playlist

Mixtapes vs. playlists

Making a cassette mixtape in the 1970s was a labor-intensive effort.

Cueing up a LP or 45 single, dropping the needle and releasing the recorder's "pause" button required a deft touch. If you didn't get it just right, you'd either have too much lead-in groove time before the tune started, or start too late and cut off the first second of the next song.

Mess up, and you have to stop, back up the tape, recue and start the process over again. Oh, and you'd have to carefully match the record volume level of each new tune, or suffer the consequences of a too loud/too soft varying volume mixtape. The horror!

Sometimes in the middle of a mixtape session I'd stop and review what I had so far. That could be scary, especially when I discovered the fourth song of the eight I laid down interrupted the flow. I'd have to go back and start again after the third song. It could easily take seven or eight hours to make a 90-minute tape. … Read more

ClickOnRadio beats Shazam at identifying songs

How many times have you whipped out your iPhone and fired up Shazam, only to have the song end too soon to get a reading?

There's a fallback app for that: ClickOnRadio Pro, which not only streams radio in real time, but also shows real-time playlists for over 2,600 stations.

In other words, if you know the name or frequency of the station, you can easily find the song you wanted to identify. For any given station, ClickOnRadio ($1.99) shows every song that played for the past 2 hours.

(Interestingly, it lists the ads as well, which … Read more

Webware 100 winner: Project Playlist

Site: Playlist.com Category: Audio & Music

Project Playlist was built to do one thing--stream audio playlists using music found freely online--and it does that fairly well. A cool feature on the Project Playlist site called "music buzz" offers up a range of blog posts about new music that has been culled from around the Web. All of the songs listed on Project Playlist have two prominent buttons: one for playing the track, and another for adding it to your playlist.

Every playlist in Project Playlist lives on its own Web page, with a variety of tools for … Read more

EMI's catalog comes to Project Playlist

Buzzworthy social music service Project Playlist has signed another major-label deal: EMI Music has licensed its catalog to the company, which hired former Facebook executive Owen Van Natta as its CEO in November and says that over 52 million playlists have been created to date by its over 42 million registered users.

The first major-label deal for Project Playlist was with Sony BMG, an agreement announced in December. The company had previously been sued by a number of big players in the music industry, including EMI, because of the amount of unauthorized content uploaded to its servers. The Recording Industry … Read more

Now-dead Mixwit offers escape hatch for user data

Dying companies should take note of Mixwit's strategy to preserve user data. The now-dead mix tape-sharing service, which closed its doors in late December, is now offering users a way to save their mixes and tape designs for reuse elsewhere.

Former Mixwit users received an e-mail early Wednesday detailing how to download a permanent archive of their mix tape data which includes both a track list and the design of their virtual cassette tape. This data will continue to be hosted on Mixwit-is-dead.com through April, giving users about a month to make a back up.

While Mixwit is … Read more

Will Katy Perry kiss a Grammy and like it?

To get ready for the show, warm up to this year's top contenders in one free and continuous playlist featuring Coldplay, Katy Perry, Lil Wayne, The Jonas Brothers, Radiohead, Duffy, Brazilian Girls, and many more.

The 51st Annual Grammy Awards will air on Sunday February 8 at 8 p.m. on CBS. In the meantime, listen to this free playlist by clicking on the green button below, then visit Download Music to stream and download thousands more free songs.

Daily Tidbits: Facebook bans Project Playlist

Facebook announced Tuesday that it has followed MySpace's lead and will ban Project Playlist from its service. According to the company, it has removed the Project Playlist app from Facebook and all embedded playlists have been removed from user profiles. Facebook said in a statement that it hopes Project Playlist can come to an amicable agreement with the labels so users can get back to using the app.

The New York Times announced Wednesday that it witnessed its online ad revenues drop for the first time in the site's history. According to the company, its online ad revenue … Read more

Facebook silences Project Playlist widgets

Social network Facebook has disabled widgets from music-sharing site Project Playlist at the behest of the music industry, several days after rival site MySpace did the same. The reason? The user-uploaded music on Project Playlist that doesn't have industry sanction.

"The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) initially contacted Facebook last summer requesting the removal of the Project Playlist application for copyright violation, and recently reopened those communications," a statement from Facebook read. "We have forwarded the RIAA's letters to Project Playlist so it can work directly with that organization and music labels on a … Read more

Daily Tidbits: Carpool to President-elect Obama's inauguration

TripVerde, a company that provides online carpooling services in an attempt to reduce U.S. vehicle mileage by 3 percent to 5 percent in three years, announced Monday that it has launched a new site to connect those people who plan on traveling to Washington, D.C., for President-elect Obama's inauguration in January. According to the company, it will pair up like-minded people from the same region to carpool to the event. In order to be considered, visitors need to sign up for TripVerde's service and fill out information about themselves. Once complete, TripVerde will find individuals with … Read more

Good news for Project Playlist: Sony BMG strikes deal

Project Playlist has struck a deal with Sony BMG to bring the label's catalog to its streaming-music service. It's the first major-label deal for Project Playlist, which recently brought former Facebook exec Owen Van Natta on as CEO but has been dealing with legal problems that have seen its widgets banned from social network MySpace.

Currently, Project Playlist has been sued by Warner Music, EMI, and Universal Music Group, as well as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), because of the amount of unauthorized content that members have uploaded to the service. Industry rumors have persisted that … Read more