Sometimes things happen fast on the internet.
About an hour or so ago, I asked people on Twitter to send a link to a Spotify playlist consisting of three songs of their choice under three minutes duration.
A dozen people who use both Twitter and Spotify humoured me and sent me their short lists.
I listened to them all, chose a track from each playlist, and then made another playlist out of those 12 songs – called it The Best of Twitify Volume One and tweeted a link to that playlist.
So that’s a compilation album of short tracks put together and published by a dozen different people in the space of an hour. I’m listening to it again now. Some really great tracks, quite a few of which I hadn’t heard before.
Definitely doing that again.
If you want to join in tomorrow, here’s how you do it:
Download and install Spotify
Make a playlist of three songs of less than three minutes duration
Right-click on the name of the playlist and copy the HTTP link
Send the link to Twitter, and hashtag it #twitify
Just to make it interesting, tomorrow’s Twitify is going to be a little different: I’ll choose a theme, and you can choose three songs (under 3 mins) that meet that theme.
Catch you then. In the meantime – enjoy The Best of Twitify Volume One.
Right now:
You should follow me on Twitter here
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[...] I did make a little game out of music online by mixing up Twitter and Spotify, getting people to make playlists on a particular theme and then compiling a ‘best of’ [...]
9 Comments
Twitter + Spotify + Blog post + now comments
Things happen extremely quickly. Thankyou for the initiative, I was in a pretty bad mood when I thought I’d just log into Twitter, and I’ve since been following the search term “twitify” and listening to some great new music. That cheered me up no end!
If anyone else found this helpful and isn’t using Musebin, I suggest you do so. Think Twitter for album reviews – you get 140 characters to comment and state exactly what you feel listening to an album of your choosing, and a simple rating of “loved/liked/wasn’t crazy about/hated” the album.
Follow me @eltonbear or my record label @RecklessGeneral
Now it’s my turn to call you out, Andrew.
You complain about PRS blocking music videos in the UK, and yet here you are using a service that locks itself to a specific geographic region so that the rest of us aren’t even allowed to play along. You shouldn’t be supporting, however innocuously, this service. You should be complaining about the fragmentation of the Internet that this represents and refraining from showing any support of these people.
There, I feel better now. My two cents are spent.
Cool idea!
Sorry you couldn’t play along, Darren – but your conclusion is completely bonkers.
In the same way that I can’t get Rhapsody or Pandora in the UK, Americans can’t use Spotify in the USA. This is not because these services have ‘locked themselves to a specific geographic region’. What sort of idiotic commercial entity would do that?
They’re not ignoring you. These guys are completely hamstrung by the absurd and tortuous territorial complications that the record labels introduce.
Spotify are desperate to launch in the States, just as Pandora wanted to keep streaming in the UK. But a) they’re not allowed to and b) when they are, they get completely priced out of the market.
When European companies want to stream in America, the labels are the problem. When American companies want to stream in Britain, the publishers are the problem. You can’t blame the internet startups for the ridiculous hurdles they keep having to face.
To withdraw support from an online music service that I love because they’re fighting a cause I believe in (as you appear to as well) would just be dumb. I can’t wait for my American friends to be able to use Spotify. It’s really great. I started out skeptical, but I’m pretty well sold on it now.
I am complaining about the fragmentation of the Internet that this represents – and I’m doing it by showing support for these people.
Okay, point taken about Spotify itself, as well as Pandora. In fact, I stopped supporting Pandora for that very reason, actually. However, I’m long past caring about any business or service that supports this kind of behavior. I’m not talking about Spotify- I’m sure it’s a great service, and the harder they fight for the fairness we both feel they deserve, the more I’m behind them.
Perhaps I’ve just become acerbic and incredibly rage-filled in my old age, but the labels and publishers that are demanding these kinds of restrictions should not be worked with by any of us. They need to be put out of business. They have already proven time and time again that they will not work within a new media framework, and indeed seem intent on destroying it. They’re the buggy whip makers, and we’re the Model-T.
Feel free to consider this rant nothing more than the raving of an angry lunatic. I’m sure it’s full of all sorts of holes. But I grow more and more tired of the destruction and fragmentation of the greatest new technology since the automobile, and the fight needs to be taken to the doorstep of the people causing it.
Maybe they’ll listen once the cash stops flowing and they’re in the red, after all of these artists who’ve developed a brand over the years choose not to renew their contracts and embark on their own business models.
Hlm what about Http://spotwitfy.com ?
Thanks dubber. There are a number of spotify playlist sharing sites popping up, but at the moment its hard to see which will emerge from he pack, if any. Any thoughts on this?
Obviously Twitter is a great tool for sharing playlists and there are a few influential people tweeting themed shared playlists for fun, but I havent seen anything more organised than that. Im sure its out there.
But what I would like to see is a simple spotify playlist directory on exactly the same technology as http://wefollow.com/
I do have one problem with #twitify, why oh why limit it to “songs of less than three minutes duration”?
Why? It’s an arbitrary restriction that turns it into a game. I figured Twitter has the 140 character limit, so the songs could have the 3-minute limit.
It also makes it manageable. If people started sending me their top any number of songs of any duration, it’d be really interesting – but completely unworkable as a fun Twitter music game.
I’ve posted the rules in a more sensible 5-step fashion here:
http://dubber.posterous.com/how-twitify-works
And I’ll post the theme of the day in the comments there.