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As a note, I wrote this 5 months ago and forgot about it. I dug it up today and edited it a bit after I decided I was going to post something similar on the subject, and realized this said everything I wanted to say and more. So, without further ado.

Firstly, this will be my final post on the TiS beta. I have no intention of returning to the site in any social or administrative capacity.

Two major things have contributed to this decision. Firstly is simply Saurin's lack of interest in the site. Whatever happened to him between the site's release and now surely hurt any potential the site could have reached. He had a grand idea on how things were going to work in principle, but in practice they just didn't work out at all. That's not anyone's fault, that's just the way it played out. However, had he stuck around and maintained interest in the site, the problems with his system could have had a chance to have been fixed, or resolved in a way reasonably acceptable to the community. Instead, he chose to focus on easy things, mostly related to forum improvements, instead of confronting the problems head on. When I put together the Trac site complete with SVN source access, he had no ambition to contribute or even try to get involved with it. It's a shame, because I had worked up what I believed to be a decent-sized team of people who wanted to actually work on this stuff. Can I blame him for this? No, because his life is his own. If he doesn't believe that Trax in Space is an important part of his life anymore, I have no right to say that he needs to be responsible for it.

The second, and really the more insignificant factor, was the community itself. I say "insignificant" not because the community is insignificant, but because if the first issue hadn't existed, I probably would have been able to better put up with people criticizing the way I handled the site. No doubt Saurin would have taken some time to actually help out with the issues had he shown some interest in his own site.

There were a few factors that contributed to this:
- My abrasive, tell-it-like-it-is style of moderation
- Lack of respect for the spirit of the site
- Lack of respect for others in the community

I admit I took an over-the-top approach to moderation at Trax in Space. At first, I tried to come across as a no-nonsense personality that wasn't going to take shit from anyone. The problem was that this personality was extremely simple to channel anger through, and let me leave no doubt that a few situations on Trax in Space got me angry enough to do so unchecked, starting with the Ashwood situation. Sure, I had some infamous "flame wars" with Spectra and Simeon before that, but I always found those fun.

Once Saurin imparted some responsibility on me, though, I tried to carry out his wishes to the best of my ability. One of those responsibilities was to cut down on the amount of copyright material posted. Now, what Trax in Space should have been doing with copyrighted material was long a subject of controversy. I took my stance from the many name-and-shame schemes that other sites used in the past. I think, looking back, I took that too far. But at the same time, the reaction I was getting was confusing. From the removals of no-name artists I got praise, but from the removals of artists with some reputation on the site I often got a lot of negative feedback. It seemed like it was one of those things where I was expected to apply the standard to everyone except people's friends. This perspective didn't help any in tempering my responses.

Up to this point, I had already been upset with people breaking the spirit of the site. The main purpose and underlying goal of the site was to share your music with your friends. Everything else was just a bonus. Yet there would come along people who would make anonymous accounts with the seeming intention of provoking people.

This just made Trax in Space seem like a circus to me. I enjoyed Trax in Space for what it was for, and that was sharing music. These "artists" were merely interruptions that made TiS less enjoyable for me, and I'm almost certain that other people who decided to try the site to listen to some music were wondering what the hell they were listening to and just never came back. Things like this never help, but when someone's objective is to lift themselves or their friends up at the expense of others you can't really expect much in the way of morality.

TiS was also plagued with people who not only failed to respect the spirit of the site, but they also refused to respect other individuals, especially in cases where their opinion was in opposition to them. Too many threads would erupt in anger because people just couldn't get through their head that someone's ideas could possibly be different than theirs. I guess this is normal.

As for my administrative role, I stand by my removal of all music I removed. When proven wrong I put it back. It wasn't a big deal when that happened, and it's what I thought Saurin wanted for the better of the site. Without him around to guide the process, I took it over. Until he made the decision to keep things up until the copyright owners complained about it, my actions were consistent with what was necessary. I feel I went over the top, though, when it involved people that I considered to have a certain status in the community. Perhaps my intention was to make examples of big names, or to show people that no one's exempt from the rules. Whatever it was, it backfired due to my fiery presentation and resolve of the community to protect one of their own. Okay, so the response I got was more than acceptable.

However, it must be noted that this point by itself, my handling of my administrative duties, was never that big a deal to me, and still isn't. It alienated me from a few people, but really, I can handle the heat and own up to what I did whether right or wrong. So really, the above paragraph isn't as major of a contributing factor to my demeanor towards the community as one who was familiar with the situations in question may think.

