What is BarStar?

BarStar is a real-world social game for karaoke lovers. It lets you log your performances, compete with your friends, and hopefully, make new ones.

How do I play?

To put it bluntly, get your ass out and sang, betch! The whole idea of BarStar is to encourage you to get out of the house, grab your friends, and go karaoke!

  1. Sign up — If you haven’t already, sign up for an account on BarStar. It’s free and easy — you can even use your Facebook or Twitter account. Although you can browse BarStar’s song, performance, and venue databases without an account, you must have an account to play the game.

  2. Follow your friends — The first thing you’ll probably want to do is go to the “Singers” navigation item and find your friends. When you find them, simply click the “+” icon next to their name to follow them. Once you do, you become a “groupie” of theirs, and they become one of your “idols.” If they follow you back, you’ll be “bandmates.” Check the “Find friends” tab to locate your Facebook and Twitter friends on BarStar. Once you’ve followed your friends, round them up and head to your favorite karaoke bar!

  3. Check into a venue — After you get to the karaoke bar with your buddies, you’ll all want to “check in” to that venue. On your homepage, you can select the “Check in” tab to see the venues that are near your physical location (according to your phone’s GPS). Pick the one you’re at, and tap the map pin icon to check in. Be sure to get your friends to check in, as well! If you don’t find the venue there, chances are it isn’t in BarStar yet. Go to the “Venues” navigation item and select the “Add” tab to add it. Don’t forget to check in after you’ve added the venue!

  4. Log your performances — After you sing, grab your phone, head to the “Performances” navigation item, and look for the “Add” tab. Enter the name of the song you sang. If your song isn’t yet in our database, you’ll be directed to another simple form where you can add it. When you add a performance, you can also indicate if anyone else sang with you — anyone checked into the venue will be available for you to select. Only one of you needs to log the performance. Don’t worry, you’ll all get the same credit regardless of who adds the performance to BarStar. After you’ve sung, ask your friends to rate your performance. Performances which haven’t been rated don’t count for as many points in the game. After all, if a tree falls in the woods…

  5. Rate performances — Check the “Performances” navigation item periodically. It’ll keep you up to date on who has sung what. If someone logs a performance and you saw them sing it, you’ll want to rate it. Rating acts as a way of confirming that someone really sang, to prevent cheating and of course, as a way to judge the performances you’ve seen. To rate an item from the performance list, tap the left-facing triangle icon to bring up the tools. If you are eligible to rate the performance, a five-star rating widget will appear. To rate the performance, simply tap on the appropriate star. Note that you can rate performances if you were checked into the same venue as the singer(s) at the time of the performance.

  6. Comment on performances and venues — If you want to leave someone a comment on their performance, just tap the comment icon in the performance list. Unlike witnessing and rating, you can comment even if you weren’t checked into the singer’s venue at the time of the performance. Likewise, there’s a comment icon in venue lists — we’d love to hear what you think of each place, their karaoke setup, song selection, etc.

How do I score?

There are three angles to the game play, and you’ll want to keep an eye on ‘em all.

Awards — Awards are like digital trophies you receive for all sorts of achievements and milestones you may reach in your karaoke career. For example, you may find you receive an award if you sing enough songs by a classic karaoke artist. Or perhaps you’ll get an award if you really master one genre. Or you may be rewarded if you perform in a number of different cities. There are all sorts of awards, and we’re adding more all the time. Just keeping singing (and logging the performances), and you’re bound to pick some up along the way. Please note that not all awards are in place yet, since we’re still in beta. However, you will be retroactively given any awards you deserve once they’re all set up.

Top 40 — Using a top-secret, industrial-strength algorithm, BarStar gives each user an overall score. The Top 40, then, shows who’s got the highest scores over the past 30 days. We’ll never reveal our exact algorithm, but the gist is that you will earn more points for performing a wide variety of songs and genres, performing in front of a lot of different people, and getting good ratings on your performances. You also earn points for witnessing and rating others, so be sure to contribute in that way, as well! You can find the Top 40 on the “Home” navigation item under the “Top 40” tab. You can see how you stack up against all BarStar players, the people you’re following, and the people in your area.

Stardom — Using the same algorithm as the Top 40, we determine who the top performer at each venue is for the past 30 days. Be the bomb at your favorite karaoke hotspot, and you’ll claim the title of BarStar for that venue! Likewise, if you’re the top performer of a particular artist’s songs over the past 30 days, you’ll be crowned the RockStar for that artist! You can see all your Stardoms on your homepage, or all of someone else’s on their profile page.

Who’s behind this madness?

BarStar was created by Jeff Croft and Scott Phelps, a couple of karaoke nerds transplanted from Kansas City and living in Seattle. We’re @jcroft and @shoghon on Twitter, if you’re into that kind of thing.

We have to give mad props to our Seattle karaoke posse, too, for their help in shaping what BarStar would become during our pre-beta days. In particular, Nobu Buckley, Jimmy “Woo” England, Jon Culver, Jay Hathaway, and Karianne Stinson are responsible for a lot of what you see, even if they never wrote a line of code.

What is BarStar?

BarStar is a real-world social game for karaoke lovers. It lets you log your performances, compete with your friends, and hopefully, make new ones.

Do I need to sign up to use BarStar?

In order to actively play BarStar, the game, you do need to sign up and create an account. Don’t worry, it’s free.

However, some BarStar services — including access to our huge venue database, which helps you find karaoke going on tonight in your area — do not require an account.

Will BarStar work on my device?

BarStar is designed to work well on iPhone and iPod Touch, Android, and Palm’s webOS. It is a web-based game and does not require a download. It is currently unsupported on other phones and devices, but you’re more than welcome to give it a try and see how it works for you.

Can I use it on a computer?

Our priority has been small-screen devices such as phones. BarStar works fine on desktop and laptop computers, but the design is currently optimized for smaller screens. We hope to have a desktop-optimized version of the game in the near future.

Is there a native iPhone/Android/webOS/etc. app?

No — not yet. We would like to make native platform apps for BarStar. If the web version is as successful as we’re hoping, then you can bet we will.

Are you going to have cool icons for the awards?

Yes, we’re working on it. Stay tuned. :)

I found a bug/have a feature request.

We’ll be setting up an appropriate feedback channel very soon. For now, just let us know at info@playbarstar.com. Thanks!

I’m a KJ. Can BarStar help me?

We have big plans for BarStar as a tool to help KJs promote their shows and connect with their audience. These features will be coming soon. If you’re a KJ and have thoughts about how BarStar can help you, we’d love to hear from you at info@playbarstar.com. Thanks!