iGame Radio

iGame Radio launched its new redesigned website today and invites one and all to visit and participate. The site includes the new logo by Thomas Filipiak that won first place in the iGame Radio Logo Contest in June.

The redesigned site includes social networking links to the iGame Radio Facebook page, twitter feed, and Flickr accounts, where gamers can keep up with the latest minute by minute updates of Mac gaming news and see game screenshots and trailers. Users can also sign up for the iGame Radio newsletter, read the latest blog posts and tweets, and listen to the latest podcasts that have posted.

“I’m really happy about the final redesign,” said iGame Radio host Omaha Sternberg. “We spent a lot of time creating it and integrating the new logo into it. My thanks go out to Thomas Filipiak and his team for the logo design, and Elf M. Sternberg for the design of the website theme.”

Omaha also hinted at more features to come for the site, including a location for screenshots and trailers of Mac games, and a page for supporting the porting of games popular on other OSes to the Mac.

For more ideas, join the rest of us at the new redesigned iGame Radio. There you can read Omaha’s blog posts and comment on them, listen to the episodes, and subscribe to the RSS feed for iGame Radio.

The iGame Radio Logo Contest is over! I want to thank everyone who participated: from the contestants, to the sponsors, to everyone who voted. All of you made this contest possible and successful.

And so, without further ado, I’d like to present the winner of the 2009 iGame Radio Logo Contest and the new iGame Radio logo…

Entry #15 by Thomas Filipiak!

Thanks to all of the contestants: Thomas “Flip” Filipiak, Jack Shiels, Jean-Francois Blais, Paul Spooner, Fabio Chavez, Neeraj Sarna, Jason Moss, Arthur Palsenberg, Anna Olejniczak, Lincoln Green, Steven Lai.

Thanks to all of our sponsors: MusicSkins, PopCap Games, Howling Moon Software, Creaceed, Griffin Technology, Codeweavers, and Omni Group

But this is not the end. Because now I get to integrate the new logo into the redesign. In the next week (possibly two) I will unveil the new redesigned site. And in the coming weeks (and months) I’ll be adding even more cool content to the site that will hopefully give you a chance to make a difference in what Mac games are available to play.

Notes on the voting process…

The voting plugin I used, Democracy Poll, regulates voting via IP address (so it logs IP addresses for comparison). However, that doesn’t stop voters with dynamic IP addresses from voting more than once. That, of course, would require logging out of their ISP completely (shutting down the modem, etc to be completely logged out).

The vote was scheduled to end at 11:59 pm (Pacific Time) May 30. Unfortunately, I did not deactivate the poll before the morning of the 31st (hey, I was tired…I fell asleep before midnight). So, the voting continued beyond the scheduled time. But, because I had a log of exactly when votes were made and which choices those votes were attributed to, I was able to remove all votes cast from after 11:59 pm on May 30.

If you would like to see a spreadsheet of how I did this, email me and I will send it to you. I also welcome any comments or questions regarding the voting procedure, either in the comments here, or email to me. Don’t hesitate to make your thoughts known!

And again, thanks to everyone. You all made this a success!

One more day before the deadline to get your submission in for the Logo Contest. Then we start voting. Yay!

I’m looking forward to the vote. I’m testing out polling software right now. You can see it on the right hand sidebar…it’s called Democracy 2. Nice plugin, actually…if it weren’t for the pain of having to add the old widget folder (because this apparently hasn’t been updated since WordPress 2.2 or such, after which the sidebar widget thing was part of WordPress and one didn’t need a separate folder. Because now WordPress is trying to foist off on me a whole bunch of other widgets that it apparently thinks I want…without my permission. I’ll probably just code the poll into the sidebar css, and ditch the stupid folder so I don’t have to deal with this in the future after the contest is over.

However, when I actually do the voting, I’ll have it on a separate page. That way I can embed the images of the submissions right next to each choice box…no back and forth between pages or such nonsense. Also, although my marketing brain is really angry at me for not doing this, I’m not requiring any email addresses or such for voting. I will include a link to sign up for the podcast feed and the newsletter mailing list, though. But that’s not required for voting.

Next version of the iGame Radio redesign preview is up to look at. Just click on the Theme Switcher widget on the right hand column and choose bookpro_steel.

Changes this time around:

1. Added icons for social networking sites, such as twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn. More will be added (like, for the Facebook site).
2. Rearranged where stuff was in the right-hand column. When widgets are removed, things will be compressed.
3. Added ability to see links without having to mouse over them.

As always, I’m looking for feedback, so don’t hesitate to click and type. I’m especially interested if the placement of the social networking icons works for folks.

BURIEN, Washington – May 13, 2009 – The iGame Radio Logo Contest has only nine days left before the submission deadline, but has already reached seven sponsors, five logo submissions, and a prize package worth $770. Launched in February, the logo contest seeks everyone with an itch to draw, paint, or move those pixels to create the right design for a new logo for the iGame Radio podcast…the original Mac gaming podcast. The deadline is May 22, 2009.

The prize package of $770 features software and hardware from sponsors MusicSkins, PopCap Games, Howling Moon Software, Creaceed, Griffin, Codeweavers, and Omni Group. Prizes include CrossOver Mac Pro, OmniGraffle 5 Pro, TuneBuds mobile, and Peggle for the Mac. All prize information is included on the website.

All logo submissions are currently located on the iGame Radio Flickr site. “We’re really thrilled with the variety of submissions we’ve received for this contest,” said Omaha Sternberg, host and producer for iGame Radio. “This shows the wonderful diversity and creativity within the Mac community.” Ms. Sternberg encouraged everyone to comment on each submission, as all contestants are allowed to make minor changes to their submissions before the deadline.

Contest information, including rules for format and submission, are located at the iGame Radio Logo Contest page. The contest will run until May 22nd, after which the logo will be chosen through a public vote over a week long span. The prize package currently valued at $770 will be offered to the grand prize winner, but all entrants will gain a free t-shirt of their choice from the iGame Radio Café Press store.

For more ideas, come to the iGame Radio site at http://www.igameradio.com/. There you can listen to the podcasts, read blog posts about the game industry, and subscribe to the rss feed for iGame Radio.

Next version of the iGame Radio redesign preview is up to look at. Just click on the Theme Switcher widget on the right hand column and choose bookpro_steel. We’ve made some changes that fix the titles to blog posts and smooth out the positioning of the column to the right. Still some more changes to make before we’re done. And, as always, I’m looking for feedback, so don’t hesitate to click and type.

I’d like to give a big shout-out to my newest sponsors to the iGame Radio logo contest: Creaceed, Griffin Technologies, and Codeweavers. Thanks so much for your donations to the prize package. I know that the winner will enjoy everything you’ve donated!

If you want to see the design preview for iGame Radio, you can now take a look by clicking on “bookpro_steel” in the Theme Switcher widget located in the right-hand column. We still have work to do, but this gives you an idea of where we are headed. I’m looking for feedback, so please let me know what you think, and what you’d like to see more of.

I’ve received the fourth submission for the logo contest, and I’m really excited. Everyone who has submitted so far has really done a great job, and I think that we have some quality logos to review and vote on come May 23.

In the meantime, the redesign of the website is moving along very nicely, which I announced in the April newsletter that I would have done earlier than planned. It looks quite good, and I’m really happy with the work that has been done on it so far. If you want to see what it looks like before I relaunch it, sign up for the newsletter and you’ll be the first to know!