The truth is, Trax in Space is going nowhere. Saurin's not going to suddenly come back and fix everything. The community's not going to suddenly gain respect for what TiS2 is trying to do. Nothing I could have said or done could have changed this. I tried, because I really believed in what Saurin wanted to accomplish, but when I realized that the community was more interested at entertaining themselves than help in furthering the site, my interest was gone.

Perhaps us music website operators expect too much of our users.

Labels: Trax in Space Beta

Friday, July 25, 2008

Of tigers and clowns
Posted: 11:54:00 AM 2 comments

You would think that from the title, I'd be talking about a circus. Yet, isn't that what Trax in Space has come to recently?

It still seems as though the whole Space Walk ripping deal is still fresh on the minds of many artists. The major concern is over how I named and shamed SW, supposedly without any evidence. Well, I had more evidence than just an image embedded in an mp3 file, and ultimately I got the evidence requested of me that made the accusation undenyable.

So I indirectly called him an "attention whore". Man up, I've used worse language in situations far less serious. People seem to think that I broke some kind of ethical code by using such horrible language while administering a site. Well, there is no code of ethics I get to follow, so expecting me to act a certain way isn't very reasonable, especially when it means something to me.

I really believe that Saurin unintentionally set me up for a confrontation like this, giving me admin privs, but not coming around to support me in situations like this, and then pulling the rug of credibility out from under me by changing the rules altogether at the least opportune time. But that's the hand I've been dealt, and in life you gotta roll with it.

So yah, I get worked up over these things, and I don't apologize over it. That's just not how I roll. If you feel that's just cause to leave the site, you're expecting more of me than I'm willing to give as a volunteer. I'm sure you'll get over it.

Now, if you want to talk about attention whores, look no further than the scores - and I don't exaggerate - of fake artists that have cropped up over the past month or so. Can anyone please tell me what the appeal of using these false avatars to spread mostly crap creations, make meaningless forum posts, and insult and poke fun at other artists, all while claiming you care about the future of the site? There are even two such artists that have volunteered to code. It's embarassing for the site, and I hope that something is eventually done to eliminate the impact of these fools.

Anyway, that's my rant for the month, back to coding.

Labels: Trax in Space Beta

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

More coding
Posted: 12:53:00 PM 0 comments

I just can't seem to get away.

Saurin finally gave up access to the code at Trax in Space, and it couldn't come soon enough to be honest. The retard party has fully taken over with seemingly no end in sight. To be honest, I thought about just saying to hell with it and just leaving the site altogether. As it is, I've given up Artist of the Month interviews, and much to no one's surprise, Saurin has shown no interest in picking it up again. Whatever.

Anyway, he gave me access to the code about 2 weeks ago with the intention of letting other people access the code (but not the server itself), but now he wants to do an NDA, so this might take longer than expected. In the meantime, I've got prospective coders helping out with finding what bugs there are, so that when I do turn over the code to them, they have lots to do.

Today, however, I added my first bit of code to TiS: the ability for forum moderators to lock threads. How sad is that? That the community is so fragile it requires forum moderation before features that actually relate to the site? It says a lot.

But, hopefully - finally - help has arrived.

Labels: Trax in Space Beta

Friday, February 01, 2008

Stagnant Trax in Space
Posted: 4:45:00 AM 0 comments

Trax in Space has become really stagnant in terms of development. In fact, Saurin has been pretty rare lately. I wish I knew what the heck he was thinking, because he's got a great site on his hands that needs help, and he's just not willing to do anything about it, either by doing the required work himself or delegating it out to people who can help.

It's gotten so bad, I've finally decided to voice my concern publicly. It's been met with overwhelmingly positive response by the community, which tells me I'm not the only one who sees the problems with the site and its present management.

Don't get me wrong here. I think very highly of Saurin and can respect that he has a busy life. But he's created a site that people love, but has massive problems, and hasn't taken the time to do anything about it. People are frustrated, and this has showed in the fact that song uploads are well less than half of what they were two months ago.

If I were him, I'd open up development to the community. Saurin can still manage what needs to be done on the site, but he needs help actually getting these things done. I'm all for setting up a trac for purposes of both organizing developers and tracking issues with the website, and granting SVN access to those interested in actually doing the work on the site.

