A bump is equivalent to a vote of confidence. Listeners bump songs they like as a way to express their love for it.

The primary way to earn points is by bumping music. It'll cost you points upfront, but if songs you bump get bumped by others, you can earn more points! If you hover your mouse over a 'bump' button, you'll notice that it will indicate how much it costs to bump that particular song. A song's first bump carries the highest bump cost, usually 50 points. From this point, the cost of a bump decreases until the song is published after which further bumps adhere to a fixed rate of 5 points. Tip: songs that reach the homepage cost 5 points to bump.

You stand to earn substantially more points bumping a song before it hits the home page. However, this carries a high upfront cost, so bump wisely.

This depends on your level on thesixtyone. New users begin at Level 1 and are allowed to bump a particular song once. The bump limit increases as you accumulate points to reach Level 2 and beyond.

Points are short for 'Influence Points' on thesixtyone. Your level will automatically rise as you earn and amass points. Points record your progress and reflect your community status, but, most importantly, can be spent to bump more songs. If you have an abundance of points, you can even use them to multi-bump songs and really flex your influence in the community.

Besides bumping good music, here's a few ways you can earn points on thesixtyone:

• Listening to music on The Rack (+1-20 points per song, reward based on dice roll)
• Logging in daily (+20 points)
• Inviting a friend (+20 points and +50 points for each level they achieve or +100 points per level if your friend is an artist)

We're also looking into allowing you to earn points when people listen to your personal radio. Stay tuned!

You can track your bump history and point rewards in the 'Stats' page of your profile.

Levels display your skill/experience in bumping good music on thesixtyone. Reaching the next level requires you to have saved a specific number of points. Leveling up unlocks bonus features like multi-bumping, etc.

For now, just raises to the multi-bumping cap for each song, but stay tuned!

After you have more than 300 points, you cannot earn more than 50 points per day from The Rack.

Click the PLAY button on any song player -- click on any link on thesixtyone and the music won't be interrupted! When the song completes, it will automatically move on to the next song below it. Additionally, you can control the 'Now Playing' panel (top right) on-demand by clicking the PREV/STOP/NEXT buttons.

This is the main attraction of the homepage. It comprises of bump-driven, genre playlists that let you effortlessly listen to the best stuff on thesixtyone. 'Hot' uses a special algorithm that brings you the hottest tracks of the moment. 'New' is up and coming songs chronologically ordered by how long they've been posted to the homepage. 'Best' displays the top-performing songs of the month.

The Rack features a random mix of music that hasn't yet hit thesixtyone radio. You earn free points for listening to songs on The Rack. It's a fun, rather fortuitous way to listen to new stuff. Plus, with The Rack, you're guaranteed to get the chance to be an early bumper of some of the best emerging music on thesixtyone!

Share: send a song to friends or post to sites like Facebook, Twitter, digg, etc.
Watch: enjoy a music video or live show recording of what you're listening to!
Comments: view and join in on the ongoing conversation!
Bumps: see who has bumped this song.

Click '+add' on your favorite song and it will be added to the 'Recently Added' playlist located in your profile page.

It's ridiculously easy if you've used iTunes, Windows Media Player, or Winamp before. Go to your profile and select 'My Music.' Click on the 'edit' button located on the 'Playlists' panel. Then click 'New' to create a new playlist, and type in a name for your playlist into the accompanying textbox. Click 'Done' when you're finished. Now select any song in the 'Recently Added' playlist and drag it to your new playlist. You should hear a clicking sound effect when the song successfully transfers...and you're done!

Yes, just copy and paste the URL link at the bottom of the playlist you want to share.

Click the 'Share' button on the song player you'd like to share. From here, you can e-mail this song to your friends with an optional message or post it to your Facebook profile. If you have a blog, website, or MySpace, you can copy/paste the embeddable HTML code to easily add songs to wherever you please, just like a YouTube video.

Tunebox is a nifty feature that lets you easily share songs with your own personalized message. Tunebox messages can be sent to an e-mail address or to any user on thesixtyone.

Find a listener who has great music taste? Want to know when your favorite artist adds a new song to thesixtyone? The subscription feed on your profile lets you keep tabs on music information relevant to you.

For listeners, click the big green 'Subscribe' button on their profile page. For artists, all you need to do is have one of their songs in your 'My Music' page.

This information is forthcoming. Stay tuned!

Once you've created an artist account, go ahead and click the 'Upload Song' button on your artist profile page. Complete the song info page and upload away!

Yes. Goto your profile and click 'edit profile' underneath your profile photo. From there, click on 'edit account'. There should be a form allowing you to convert your account.

The quantity of songs you can upload is dependent on your artist level (see 'Points and Levels'). New artists begin at Level 1 and may upload up to three of their best songs.

Uploading currently supports the standard DRM-free MP3 file format.

Click the 'Edit' button on the song player. You'll see a link in the edit popup that allows you to re-upload your song.

Click the 'Edit' button on the song player that you'd like to change. Click save to complete your changes.

Click the 'Music' button your artist profile page. You'll see a list of the songs you've uploaded to thesixtyone. Select the song you want to remove, and click the 'X' icon that appears.

Points help determine the artist's level on thesixtyone.

Artists earn points each time a listener bumps one of their songs.

Leveling up improves the artist's standing on thesixtyone leaderboards and unlocks bonus features along the way. Although this initiative is currently in development, we can announce one unlock for now: as artists level up, they become eligible to upload additional songs to thesixtyone.

We currently support AmazonMP3. A 'buy' button will appear on songs available on this service.

Make sure you're on the latest version of Adobe Flash (9.0 r115) by going here. Our linux users have reported problems on earlier versions.