Newgrounds is an American website headquartered in Glenside and in Cheltenham Township, Pennsylvania, United States. Created in 1995, the site primarily hosts Adobe Flash animations and games, but also features a music oriented page, along with an art portal. The site was created and is owned by Tom Fulp who still oversees numerous aspects and regularly produces in-house and out-house content. Newgrounds is distinguished from most other Flash websites by its automated submission and rating system, as it was the first website in history to produce a fully automated user-generated content system.
Front page
The home page of Newgrounds displays recent submissions chosen by administrators as a special showcase of their favorites. On April 21, 2003 the first front page icon for a user-submitted Flash game was posted under the heading "Tom and Wade Recommend". The game that was posted was Taipan 3000 by Josh "Psycho Goldfish" Tuttle, a remake of a popular Apple II game called Taipan! .
As Newgrounds received more quality submissions the "Tom and Wade recommend" section grew from 1 to 2, 2 to 4, and 4 to 6 icons. As of 2009, there are 24 icons on the home page; 12 for Flash animations and 12 for games. The rate at which this page was updated also increased, from weeks to days, eventually leading to the removal of the "Tom and Wade recommend" heading and becoming a staple of the Front Page, making it easy for new users to the site to find quality content.
Originally the icons were created by moderators, as were the long Flash descriptions (the same process used for the collections pages), but this proved to be an extremely time-consuming, tedious task. Currently users are given the ability to attach their own icons with their submissions, and write their own brief descriptions.
In January 12, 2004 the home page archive was launched, keeping a month-by-month list of Flash content that was deemed to be worthy of display on the Newgrounds homepage. This includes either those who performed well in the daily awards, or simply those the admin deemed worthy.
On June 27, 2006, the Icon Helpers system was launched for Newgrounds volunteers to make and submit icons for newer flash content that was lacking an icon, making the integration to automated collections pages much more effective. On a few occasions, while maintenance has been performed on the site, the home page has been replaced by an "under construction" page showing the Newgrounds tank picture being welded by a programming crew. The image is accompanied by a message describing the work done, such as that displayed during the major update that occurred in July 2007, July 2009 and 21 October 2009 "IN UR TANK, UPGRADING UR SERVERZ :3".
Flash Portal
The Flash portal is utilized by Newgrounds members to submit Flash content. Registered users can submit new Flash games or animations and can vote between 0 and 5 on existing submissions. They can leave textual reviews as well, to which the author can reply. If the submission has been uploaded recently, the user can choose to Blam the submission (a vote from 0 - 1) or Protect the submission (a vote from 2 - 5). Submissions will be deleted if they fall below the following scores after each amount of votes:
- 100 votes: 1.0
- 150 votes: 1.25
- 200 votes: 1.6
Voting on submissions regularly and depositing experience (10 points earned for voting on 5 submissions in a day) increases the voting power a user carries. For example, a level 35 user's vote is worth 7.65 votes. This power is further increased by successfully voting on submissions during the judgement period. Protecting a submission that passes judgement earns protection points, whilst blamming a submission that gets blammed earns blam points.
Uploaded files must conform to certain requirements:
- The file must have the extension .swf.
- The file may not exceed the given capacity of 10 MB (Megabytes) except by prior agreement with the Administrators - a size that used to be far smaller but has been increasing in line with increasing bandwidth and tolerance for download times.
- Basic quality guidelines are in place - disallowing 'pictures in a slide show format with no interactivity', 'movies or games made from public .FLA files', 'photographs that are illegal' and so on. If these are not met, the submission will be 'whistled' by users.
Authors self-rate submissions for each of these categories: Nudity, Violence, Audio, Text and Adult themes (None, Mild, Excessive and sometimes Explicit depending if it is text or not). The ratings are:
- E (Everyone) = This Flash is suitable for viewers of all ages.
- T (Teens) = This Flash is suitable for viewers the age of 13 or above.
- M (Mature) = This Flash is suitable for viewers the age of 17 or above.
- A (Adult) = This Flash is suitable for adults only (viewers the age of 18 or above).
The ratings are only intended as a guide; there is no system in place to prevent people from viewing submissions of any specific rating. The system enables the submitter to record a credit for all the audio used in the submission and links directly to any audio taken from the Newgrounds Audio Portal.
Finally, when the submission is uploaded it receives its own page on Newgrounds and undergoes 'judgment'.
To aid the production of Flash to be submitted, Newgrounds has a variety of preloaders that can be downloaded and integrated into their Flashes.
On May 27, 2009, the Flash Portal underwent a large redesign, switching to a wide layout. Users that disliked the new layout have been given the option to change it via their account preferences.
Awards
When a Flash movie or game is submitted to the Flash Portal, it has the chance to win any of the following awards.