Why he doesn't do this is beyond me. He HAS to recognize that he can't take care of TiS2 like he did TiS1. I have no clue what he's waiting for.

Labels: Trax in Space Beta

Friday, January 11, 2008

Trax in Space playlists
Posted: 10:35:00 AM 0 comments

I figured out how to take TiS's playlist control and use it on your own webpages.

First of all, you need to know the playlist ID of the playlist you wish to use. Just open the playlist and look at the URL:

http://www.traxinspace.com/playlist/?t=view&i=321

See that number in bold? That's going to be your playlist ID.

Next, get out notepad, and plug the following into it:

<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="450" height="150" data="http://www.traxinspace.com/player/xspf_player.swf?repeat_playlist=true&playlist_url=http://www.traxinspace.com/pl/321">
<param name="quality" value="high" />
<param name="bgcolor" value="#e6e6e6" />
<param name="movie" value="http://www.traxinspace.com/player/xspf_player.swf?repeat_playlist=true&playlist_url=http://www.traxinspace.com/pl/321" />
<embed src="http://www.traxinspace.com/player/xspf_player.swf?repeat_playlist=true&playlist_url=http://www.traxinspace.com/pl/321" quality="high" bgcolor="#e6e6e6" width="450" height="150" allowScriptAccess="sameDomain" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed>
</object>

Of course, you should replace the number 321 with your playlist ID in the three places it appears above.

That's it. Put that script into any HTML and you got a TiS playlist. You can now post your playlist anywhere you can put HTML.

Labels: Trax in Space Beta

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Trax in Space Open Beta
Posted: 2:34:00 PM 0 comments

Trax in Space is once again open to the masses! They have removed the beta keys, and anyone can now sign up. A few things you'll want to check out:

- My artist page, of course. :) All of my recent work is there, including the TiS exclusive Cent Credits... although if you are creative enough, you've already found it.
- Forums!
- The ever-controversial Charts.
- Finally, here is a Playlist of songs that are, in my opinion, the best of Trax in Space thus far. I'm constantly adding to it as I listen to more songs.

For those that are missing CTG, I strongly recommend Trax in Space as an alternative. It is constantly growing and improving.

Labels: Trax in Space Beta

Monday, July 16, 2007

TiS Beta updates
Posted: 4:54:00 PM 0 comments

Trax in Space released a whole slew of new features recently. Discussions is the primary one, although it took me half an hour to figure out exactly where the discussions were. Turns out that my cache was in full gear, and the old, wide graphics were wrapping the discussions down to a second row, which was conveniently hidden underneath the main panel of each page.

Now you can comment on playlists, discuss songs by attaching them to forum posts, see your play stats and the play stats of others, see what your friends rated a song in relation to you and others, and of note the charts seem to have been tweaked yet again. They are still mainly based on downloads, and I can't seem to get through to Saurin that this is a Bad Thing. I've been arguing with him, and I can already see that it's a losing battle cause he's made up his mind and he's not changing it. Never mind that every site that has had downloads or plays as the primary basis of its charts has had charts that take the person that can promote themselves the most and put them at the top.

I thought that was a lesson learned from TiS1. I guess not.

In any case, Trax in Space is starting to develop its community again, which is good to see. #traxinspace over on EsperNet is starting to fill up with idlers, which is a good sign. I predicted there would be 1,000 songs by the end of July, and there are currently 845. That's 155 songs in 15 days, I'm not sure if the site can finish with that kind of ferocity, but we'll see.

Overall, things are looking up. I wish I could get into reviewing like I had for TiS1, but with my time being as limited as it is and not getting any better, I'll settle for the occasional review.

Labels: Trax in Space Beta

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

More TiS Beta News
Posted: 5:45:00 AM 0 comments

So now that I've bored everyone with a sappy entry, I figured it's all due time for a Trax in Space beta update.

- The charts are practically in ruins, twice as useless as the old Trax in Space charts. If you want music from Trax in Space that's interesting to you, find yourself some friends on TiS and check out their playlists. I'm currently running one that contains some of the best songs on Trax in Space. Don't rely on the charts. Hopefully they will change.

- Bugs have been fixed massively. No longer is it every day I log in and report 5 or 6 bugs, perhaps one every few days now.

- Forums, I have heard, are in beta testing, and should be out by the end of the week.

- A new take on reviewer credibility is also being tested. I'm told that's slated for the end of the week, but knowing who's coding them ;) I'd give a working version until the following weekend.

