thesixtyone, which calls itself “a music adventure”, is an online community where artists upload their music and listeners decide which songs are the best. As The Drop puts it, the site is an “almost game like format [that] consistently keeps you interested” with its “influence points” system. Points measure your influence as a listener or your popularity as an artist.
- As a listener you spend points to vote for or “bump” a song. When others like the songs you bump, or when you spend more time on the site, you gain points and reach higher levels, which unlock special abilities like multiple bumps.
- As an artist you level up to unlock special abilities like uploading additional songs.
It seems to be a trend for websites to liken themselves to RPGs with jargon like leveling up and unlocking abilities even if reward systems have been around for much longer than games. But I’m more interested in how well they used AJAX.