
30th
a preview of what's to come
as aluded to in a previous post, sam and i have been experimenting with an improved voting/reputation system over the past few months. early results have been promising, so we’ve decided to gradually open it up to the rest of the community so we can hear what you guys think and continue to add polish. more details to come on sunday…
james
Jan
26th
Mon
26th