- Music and reviews can now be filtered to "My friends" (Yay! No more midgets or sacks for me!), "My extended friends" (Sadly, there are midgets and sacks there. Apparently what passes for music for some ain't much.), and "All users".

- There has been talk of creating an Artist Advisory Council, where some artists are chosen to represent the artist base in guiding Trax in Space's development future.

- Finally, on the "artists on CRAQ" side of things, a recent change in Trax in Space's "Terms of Service" apparently sparked a bout of paranoia, resulting in at least two artists removing their catalog of music. <sarcasm type="dry"> Yes, thank you for being so bloody paranoid to the point of assuming people are untrustworthy by nature (Hmm, perhaps the first bit of the last post applies here?), and erasing the hard work of people who listened, playlisted, commented, and reviewed your song. Way to go! </sarcasm> Seriously, people. For the love of Chick-Fil-A sweet tea, settle down. Saurin's not out to steal your music. To even think that is so far removed from the point of Trax in Space it borders lunacy.

Labels: Trax in Space Beta

Monday, July 02, 2007

Gaming the System
Posted: 10:49:00 AM 0 comments

Perhaps Trax in Space's first major failure was revealed yesterday when for the first time in six years TiS generated a new set of charts.

xerxes's "emmy" debuted at number one. Having listened to the song, it is very deserving of the spot, although I think this one got some extra attention and perhaps a couple of extra stars out of the fact that, well, it's xerxes. Still, though, a great musician, and I'm not going to argue over that.

Number two, however, was a gag song (classified as rock instead of humor) that, well, maybe some people find funny, but many musicians are serious about what they do, and to find that such a ridiculous song so high in the charts is disturbing.

How is it possible that something so bad can climb so high on to the charts? What's happening here is known as "gaming the system". Basically, a bunch of people get together to manipulate the formulas used for the charts by giving it high ratings and reviews, usually in protest of something, or perhaps as an attempt to prove a point. It's difficult to peg the reason why this happens, but when you attract a large enough audience like Trax in Space does, something like this is bound to happen, and websites have to eventually deal with this.

Thus far, it doesn't look like Trax in Space is capable of dealing with this.

Granted, the site is young. The song in question had two ratings (a 1 and either a 4 or a 5) and a 5-star review that clearly exists for the sole purpose of gaming the system. The review did not have any feedback on it, neither from the artist nor other users who wished to agree or disagree with the review. There just wasn't enough data to provide the charts with accurate information that would have placed this song more appropriately, like off the list entirely.

But on the flip side, more people can come along to game the system even further by providing more empty 5-star reviews and ratings. Trax in Space needs a better way to handle this type of abuse, and hopefully they will come up with something soon.

Labels: Trax in Space Beta

Thursday, June 28, 2007

More on the TiS Beta
Posted: 4:38:00 PM 0 comments

Some random tid bits from the last week on the Trax in Space beta.

First of all, Saurin and Ryan have done a fantastic job of making themselves available when it comes to listening to suggestions and bug reports. For the most part I've been filling in the feedback box that's on most pages, but for the occasional major bug, or perhaps an annoying bug I found while talking to one of them, they usually have it fixed in a jiffy.

You may have noticed the song previews load faster, but are of lower quality. After messing around with a few different types of files, they finally settled on song previews to be 64kbps bitrate and 44.1KHz sample rate. This is good, because now people on lower connections can listen to playlists, and the bandwidth draw from TiS won't be so bad.

Saurin has been working on the reviewer credibility system. It's very complex, and I'm not exactly sure what it is used for right now. Saurin has some plans for it, I know that much, so go ahead and give feedback on reviews, showing whether you agree or disagree with it.

The site has been remarkably stable and fast. I remember the old Trax in Space used to have a lot of problems, but that was largely because it was coded by amateur coders in ASP who hadn't the first clue on how to make it perform well. Yes, that was me back in 2000.

The site is also closing in rapidly on 300 songs in a week and a half, so it has already surpassed OSMusic.Net in terms of number of songs. Of course, Trax in Space has a solid brand name, and OSMusic's just a fledgling side site for the moment. Still, it's pretty amazing the draw it's getting. I told Ryan 1000 songs by the end of July. My estimate now appears conservative.

Beta keys are flowing. If you haven't gotten one yet, hook up with someone who is an artist on the site and ask them for an invitation, every artist gets 5 invites for the beta period.

