The TypeRacer Blog

Ghost Racing and Practice Racetracks

typeracer — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 10:35:26 +0000

You just got a new opponent on typeracer.com. It’s one of the toughest you’ll ever face – relentless and untiring, this opponent is…

yourself!

Ghost Racing is the new practice option on typeracer that lets you race against yourself! When you click on the ghost icon (labeled “Do over?”) at the end of a race, you will be placed in a practice racetrack where you’ll be racing against your own shadow on the same text you’ve just finished typing. Your shadow opponent is a computer controlled bot called a “ghost racer,” who will be simulating you. This bot will type exactly what you typed the last time around at exactly the same speed, down to every mistake, speed-up and slow-down! If you defeat your ghost you can start over against a new ghost representing the new, faster, version of yourself (using the “Do over?” button again). Or, if you’ve been defeated by your ghost, the option labeled “Try Again” lets you race the same ghost again. You can repeat this process over and over again, hopefully improving a little every time.

The "Do over?" button lets you race against your ghost (who in this case will be typing 77 wpm).

All ghost races take place in the new Practice Racetrack, which brings us to the second major announcement: the results of practice races will no longer be counted against your average or entered in your score history. It just made sense to make the single-player practice option unofficial. And for ghost racing, not counting scores removes the incentive for typing the same text over and over again as a way of unfairly boosting one’s average and leaderboard position. However, if you really want to save your practice scores, you can upgrade to a premium account, and have the option to save up to 2 scores for each text per day (this limit is in place for the same reason).

Although practice scores are no longer permanently saved in your account by default, you can still see the most recent ones by pressing the clipboard button in the top right corner of the practice racetrack.

I hope you will enjoy ghost racing and not hate the practice-related changes.

Looking forward to everyone’s feedback in the comments!

Update: From feedback received so far it appears that people love ghost racing but not everyone likes the change that makes practice (single-player) races not count. For instance, someone said “I don’t like the pressure of racing against other people, as it messes me up psychologically.” Should we revert to saving practice race scores (but not ghost race scores) automatically again? What do you think? You can answer this opinion poll:

View This Poll

Introducing the Pit Stop

typeracer — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 22:30:49 +0000

Today we’re launching a huge addition to TypeRacer! The Pit Stop is the new social and informational area of typeracer.com. It’s a place where you can take a break from typeracing to get to know your competitors and let them get to know you.

Here is an overview of the specific new features:

Profiles

Each racer now has a public profile page, which you can view and edit here. Your profile displays all your racing stats, and you can additionally fill out your personal information section to tell others where you live and what kind of keyboard you use.

Most importantly, if you have a premium account, you can now upload a profile picture, which will appear on your popup scorecard during races. And you can also fill out an extended “About Me” section where you can write anything you want to share with the rest of the typeracer community (such as links to your website, blog, Twitter account, Facebook profile, etc.)

Friends

Seeing how our typing measures up with our friends was one of the cool things about the old TypeRacer Facebook app. Now you can have friends right on TypeRacer!

When you come across the profile of a racer you’d like to be friends with, you can send them a friend request right from their profile.

Of course the best friends are those you already have. You can invite your real friends by entering their email addresses into the friend finder box on the Friends page. Or you can just grab a link to your TypeRacer profile and publish it to your Facebook stream or Twitter feed so that your friends who use TypeRacer can easily find you.

Messages

One of the most-requested features for TypeRacer has been to have a way to communicate with other racers. Now you can send a private message to anyone who has a TypeRacer account. Premium account holders can send messages to anyone else. Basic account holders can only send messages to their friends, but everyone can reply to all messages. These restrictions are in place to cut down on spam.

The scorecard popups on TypeRacer have been updated to let you quickly check out people’s profiles and send them messages. Just right-click on someone’s name while you’re racing to bring up this menu.

We invite you to head over to the Pit Stop and meet your competitors!

