Online playlists are huge right now, and some services are much better than others. As with most things that come in multiple forms on the web, I've messed around with many of them and have found a few favorites. (iMeem is not one of them.) Half of the fun is just browsing and listening to other people's mixes and with a bunch of good sites popping up, there's no shortage of mixes to browse.
My friend's Chad Wood's site, Collective Playlist, allows you to submit URLs of tracks available on the Internet, tag them, and make mixes out of the collective library of tracks (hence Collective Playlist). It's very much an experiment, and there are some logistics that are still being thought through, but it does regularly check the health of the links so if something goes down it comes out of the database. Using what the CP database has to offer is also a great way to explore and discover some things you may not have heard before or things you forgot about and want to listen to more. If you're really desperate you could also upload tracks to your own server and submit the links but realize that doing so will cost you bandwidth if others decide to use those tracks in playlists. Here's my test mix using all colors as my search terms: Colors.
Today I came across Mixwit.com which may be my new favorite. You can't upload tracks or submit tracks you've found posted elsewhere; instead, it forces you to use what you can find on the Internet with their built-in interfaces to Skreemr or Seeqpod search. It also doesn't display a track list when you play the final mix, but the fact that the little gears spin and the tape actually spools as you advance through the mix makes up for that. The site allows you to upload your own image to be the face of the tape and customize the layout a little, or choose from the stock retro labels they already offer. They also include links to embed the mix on every social networking site under San Francisco Bay sun. Again, mixes are not downloadable, they can only be played through the app.
Here's my first go at it: A Handful of Rock Ladies
Click the play button below to listen without going to the Mixwit site.
I'd love to know what else is floating around out there. Comment with your favorites!
2 comments:
Isn't imeem the only site you mentioned that actually runs out of San Francisco?
It's getting harder to find great playlists on imeem, even though they were the first site to launch (2004!), the most popular site, and the only legally licensed site all these things act to commoditize the content, meaning that there are millions of playlists full of Miley Cyrus getting in the way of finding that one 'Best of Billy Ray Cyrus' mix.
or something like that....
muxtape is the one that might be successful, although it's losing users already after it's initial burst of popularity. But they know how to get attention in the blogosphere, they get almost as much coverage as sites 100 times larger.
Collective Playlist's creator is in SF too, but I wasn't thinking about this in terms of San Francisco companies so much as neat things I like and want to post on the blog. :)
Muxtape is such a neat little novelty. The problem with keeping users, I think, is the one playlist at a time limit. However, it's simple and fun to explore, so who knows.
Thanks for your comment!
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