Blogcritics’ own Robert Burke was featured today in a story on C-net News.com. The story highlighted the playlists he features on his personal websites and shares here, calling them and playlists in general the future of music.
Burke uses his series of sites, called Scopecreep.com to post playlists that can be played by any Yahoo or RealNetworks Rhapsody music service subscriber. Many of them are cross posted here to Blogcritics.org.
Similar to the age-old concept of making a mix tape, these playlists give other online listeners who have paid the service provider fees the opportunity to listen to hours upon hours of music. The lists put themes and categories to the nearly endless amount of music that is available online.
On the subject, Burke said, “We fit in between traditional media and word of mouth media. We’re that in-between world that’s the best of both worlds.”
Apple’s iTunes has tried to replicate this phenomenon, and has more than 330,000 playlists contributed. But at their 99 cent per song charge for downloading, a ten song list can cost the same as a monthly subscription to these other sites which then give the consumer an endless supply.
For its part, Apple allows iTunes users to publish their playlists in the iMix portion of the iTunes store. However, without purchasing the songs, users can hear only a sample of each song on the playlist. An iTunes customer can also purchase a playlist as a gift for a friend.
But until these services are able to introduce the sharing features to more people, the playlist sharing phenomenon may well stay in the grassroots.(C-Net)
On the flip side, for that ten dollar investment at iTunes, the consumer owns copies of the songs that can be played on their iPod, which is not true of the other services. iTunes refers to the other services as a way to rent music instead of owning it.
The key to making all of this work is promotion, and educating the listening public that such services are available. This is the role that Burke is succeeding at so well; through his own site as well as Blogcritics, he delivers his clever playlists covering topics from Classic Rock Dance Mixes to Santa Clause. Robert Burke posts his thematic playlists to Blogcritics on a weekly basis.