Speed Secrets

typeracer — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 16:42:48 +0000

While looking for some new and interesting quotes for TypeRacer, I stumbled upon a book called Speed Secrets: Professional Race Driving Techniques by Ross Bentley. Although this book will not win any prizes for writing style, it’s a very practical and enlightening manual for anyone who wants to become a good race car driver. While flipping through its pages, lots of Ross Bentley’s advice jumped out as being relevant to any form of racing, including our favorite kind – typeracing!

I wanted to share some quotes from this book with you: perhaps they will help you improve your own racing performance as you’re typing those same quotes on typeracer ;-)

In most cases, there is more to be gained by maximizing the performance of the driver than tricking out the car. The most important factor is the driver, the ultimate control system of a race car.

If you want to drive a race car well, whether to win an Indy car racer or just have fun competing in the middle of the pack in an amateur race, you must be seated properly in the car. First of all, you must be comfortable, otherwise it will be overly tiring and very difficult to concentrate. Many races have been lost simply because a driver lost concentration due to discomfort from a poorly fitted seat.

Being comfortable in the car is critical. If you’re not comfortable, it will not only take more physical energy to drive, but it will also affect you mentally. A painful body will reduce your concentration level.

I often see racers, particularly at the back of the pack in amateur races, trying to go fast, with their arms flailing around, banging off shifts, jerking the steering into a turn with feet stabbing at the pedals — the car usually in massive slides through the turns. It may feel as fast and even look fast, but I’ll guarantee it’s not. If the driver would only slow down, the car would actually go faster. It reminds me of the saying, “never confuse movement for action.”

The less you do with the controls, the less chance of error. Steer, shift, and use the pedals smoothly, and with finesse – not with blinding speed and brute force. The slower you move, the faster the car moves.

Sometimes you concentrate more on racing the cars around you, rather than focusing on what you need to do. Having said that, some drivers actually perform best when there is a little extra incentive – like chasing another car. Plus, you may be able to get a good draft off the car in front. But be careful you don’t get too caught up in what the competition is doing. Focus on your own performance rather than on the competition.

Look and think as far ahead as possible. Often, a driver’s natural reaction is to look at the wall or the point you’re just about to get to. That’s not enough. You won’t drive a smooth, flowing line if you don’t look far ahead. And looking well ahead, and concentrating on getting to where I’m looking, seems to really help me.

We often believe the more we practice a skill or technique – over and over again, many times – the better we’ll get. This is not necessarily true. Experience is not always all that it’s cracked up to be. In fact, every time you practice a technique incorrectly, you’re increasing your chances of doing it wrong again. It’s easy to become very experienced at repeating the same mistakes. Practice doesn’t make perfect; only perfect practice makes perfect.

So don’t practice too much at first, or you’re likely to develop incorrect patterns or movements. Instead, begin with a few laps, maintaining intense concentration and motivation. Continue practicing only while concentration and interest are strong. If you begin to repeat an error, or if your concentration or attention starts to fade, if you start to become casual, then stop. Clear your head, get your concentration and motivation back, then go again.

Races are not won in the first corner; however, they are often lost there. It’s usually best to run as quick as you can for the first few laps, then settle into a comfortable, consistent pace – all the while ready to take advantage of any opportunity to pass. Never turn down an opportunity to pass – you may not get it again.

Most races are decided in the last 10 percent of the race.

Never give up, no matter how far behind you are, no matter how unlikely it seems you will catch your competitor in front of you. Keep pushing until the checkered flag falls. How many times have you seen the leader of a race have a mechanical problem with only a few laps to go? You will never be able to take advantage of their problems if you are not close. You have to be close to take advantage of luck.

— Ross Bentley, Speed Secrets: Professional Race Driving Techniques

I hope you enjoy typing these new quotes as much as I enjoyed reading them. And remember, if you find any interesting quotes you’d like me to add to the rotation, please contribute!

Design A New Universe

typeracer — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 22:18:36 +0000

athletics (noun): competitive activities such as sports and games requiring stamina, fitness, and skill. — wiktionary.org

Over the past three years, TypeRacer has been a fun, even addictive, virtual world for personal development and sportive competition, visited by thousands of people every day. Although I like to think that my selection of funny and interesting texts for typing had something to do with TypeRacer’s success, the athletics of typing is really the main ingredient that keeps people coming back to the site. It’s fun to to compete against people from all over the world in typing, a vital, everyday skill, and it’s rewarding to see the improvement in your focus, stamina, and dexterity.

