last.fm/blip.fm/8tracks/itunes - working together to listen better
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the way I listen to music, about the way that I want to experience music within my community and the tools that are available to help me do that.
First of all, we all know the cloud is coming. The day that the internet is your ipod draws ever nearer, and someone at Apple has probably figured out a way to own that and sell it back to us and make us feel lucky to receive it. That’s all old water that needn’t be recycled.
Until that day, the fine folks at places like last.fm, twt.fm, blip.fm and the fm-less 8tracks.com and thesixtyone.com are all playing their part in socializing music and helping us share our own impeccable tastes with the world around us. Right now it feels like these services are inching closer and closer to a world in the cloud. Here’s how I think it could be ratcheted up a notch:
Let’s start with me listening to the library of tracks I own, in iTunes, like in the old days.
-When I hear a track I love I want it to be:
-sent to a playlist in itunes of loved tracks (so I might rate it 5 stars to do this)
-marked as “loved” on last.fm to show the world my true tast
-blipped to blip.fm or twt.fm (u pick ur own poision) with my own 140 char of pure insight.
-When I decide I’ve come up with the perfect rainy day mix songs, I want to:
-create a playlist in itunes and drag and drop that playlist onto 8tracks.com and share with my friends.
Right now when I love a song in itunes and want to share it and remember I loved it, I have to rate it, then love it in my last.fm menu, then blip it, then put it in a playlist that maybe someday I’ll get around to uploading to 8tracks.
Ok, now how about when I listen to any of the music discovery sites out there, like pandora, last.fm, blip.fm, thesixtyone, jango, a mix by friends on 8tracks.com.
-When I hear a track I love I want there to be:
-a favorites playlist somewhere that keeps track of all the songs I love on all these without me having to buy them. favtape.com might be that place, but it’s currently down, so I dunno.
-a way for me to order those songs in a mix to share with friends on 8tracks
-a way to tell my community I’ve found a great song (I want to be able to blip it)
Right now to accomplish this is even more time-consuming, especially if I don’t own the song in iTunes.
What I really want is to sit in a room with some of these smart people and talk to them about how to push this harder and faster to the next step. I feel a little like I’m losing my mind—-the future is SO CLOSE!
Of course, until then I’m going to keep using these services. There are some talented people doing amazing things in this space and I love watching it and being tangentially involved in it.
