thesixtyone was founded on the observation that there are thousands of great songs made every year that never get the chance to be heard by the people who would love them.

Sam and I were absolutely bewildered that the internet hadn't done much for independent music nearly a decade after Napster, so we challenged ourselves to create a new kind of online community that would make it easier to bring artists and audiences together.  Our unique design philosophy and the decision to be people-driven meant we'd be venturing into unexplored territory that would need lots of experimentation and iteration.

Twenty-two months after releasing thesixtyone out of Sam's bedroom to a handful of friends, we've been blown away by how much we've learned about things like inflation, listening habits, the meaning of popularity, herd behavior, etc.  Perhaps the most significant point, however, is that thesixtyone's learned what it wants to be when it grows up.

With that, we're proud to announce thesixtyone revisited, our first major release since launch and the next step towards nurturing the best place for independent music on the web.  We're refining our features and approach, so here's some of the things you can expect:

Artist-centric user interface

thesixtyone is about music, and, more importantly, the artists behind the music

New artist dashboard

managing your account on thesixtyone should be easy

Twitter integration for artists

do people even "blog" anymore?

Create a playlist with up to 10 songs

playlists are back

Drag and drop playlist reordering

playlists are back in style

Feature an entire playlist on your listener page

our #1 feature request!

New song commenting system

better discussions around songs!

Song lyrics

because sometimes you just can't tell if he's saying "denser" or "dancer"

New artist pages

we always wished artist pages would look less "facebooky"

Artist videos

"i made all of their videos, apart from the last two, so if you ever see an abba video on tv then it's my stuff." -- lasse hallstrom

Listener page themes

customize your listener page!

Private messaging system

improves discussion quality and limits spam

Persistent listener avatar bar

check yourself before you wreck yourself

Open Mic

recently submitted and the rack are having a baby

While there's still a lot of work left to be done, we feel we're finally at the point where there's enough clarity in our roadmap to share this news with you all.  Testing began with a limited set of users earlier this month and the plan is to gradually roll it out as we approach December.

Happy Thanksgiving!