There is also a lot of potential in TypeRacer as a medium for learning new information and I believe that a community effort to create new sections (“universes”) within typeracer.com is the way to unlock that potential.

The technology for creating specialized new collections of texts on any topic is already in place. Last year we launched a number of new TypeRacer Universes (one for accuracy and fifty for different languages). If you are not yet among the twenty six thousand people who have already tried racing in another universe, let me explain:

A Typeracer Universe is a distinct version of the typeracer.com website which is accessed through its own unique URL such as (http://play.typeracer.com/universe/code). It has all of the same functionality, but with a distinct set of texts and stats (the high scores will represent only the races completed in that universe).

A small group of us, including David Pritts (famous for appearing in the TypeRacer walkthrough video as well as being able to comfortably type 140 wpm), and a number of school teachers, have been experimenting with this new medium since last summer. David designed two new universes: one for learning SAT vocabulary and another consisting of only the easy texts from the standard rotation (which might be a hit with our “race selectors”). Meanwhile, the teachers have been successfully using their private universes to teach their students.

With this technology ready to be put to wider use, I need your help to unlock its full potential. Let’s build some new universes this year! We could have universes that teach history, science, languages, and just about anything else. At the same time, we could create universes with different themes just for fun. Please submit your ideas!

Examples:

texts with only lowercase letters and no punctuation (for devices like the iPad)
real texts in a different language (it’s not hard to do better than our machine translations!)
quotes from your favorite book
jokes / humor
typing code in your favorite programming language
subjects like history, law, biology, physics, classic literature, etc.

Please tell us about any category of texts that you would enjoy typing or learning. Some universes could become powerful learning tools for various subjects while others could exist just for fun.

How to participate:

Please submit your ideas as comments on this blog post and vote for ideas submitted by others (using the thumbs up/down buttons). If your idea is chosen, you will get a free TypeRacer Admin account, which will let you create and maintain a new TypeRacer Universe. Or, if you see an idea that you like, you could volunteer to help create that universe.

Creating your own universe with an admin account is simple: just enter your new texts or choose from a list of existing texts (take a look at the screenshots).

If you’re submitting an idea or an offer to help, please don’t forget to mention your typeracer.com username so we can contact you later.

I look forward to hearing from all of you!

The only limits are the limits of your imagination. Dream up the kind of world you want to live in. Dream out loud. — Bono

Happy New Year!

typeracer — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 02:36:45 +0000

TypeRacer is racing into its 3rd year online and we have lots of really cool things planned for the new year. Best wishes in 2011!

TypeRacer Chrome App

typeracer — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 00:00:44 +0000

If Chrome is your browser of choice (quite a few megaracers would argue that it lets you achieve the best WPMs), I’m happy to announce the release of the TypeRacer Chrome App!

Like most Chrome apps, it’s basically just a fancy bookmark, but in the future it might be able to take advantage of Chrome’s more powerful features like notifications and geolocation.

You can show your support for TypeRacer by installing this app and by leaving a comment and rating on the app’s info page. Click here to install!

Improving Your Typing Speed Over Time

typeracer — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 21:58:00 +0000

A chart of your entire race history is now available on typeracer in the My Scores section! If you’ve completed less than 100 races it plots your scores directly, otherwise it plots your averages at evenly spaced intervals between your first and last race. The new chart replaces the old “last 50″ chart.

As you may recall, earlier this year we published a graph of the average WPM improvement vs. number of races finished (link). Now you can see how your graph compares to those averages!

Are you impressed / surprised / disappointed by your progress? You can leave a comment with your chart URL here to share it with everyone and get feedback. To get the URL, right click on your chart and select “Copy Image Location” (the text of this option might be different depending on your browser).