- Daily awards:
- Daily Feature/2nd/3rd/4th/5th : The five submissions submitted during a day that have the highest rating at the day's end are given awards and showcased on the front page.
- Weekly awards:
- Weekly Feature/2nd/3rd/4th/5th : The five submissions submitted during a week (which ends on Tuesday) that have the highest rating at the week's end are given awards and showcased on the front page.
- Review Crew Pick: This award is given to the submission with the best score in reviews.
- Underdog of the Week: This award is given to the submission with the biggest discrepancy between the review score and the popular vote.
- Turd of the Week: This award is given to the submission with the lowest score that managed to pass judgment that week. If the file has been swapped once it has passed, it can no longer win this award.
- Monthly awards:
- King of The Portal: This award is given to the user with the most portal awards during the previous month. Only the Daily Feature, 2nd, and 3rd Place awards count towards becoming KOTP , with each award being worth 3, 2, and 1 point respectively. Whichever user that accumulates the most points during the month will be awarded KOTP .
- Best of the Month: As of February 2005, the 2000 active highest-ranked (based on experience points) Newgrounds users, as well as moderators and nominees, have been able to vote for the best five submissions of the month (later updated to five movies and five games). Any submission that wins at least one of the first five awards above or is selected to appear on the front page within the month is eligible. Each of the ten winners is sent a check of $250, a certificate, a t-shirt of choice (this has recently been replaced with store credit) and stickers and often another prize that changes from month to month and is often supplied by sponsors. In the case that a prize is won by a Newgrounds-exclusive submission made by NG staff, the prize is passed onto the next winner. As of March 2009, the $250 prize has stopped in favour of revenue sharing.
- Yearly awards (Newgrounds Tank Awards), since 2007, decided on from all the submissions in a given year by a panel of judges. Nominations consist of the top monthly winners, winners of themed contests and staff inclusions. Winners receive a heavy bronze statue featuring the Newgrounds tank logo.
Audio portal
The Audio Portal is a place where artists can submit all types of music. When an artist submits their first song an administrator or audio moderator will have to review it before it gets listed. All the music is free to use (under a BY-NC-SA 3.0 Creative Commons license ).
Since the 2007 redesign, the Audio Portal has become more flexible and allows artists to edit their submissions or remove them providing they haven't been used in a submission to the Flash Portal or haven't been listened to more than 3000 times. Icons can also be added to audio submissions. Unlike the Flash Portal, audio submissions do not face Judgment from Users. There are also occasional contests in which money and shirts can be won. Some user-created music from the Audio Portal was used in The Behemoth's console video games Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers .
The main purpose of the Audio Portal was to prevent users from breaking copyright laws; users were using copyrighted songs in their submissions, thus breaking the law and running the risk of being sued. Therefore, the Audio Portal was introduced so that users could submit their own original work.
How do u make ur own myspace layout site!? - Yahoo! Answers
i really wanna make a layout site i already now ho… ... i really wanna make a layout site i already now how to make layouts and stuff, but i dont know how to make the actual site ...
Myspace Graphics Comments Codes for Myspace Hi5 Friendster Blogs ...
Graphics Categories New Graphics Updates Myspace Layout Maker More Graphics ... New feature of adding text to the bottom of your image. Add your own text ...
How do u make ur own myspace layout with ur own pics on it? - Yahoo!7 ...
"How do u make ur own myspace layout with ur own pics on it?" - Find the answer to this question and millions more on Yahoo!7 Answers.
Yahoo! Canada Answers - How do you make your OWN myspace layout?
i want to make my own myspace layout with pictures that i like and colours that i like, but the ... Can you log on your myspace with ur myspace email ? Have you ever milked a cow?
Yahoo! Canada Answers - How do you make your own myspace layout?
Okay, so i really really want to know how to make my own myspace layout from an image i found on ... Can you log on your myspace with ur myspace email ? Have you ever milked a cow?
YouTube - How To Make A Myspace 2.0 Layout
How to Make your own Myspace 2.0 Layout ... ayo i need help i followed ur directions but it wont work rite my layout comes out repeating ...
Forums > site to make ur own fancy layout
can someone give me a site where it shows u how to make those fancy, customed myspace layouts, like some i see on here. a site that's easy to understand n follow, thanx.
YouTube - Make a Basic Myspace Layout
How To Make A Basic Myspace Layout. Song: Mr. Carter(inst.) - Lil Wayne ... HOW TO MAKE UR OWN LAYOUT ON MYSPACE
How do u make ur own flashing layout for myspace??? - Yahoo! Answers
like u know those ones that are animated with flas…
On whateverlife.com u can make ur own layout for myspace:how can u ...
"On whateverlife.com u can make ur own layout for myspace:how can u make it skinny?" - Find the answer to this question and millions more on Yahoo!7 Answers.