I'm told new big features are around the corner that will make the site even more fun. After what I've seen for the first week and a half, I can't wait.

Labels: Trax in Space Beta

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Well, that didn't take long
Posted: 3:25:00 PM 0 comments

The new Trax in Space has been around for only a week, and already the plague of "remixes" that use copyrighted material have surfaced. Of the first 130 songs I listened to or so, I have had to flag a startling 6 songs, or nearly 5% of what I've heard so far, as inappropriate due to containing copyrighted material.

First of all, TiS was known for not allowing copyrighted material. Former admin Dragonfire was amazing at finding these songs and removing them from circulation. Now with no such admin, TiS leaves it to its users to filter the crap out.

Instead, its users are giving such songs 4 to 5 stars, claiming it's the best version of the song they ever heard. In my opinion, Trax in Space is for people who make music, not copy music, and it saddens me to know that the population who enjoy copying music has returned.

I don't mind the "trance kiddies", as they are called, that pump out nothing but trance music. At least it's original music, and I'll take that over this remixing crap that goes on.

Labels: Trax in Space Beta

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Sharing on TiS
Posted: 11:12:00 PM 0 comments

One of the more useful features of Trax in Space as a listener of music is its mini social network. In short, I simply invite someone to be my friend, they accept, and everything that we do on the site is relayed to each other. I see when my friends upload new songs, when they do reviews, when they create playlists, and even when they make new friends. It's a "duh, why haven't we thought of this before" kind of feature.

With friends, you can request that you get reviews from your friends, people that you know and trust will give you a quality review. Yah, I can see that this could be used to inflate a song's popularity. I'm not yet sure how TiS plans on countering that. But the neat thing is that you can also share songs (not necessarily yours), reviews, and even another person's playlist with those on your friends list.

The new TiS will live or die by how much its users take advantage of this social network setting. With the site so young, it's hard to judge whether or not these features are going to get much use, but I can see the potential for this to be something fun, where music lovers will keep coming back to see what's new that their friends are doing on the site.

I don't know if I've noted that the site offers online listening, but it's also worthy to note that the playlist function uses a control that allows a user to listen to songs over and over. I find this neat because you don't have to formally download a song to listen to it, just listen online. It's nothing mind blowing in terms of functionality, but it's another little thing that will keep you going on the site.

These features are aimed at not only being of serious use for the artist, but fun for everyone involved. There are definitely things that need to be ironed out yet, but I'm fairly confident that the TiS team will figure it out.

Labels: Trax in Space Beta

More on TiS2's Reviews
Posted: 3:08:00 AM 0 comments

I had a chance to take a more in depth review of the reviewing system at TiS2. I must say that so far I'm pretty impressed.

First of all, you can review any song you like at any time. Or you can have the site build a queue for you, sort of like the old Trax in Space did. That means that casual reviewers can swoop down on songs they want to comment on, and reviewing machines can work through the queue, giving the artists that deserve feedback the most the reviews they deserve.

The queue system itself I touched on a bit in my last post. The BalancedReview System supposedly gives artists a way to have their song prioritized in the review queue. The review page has a tips section that gives some suggestions on how to increase your priority.

Review other people's music

Expand your network of friends

Participate on the site

Generally, activity is rewarded. I have no idea as to what activity has what weight on the priority system, but I would imagine that reviewing is going to give the most weight. Don't quote me on that.

It's a system that was started on the old Trax in Space with the Reviewer Incentive Program I came up with, and glad to see implemented here. OSMusic and Cute Trance Girls (they call themselves CTG Music now, whatever, they're still Cute Trance Girls to me *g*), also have a rewards system, so it's clear that those in charge of the community now get that dead weight shouldn't get reviews while active members come home empty handed. Given some of the comments I see at CTG, though, it still hasn't sunk in to some of the reviewers and musicians. But that's another topic for another time...

Anyway, I asked Saurin about whether or not there is a Reviewer Overseeing Committee. There is, in fact, none planned. According to him, there will be a reputation system that self-polices. He didn't go into details, but I will be very interested in seeing how that pans out. I personally believe that quality reviewers can and should be taught by those already with the know how when it comes to reviews, which leaves OSMusic as the only site that does this currently. This could be asking for trouble, depending on how well the system does or doesn't filter out the crap reviewers, something I think we'll only see once the full beta begins.

