Please see the blog post over at: http://rocklifestyle.com/2010/01/most-voted-uk-artist-wins-studio-prize/

Double Opt In

As great as it sounds, after investigation, a small percentage were fake accounts using fake email addresses. We removed the accounts and the official votes are stated in our previous blog post.

Now to ensure no more fake accounts and quality scores we have enabled the double opt-in verification method for all future signups.

How it works is in a single opt-in, people submit an email address and can vote immediately. The inherent issue with a single opt-in is that people can signup with several accounts and keep voting for the same Artist.

Double opt-in is an enhanced permission that tackles this issue. With double opt-in, the submitted email is not immediately able to vote. Instead, an email is sent to the address, asking to confirm that email address. If the recipient of the confirmation email does nothing, the submitted address is not able to vote. So only listeners who click the link in the confirmation email can vote ensuring valid votes.

Rock Sampler 002 Artwork by Kevin Hartranft

Sampler Artwork by Kevin Hartranft.

It was great to have a head to head first place chase for our first sampler!

After deleting a couple dozen fake accounts, these are the final results at end of November 2009

1. Riot 87 (962 votes)
2. Sesling (712 votes)
3. Colour Sunday (167 votes)
4. Here Lies The Enemy (136 votes)
5. Dave Oakes (134 votes)

All 5 Artists will be on the next Rock Sampler available to download on December 8th.

Lazer Graffiti

Would you like to win the totally awesome Galvatrons debut Laser Graffiti and custom shoe laces..

Simply answer the following question:
What country are the Galvatrons from?

Email your answer to comps@rocksampler.com with the Subject “Galvatrons”.

Closing date: Closed!

UPDATE!
Congrats to the following winners:
Devon Lasher
Jannie Nortje
Dominique dHotman

We would like to welcome you to rocksampler.com

All of us here hope that you enjoy the website! We have exciting plans for it and hope that you will be with us every step of the way as we continue to roll out shiny new features!

If you ever have a spare moment, we would absolutely love to receive any comments or feedback you have on the Rock Sampler site. So that we can make it even better for you!

Email us on: rock.sampler@pressredmedia.com

If you ever have any questions or problems with your account please get in touch and we will help to resolve them for you.

Warmest Regards
Liam, Rob, Andy, Nic, Brent and the rest of the Rock Sampler Team!

Rock Sampler 001 Artwork by Derek Deal

Sampler Artwork by Derek Deal.

Exciting news!

We had a major development recently which we have to share with you! Not only because we are super stoked and excited but mainly because it means rocksampler.com is 100% go! go! go! full-steam-ahead.

We inked an investment deal for our company Press Red Media which means we have funding to launch rocksampler.com (our first website/service). This means we can develop it by rolling out lots of updates and rad features for all you Artists and Listeners out there!

Taken outside Sofitel, Heathrow, London

In the photo above you can see Andy (far left) and I (far right) shaking on the deal. We are both looking unusually tidy, fresh-faced and (astoundingly enough) could even pass as productive members of society.

There is a lot of work to be done and the first year was always going to be a Pot-Noodle and Redbull fueled undertaking of epic proportions! We are primed and ready! Of course…we are hoping to have a really supportive community of Artists and Listeners to help us grow and evolve this website into a great place to find amazing music and support talented artists no matter who they are.

We can’t wait to meet you all.

Liam

So development has been underway for a while now and we’re picking up some serious momentum, which is awesome. The trouble with developing a system of this scale, with multiple developers, is managing the source code. Its nearly impossible without some kind of revision control system to keep things in check.

To this end, the Rock Sampler team has chosen Mercurial as its preferred flavour of revision control. Mercurial is awesome in that its a distributed revision control system, meaning there is no single server where the so called “head” of the project lives, but rather all copies in the wild are equal, and merging them together gives you the system in all its glory. The biggest benefits here are that there is no single point of failure in a master server, and also development is not dependent on a network connection.

Its always good to have some kind of project management tool as well, and we’ve chosen BitBucket for this. It integrates with Mercurial and allows for tracking of project milestones and issues, which makes project management from a development perspective way easier. We can easily manage any issues or feature requests, assigning them to specific milestones and/or developers.

Final Rock Sampler Logo

No matter what anyone might tell you: Branding is important. It is your face, your identity. It backs up and supports your name. So, just like a person meeting another person – when people (our potential website users) meet us for the first time, we want them to remember us and recognize us.

With this and our goals for the website in mind – we approached the logo as the first step in the design phase, with the aim of using it as a visual base to design the front end of the website around. We wanted to finish up with a logo that connoted: revolution, uprising, democracy, power, rebellion and the rousing vibe of Rock music.

With this in mind I researched a number of avenues including the old fashioned revolution posters that feature a raised fist and rising sun / striped backdrop. This felt right from the start and with a few tweaks to create a more musical feel I did this first sketch of a raised fist holding a microphone.

Initial Rock Sampler Logo Concept Sketch

As soon as I drew it, I knew that the fist needed to be facing the other way. The text was also just a positioning suggestion. Obviously for web applications you often need to have a logo that can work horizontally and vertically. So at this stage the font style was a total mystery.

At this point I had also drafted a short-list of logo designers who had the abilities and the vision for the project. The sketch style made the final decision for me. There was only one guy on my shortlist with the perfect style to create it. Alan Oronoz from Mexico.

Final Rock Sampler Logo (Alternative Layout)

Alan was quickly hired and after plenty of rounds of proofs, revisions, fine-tuning and viewing all manner of custom fonts, we settled on the final design. He was excellent to work with and I highly recommend him.

We hope that you like it! We do! Mainly because we feel it says everything we want it to and that is the most important thing.

Thanks!
Liam