Exporting your data to CSV

Now you can also download all of your scores in one large CSV file! Many of you have been asking for this option for a long time, and I’m happy to say it’s finally available. This is an experimental feature and requires a premium subscription for now.

The contents of the CSV file will look like this:

Race #,WPM,Rank,# Racers,Text ID,Date/Time (UTC)
1,49,1,4,5,2008-07-27 21:49:17
2,60,1,4,130,2008-07-27 21:50:57
3,37,3,3,108,2008-07-27 21:54:52
...

Click here to download your data.

Introducing Premium Accounts and Experience Levels

typeracer — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 00:06:10 +0000

Starting today, everyone’s scorecard will have a new statistic: Experience Level. Experience levels range from Typist 0 to Typist 9 are based on the number of races of you’ve finished. A corresponding icon will appear next to your name to award your achievement and to let your opponents know at a glance how experienced you are.

Also starting today, you can upgrade to a premium account! As a premium member, you will help us pay for future improvements and your scorecard will display the cooler Racer icons for your experience level so everyone knows you’re serious about typeracing. More premium-only features will be introduced in the future. Please show your support for TypeRacer and upgrade your account today!

Do you like typing?

typeracer — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 00:22:36 +0000

Then “Like” TypeRacer on Facebook and spread the word! We’ve added a new “Like” button under the main menu. When you use it, your Facebook friends will get a news feed saying that you like typeracer.com and hopefully you will have more friends to race against as a result!

In other news, we’ve added lots of new texts from songs, movies, and books like The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan and Urban Tribes: A Generation Redefines Friendship, Family, and Commitment by Ethan Watters. The latter describes living in one of the most unique cities in the word. Here’s a little excerpt:

“To drive out of the Central Valley of California on a hot day and into San Francisco is to feel like you’re landing on another planet. Over our two-hour drive, the temperature went from nearly a hundred to the middle sixties. The visual disparity was as dramatic. On one side of the bay was a day so bright you’d have to squint with the visor down and your sunglasses on. Halfway across the Bay Bridge the fog enveloped us, whipping in strands through the rusted girders. As we crossed into the fig, it didn’t seem possible that two such environments could exist side by side.”

Lastly, the Fastest Typists section now remembers each record-holder’s country of origin. So if you’re fast (or persistent) enough to have your name up there, get your country’s flag displayed by doing another race. Let’s see which country is home to the fastest typists in the world!

Increase your typing speed while racing Sean Wrona

typeracer — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 22:31:19 +0000

Look closely at the new header on the site and you’ll see this little red car typing out the heading.¹ It’s easy to miss it because that car is moving fast, but what if we told you that you can actually learn to type that fast yourself? Believe it or not, the animation is calibrated to type exactly 165 WPM (825 CPM) — which is the actual average typing speed achieved by Sean Wrona!

If you haven’t seen Sean’s name yet, look him up on the new and improved Fastest Typists section. Click on the avg. speed link at the top of the list to sort by all-time averages, which is the category totally dominated by Sean Wrona. The runner-up is almost 15 WPM behind — that’s the equivalent of being able to type up an extra 2 full essays in one hour!

As you can see, the Fastest Typists section now shows 100 results, which you can page through using the links at the bottom. And now you can also see the top people for 3 different categories: all-time speed, recent speed, and total number of races finished.

As usual, this release includes many other improvements, but the most requested new feature is probably the option to publish your typing speed on Facebook.

When you go to the TypeRacer App on Facebook, scroll down and click Publish your typing speed on your wall. After you accept the prompt to allow TypeRacer to publish posts on your behalf, you will see a preview of your scorecard before it gets posted on your wall and news feed. Or you can just keep racing until you achieve a new personal best, at which point the app will automatically prompt you to share that score. And while you’re at it, don’t forget to invite more friends to use the app (there is a link for that as well) — we appreciate it when you tell your friends about TypeRacer. Consider it a way of thanking us for this free app!

Wishing you a great summer! Keep typing and keep improving!

¹ — the animation will only come up when you’re not logged in (so it doesn’t annoy people who use the site a lot)