You're looking back in time: Jamglue ran from 2006 to 2010. This page is a retrospective built from the public record.
The contest banner as it ran across the top of jamglue.com/contests/yourweek, May 2008.
The “Your Week” Theme Song Remix Contest
“Jamglue is excited to bring you a remix contest featuring the internet TV show Your Week, and its theme song by Anne McCue.” Your Week was a public television and internet show from WETA and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, hosted by Michelle Cottle of The New Republic and Rich Lowry of National Review, and, as the contest page put it, “powered by Reddit.” The prize was not merchandise: the winning remix would be the theme in the pilot episode.
It was the shortest window Jamglue ever ran. The stems went up late on May 19, 2008 and entries closed eight days later, on May 27. 137 mixes had been started by the end of the entry period, and around 160 by the time the results were up.
Reddit turns up twice in the Jamglue story. Jamglue ran on servers handed down from reddit, a story told in the Site Technology section of the retrospective; a year later the connection came back as a contest, with a reddit.com Alien bobblehead in the prize list of a show reddit was powering.
The Materials
“Here’s what you have to work with.” The contest page listed the official contest mix plus eight separate tracks, an unusually acoustic set for Jamglue: Anne McCue’s theme came apart into mandolins and a beat box rather than 808s.
| Your Week’s Theme Song | mix 3123243 |
| Bass | track 3123277 |
| Beat Box | track 3123279 |
| Brass | track 3123289 |
| Drums | track 3123329 |
| Gitsmandos | track 3123335 |
| Keys | track 3123349 |
| Mando | track 3123357 |
| Tambo | track 3123363 |
What survives: the track list and the track IDs, from the archived contest page. None of the eight files was ever crawled, so there is no audio to play here.
The Prizes
“The staff of Your Week will pick the Grand Prize winner! The winning remix will be used in the pilot episode of the TV show! And the winning mixer gets an iPod Nano, a Reddit.com Alien bobblehead, and a special DVD box set prize.”
“Runners up chosen by Your Week will be featured on YourWeek.org! The winners will also get a special DVD box set prize.” And “You and other Jamglue users will vote for 5 Popular Vote winners!”
The official rules set out three tiers with approximate retail values: the Grand Prize at $225.00, including a 4GB iPod Nano, a Reddit Alien Bobblehead, a special DVD prize and the placement in the pilot; four Runner-up prizes at $60.00 each; and five Popular Vote prizes at $50.00 each, a Jamglue T-shirt, ten Jamglue stickers, and “a prize TBD from Your Week.”
The Deadlines
| May 19, 2008 | The audio elements go online at 11:00 p.m. PT; the entry period opens. |
| May 27, 2008 | Entry deadline, 11:59 p.m. PT, eight days after the start. |
| May 30, 2008 | First archived capture, voting still open: 137 entries created so far. |
| Jun 1, 2008 | Voting closes. |
| By Jun 29, 2008 | The page has been rewritten with the results: “The results are in, and our winners have been chosen!” Four weeks from the close of voting, the quickest turnaround of the contests recovered so far. |
| Dec 17, 2008 | Last full capture of the results page: 158 entries. |
Winners
“The results are in, and our winners have been chosen!” Ten mixes were named across four tiers. Every name and title below is taken verbatim from the archived results pages; each mix links to its own archived page where one survives. The June 2008 results listed three runner-up winners; by the December capture one of them, thename, had been removed from the roster.
Grand Prize
TurreekK - Your Week’s Theme Remix by TurreekK
“This was Your Week’s top pick! The winning remix will be used in the pilot episode of the TV show! And the winning mixer gets an iPod Nano, a Reddit.com Alien bobblehead, and a special DVD box set prize. Congratulations, TurreekK!”
The same TurreekK who had taken the Grand Prize in the J.R. Writer contest three months earlier: two artist-picked wins in one year, from a rap street single to a public television theme.
Second Prize
“This one also stood out to the Your Week crew, who picked it as their second favorite. It gets a runner-up prize (see below) and special recognition!”
Runner-up
“Our Runner-up winners were also chosen by the staff of Your Week, and will be featured on YourWeek.org! These winners will also get a special DVD box set prize.”
| Your Week’s Theme Song | coolcat77 |
| Your Week’s Theme Song-Reason Mix | Reason |
| 01 - Your Week’s Theme Song (listed in the June results, removed by December; no archived mix page) | thename |
Popular Vote
“Our Popular Vote winners were chosen by you, the Jamglue users! Winners get a Jamglue T-shirt, Jamglue stickers, and a prize TBD from Your Week.” The top-voted mix was a collaboration, and the page split the prize: “MELVIN35 and GMitch both contributed to make this one happen, so they’ll both get prizes.”
| Your Week’s Theme Song [copy] | MELVIN35 and GMitch |
| Your Week’s Theme Song -ACE- OF NEED 4 BEATZ (REMIX) | khazreemi |
| Your Week’s Theme Song [copy]-DJ PREZ RMIX | Dj_Prez |
| Your Week’s Theme Song Feat. Fabolous(WTF IS THIS?) [Off-Beat] | DJ_G_TRAIN |
| Your Week’s Theme Song Edit By Aldwin | aldwinflanegin |
What survives: the names, the titles, and an archived mix page for each. The audio does not. Whether the pilot was ever produced with TurreekK’s remix in it is not recorded in the archive; yourweek.org is gone too.
About Your Week and Anne McCue
“Your Week is a new interactive weekly public television and internet TV show from WETA and The Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It’s hosted by Michelle Cottle of The New Republic and Rich Lowry of National Review and powered by Reddit. This cross-platform irreverent show will bring a mix of entertaining stories, unconventional interviews and thoughtful comments from brilliant people across the planet.”
“The Web feeds the show, the show feeds the Web, and anyone who wishes can get involved at any time to view, vote, rate, tag, comment, contribute, and learn. With your help, Your Week can be the antidote to the repetitive and polarizing media coverage that too often defines our national debate.”
“The theme song for Your Week was created by Anne McCue. Anne was recently honored by being included in Time Life’s ‘FOUR DECADES OF FOLK ROCK’ which features legendary artists from Bob Dylan to the The Byrds to Suzanne Vega. Originally from Australia, Anne is now based in Nashville, TN. She has released three studio albums and is currently at work on her fourth. She has performed with Lucinda Williams, who says of her, ‘Anne is my new favorite artist and an amazing guitarist.’”
Sources
jamglue.com/contests/yourweek with voting still open: the description, the materials list, the prizes, the deadlines, the entry count, the show and artist bios, and the full official rules.
The first archived capture carrying the results, four weeks after voting closed. This is the source for every name on this page.
The last full capture; its runner-up list has shrunk from three names to two.
static.jamglue.com
The contest banner, still sitting in Jamglue’s own S3 bucket, mirrored here.
Jamglue.com has shut down. Thanks for all your support.
Rebuilt from the Wayback Machine, the original static.jamglue.com S3 bucket, and contemporaneous press · Y Combinator: Jamglue (S06) · the retrospective