coxy's blog

I'm working on a new video game website with @dubielzyk and pretty excited for it. All I can say right now that it's called Game ID and it's about video games.

For future updates, follow @_gameid on Twitter, like the Facebook page or sign up for email updates on the website.

The Game ID landing pages are available in German, French, Indonesian, Japanese and Chinese. If you wish to help me with a translation, email me.

A while ago I posted about thesixtyone and didn't really go into much detail about the site - but that's because I hadn't been using it much. More recently, I've become addicted to the site. Forget Spotify, move over Last.fm Radio, I'm playing the game.

thesixtyone turns listening to music into a game; the more you listen to and 'heart' music, the more reputation you gain. The more rep you gain, the more you level up. The more you level up, the more you can do with the site and the better you look. You see how it's addictive?

When you first arrive at thesixtyone, I can't say it's obvious how you navigate around the site; but if you stick to it, you'll soon get used to it and find that you're zooming around the site to find the music you want to play and the music you need to listen to.

I say 'need' because thesixtyone isn't about merely listening to music that you want to hear - there's the game element - and if you're playing the game, listening isn't the fastest way to increase your level; you can complete quests - and this is where the site becomes a whole lot of fun.

This Just In
Listen to seven songs on the first pages of the recently posted section of the home page.
Award: 10 reputation, 2 hearts

'This Just In' is one example of a daily quest and is a way of earning frequent rep and hearts. There are Main Quests too which are sometimes a little more complex, but score larger rewards. Discovering a song before fellow users will gain you rep on a daily basis too and you'll here audio confirmation that you're the first to discover that track (which is a really neat feature).

N' Sync
Get four listeners who you've invited to listen to the same artist at the same time.
Award: 50 reputation, 5 hearts

A massive advantage to thesixtyone is that by playing the game you're allowing the site to take you on a journey of undiscovered music - there are many 'unsigned acts' on the site and you'll find yourself listening to artists and genres that you wouldn't usually listen to.

I think the best way to get into thesixtyone and to fully understand what I'm babbling on about, is to check it out for yourself. The site integrates well with Twitter, Facebook and Last.fm - so there's no excuses not to get social about it.

Sign up for free - remember that you were referred by coxy - and get playing.

On thesixtyone, you can find some awesome music from upcoming artists. I've just hearted Essie Jain - Glory.

If you haven't got an account already, you should sign up. And remember, you were referred by coxy.

Leave some track loving in the comments; what are your new found favourites?

Quality video! To quote from Digg, via my ever-so-wonderful girlfriend Victoria:

A mashup of true and mostly-true stories from IT hell. If you've ever called tech support and wondered what the hell they are doing down there... well, this should answer some questions for you. Starring Apache, Windows XP, Linux and Halo (among many others).

New years bring new things, and with 2008 comes a new version of Gamestyle. We decided to scrap the news, remove the ads, cut the crap and strip the site back to what it used to be (and should be) about; a good source for trust-worthy reviews, previews and writing interesting features.

I did an initial design for this a while back and since then Dave Carlson has done a great job pulling the site together and making it work. The whole process has taken months; but all of that time, aside from about 4 days, has been spent procrastinating or being busy with life - when we've actually found time to sit and work on the site, it's progressed quickly.

There's still a list of things to do on the site (sort out the forums, for example), and tweaks to be made here and there, but the bulk of the site is done - and I'm happy with it thus far. Everything on the site is licensed under Creative Commons, so make of that what you will.

It'd be great if you could visit the site - and if you like what you see, subscribe to the rss feed, sign up to the forums, link us on your blog or tell your friends.

Subscribe to coxy's blog:
Add to Google | Add to My Yahoo! | Add to Netvibes | Generic RSS Feed | widgetize!