This spring marked one year since TypeRacer went live, and what a great year it has been – almost from day one, TypeRacer has been serving more than a million races every month!  It’s been so much fun building this first-of-its-kind online experience and talking to many of you about how to make it even better.

There have been lots of challenges as well: making the site work in all kinds of browsers, across social networks, overcoming database outages, dealing with cheaters, and many, many, more. This stuff took up so much time, that I’m actually surprised we were able to get anything else done at all. In spite of all that, the past 12 months saw the release of some major features like private racetracks, permanent accounts with race histories, and recently, the Facebook App.  There is so much more still to come, and today, we’re kicking off TypeRacer’s 2^nd summer season with a brand new release!

New Features

Improved player matching: From now on players are matched up based on WPM proximity instead of skill level. This means that a 40-WPM Average player and a 42-WPM Pro can finally go up against each other in a public race. This change makes races so much more balanced and competitive, especially if you type in the 55-75 WPM range like I do and were constantly being smoked by 90-WPM people like I was!

More skill levels: The Megaracer skill level has been split into the 55-79 WPM Typemaster level and Megaracer for 80+ WPM.

Many of you, especially those who type very fast, have been asking for these two changes, and we’re happy to finally deliver on our promise!

You might be wondering why we picked 80 WPM as the cut-off for Megaracer?  That’s because it happens to be just above the top 10% line if we were to graph everyone’s scores.  So if you’re still a Megaracer — congratulations — you type faster than 90% of our community!  Which brings us to the next point:

Global ranking: So you didn’t make it to the top 20 but still want to know where you stand? Now you can, with the new percentile-based rank on your scorecard!  In this screenshot, for example, Alejandro types faster than 69.3% of the people.  (We also made it easier to see who’s a bot).

Support for New Browsers

• Internet Explorer 8
• Safari 4 Beta

Tweaks and Bug Fixes

• the race again link in single player game no longer takes you to a multiplayer game



• commas and semicolons are no longer underlined to differentiate them from periods and colons (see the screenshot)
• scorecards no longer pop up when a car enters an idle mouse pointer, so you won’t have any undesired interruptions while typing (see the screenshot)
• + many more bugs that you hopefully never noticed

Hope you enjoy these new changes! There’s more on the way!

P.S. We’re now on Twitter: follow @typeracer for news and my latest thoughts.

If you enjoy TypeRacer and have a Facebook account, help us spread the word by installing the TypeRacer Application on Facebook!

It’s easy to link your existing typeracer.com account to the Facebook app.  When you do, your completed races on typeracer.com will appear on Facebook and vice-vera.  To link your accounts, click on “My Account” under your name (as seen on the above screenshot) after you’ve installed the application.  Just enter your typeracer.com username and password into the box that pops up, and you’re done! From this point on, you’ll be able to race from either typeracer.com or Facebook as you choose (but be sure to still race from inside Facebook every once in a while so that your typing speed gets updated on the Info tab of your Facebook profile).

Naturally, you’ll also want to invite your friends to race you, because the Facebook app shows a score chart just for you and your friends. Where is Liutenant Sulu on this chart?  Invite him, please!

Let everyone know you’re serious about typing (and racing) by installing this small Facebook profile badge to show off your skills!   You’ll see a grey button for installing this widget above the racing screen on the app’s main page:

You might also want to boldly go where no tab has gone before and put your Facebook account into warp speed with the TypeRacer profile tab:

The profile tab can be installed in a similar way as the profile badge

I really encourage you to try the Facebook app if you haven’t already.  TypeRacer is one the very few apps that doesn’t force you to install it just to try it.  It also doesn’t force you to invite 20 of your friends to advance to the next level or get a hundred bucks in fake money.  If you’ve used other Facebook apps, you’ll know how annoying that is.  Unfortunately, not having those dirty tricks makes it harder for a new app to become popular on Facebook.  That’s why we need your help to spread the word.  Let’s show them that apps can be successful without being annoying!

Guest Review, submitted by casinoguide.com

With the many games available in Web Land – first-person shooters, role-playing, online casinos, and even digitized board games – it’s always refreshing to find something new. The game-slash-speed-typing competition TypeRacer is a fun and intriguing hybrid of sorts that matches your talent as a typist against other, equally-driven typists.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Move your car from point A to point B by typing as quickly and as accurately as you can. The gauge measures words-per-minute, and in order to best the other seven drives on the dotted roadway, you must tap into your inner courthouse stenographer and bang out long and sometimes complicated sentences as they appear.

Many a-ninth grade computer class standout has tried and failed to reach the Promised Land in time. You, with your quasi-typing skills, thinking that it’s all as easy as asdf, are sorely mistaken. The game is not a promenade through an unproblematic parkway. However, not to overawe the would-be competition with unfeasibly thorny words like “quasi,” the game is fun, and opposition always separates the perspicacious and nippy from the dense and leisurely.

Of course, you might want to play some A-ball before stepping up to the plate in the majors. By using TypeRacer’s practice mode, you will get a feel – literally – for what needs to be done. Wyatt Earp gave the best advice for a game like this, although, I doubt he and Doc Holiday were spending their days on dueling typewriters. He said, “Take your time in a hurry.” And that’s as sound as it gets; for if you make a mistake, you must back up to fix it before proceeding.

You have the practice option available, as well as an option to invite your friends. (It’s always fun to invite hunt-and-peckers). Although you don’t get a prize for improving your skills, TypeRacer is an entertaining way to better an essential talent.

Some of the competition knows how to handle a keyboard, and some are just learning. But overall, TypeRacer is fun and friendly. Just hope you don’t have to go against Barbara Blackburn. Her car can fly.