Just like the old TiS, the artist has the option to select a skill level of beginner, intermediate, or expert. Also like TiS, you get the option to select a summary review, which is just a grade and a box, or a detailed review, with many grades and a box. Ratings are now on the scale of 1 to 5.

The big difference from the old system here are the categories of the standard review. Right now, there are eight different sections to review:

Overall

Creativity

Artistic License

Arrangement

Vocals

Does it work as a piece of music

Sound Quality - This was not there when I checked the section tonight, but I did request it to be added

Comment to the artist(s)

It is interesting to note that the comment to the artist is private: only the artist gets to see that section. All other sections are public.

The artist has the option to add a comment to the reviewer for each section, and not just for the whole review. But perhaps the most impressive feature is that when the artist is requesting a review, they can choose which of those eight sections they want feedback on. So, if the song doesn't have vocals, or the artist doesn't care if the reviewer thinks their song was creative or not, they can simply deselect the appropriate sections, and the reviewer will not be able to review and rate that section.

This system does create an interesting problem. What if the reviewer is doing a standard review on a song where the artist has not requested a review for it? Well, right now all the sections exist, but I did add the suggestion that the reviewer be able to select what sections they want to review on the song, as opposed to it being a free for all.

Another important point is the fact that songs can only show up in the reviewer's queue if the artist requests a review. If they do not request a review, the only way they can get a review is by someone who visits the song page and spontaneously does a review on it. This has the advantage of shortening the queue to artists who really want to have a review on the song, allowing the juggernaut of reviewing machines to skip over songs where the artist failed to request a review. The disadvantage, obviously, is that if the artist forgets to request a review, they don't get a review. Unless, again, somebody randomly swoops down on the song and spontaneously reviews it. You get the point.

Overall, this has got to be the most complex reviewing system I've seen yet, but at the same time it gives the artist the flexibility they need to get the feedback they want. Casual reviewers can review what they want, while the reviewing machines can happily plow through the queue without fearing that people who deserve reviews aren't going to get them. This system has the potential to be very, very useful, to both artists who like complex feedback, to those who just want to share their music with others.

Speaking of music sharing, oh my, the options are awesome. In fact, I think I'm going to need a whole new post to talk about that, and I will do that tomorrow.

Just a note on beta keys. I have suggested to Saurin to fix a couple more of the major issues that exist before flooding the world with beta keys. I would anticipate by the end of this week, beta keys will be freely handed out, or perhaps even not needed by then. We shall see, and I'll keep everyone updated on this, because I know a ton of people are waiting to get in on this.

Labels: Trax in Space Beta

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Trax in Space is back
Posted: 7:17:00 PM 0 comments

Trax in Space made its return to the Internet today, although they're still in the early testing phases of the site. Only a couple beta keys were handed out, with the purpose being that these early testers can find the things that are really really broke. Like file uploading. Songs uploads error out, and pictures only upload on Firefox.

Aside from that, the look and feel is a lot simpler than the original TiS ever was. When you sign in, you are presented with a menu list. If you've ever seen OSMusic's user access menu, TiS's is way simpler. Gone are the cliche cartoon faces that adorned TiS in its prime, the effect they are going for here is definitely one of simplicity. The artist profile is not as extensive as it was on TiS, but there's still plenty to fill out for those who wish to make a complete profile. The reviewing section is a bit disorganized, but that'll be fixed with time I'm sure.

An interesting feature is something called the BalancedReview System.

The BalancedReview System is Trax In Space's pioneering review platform. The system uses a proprietary prioritization and filtering mechanism to determine which songs a reviewer should review. The system is designed to give opporunity to all musicians to have their music reviewed by users interested in reviewing their music.

A pretty nebulous description, but given the information you have to fill out when you become a reviewer looks a lot like what you had to provide on the old Trax in Space site. I suspect that the system is just a fancy name for the same old system, perhaps with a few tweaks invovled.

Trax in Space now boasts a social network, although it's not immediately clear what its full potential is. As things are fixed and songs are added, it'll be easier to see exactly how this can be used.

Also, the charts are back. Ugh... Not sure if I'm happy to see that, but knowing that a charts page is a good draw to a music site such as TiS, it was almost expected.

I'm done with my testing for today, but as I test more I will be posting here, giving my feedback. So far it's too early to tell if TiS will regain the buzz that it had back in the day, but one thing's for certain: TiS is back.

Labels: Trax in Space Beta