Thursday, May 10, 2007

Another Bloody Widget

OK, so one day I was on Billy Warhol's site and there was music playing. I've lusted to have music...maybe...on Mental Blog for some time. So I asked Billy how he did that and he steered me to a service called finetune.

But I've been hesitating, cuz I find that I'm usually annoyed when music appears unexpectedly on a website. I don't even necessarily like it when I'm on a "musical" website. So I wasn't too sure about this.

Well, I decided to give it a try. Why? Because it appears that the finetune embedded player doesn't start automatically. You actually have to click on it. Now, that I like. It means that you, dear reader won't be assaulted without warning by someone else's idea of a good song. Unless you want to be.

So, while I'm composing this post, I'm listening to the playlist I created. finetune lets you create a playlist of 45 songs. You can choose any artist (in their catalogue) but only 3 songs from each artist. Every time you choose an artist, a list of "related" artists appears. I guess the idea is to help you have some sort of consistency.

I'm not entirely sure it worked in the case of the playlist which is currently embedded on Mental Blog. Of course, you can edit the playlist, but only within certain parameters. For example, there doesn't seem to be any way to change (or even choose) the order in which the songs play. Oh well, it's free ain't it? And legal too.

So, I've called the embedded player Another Bloody Widget and it's down right at the bottom of the sidebar. Click on it to hear the rather wonky selection of tunes, mostly from the 70s and 80s because, ultimately, Larry is a nostalgic SOB. And don't forget, if you clicked on it, you asked for it.

Digg! diigo it

5 comments:

Unknown said...

It's a really cool idea!

Larry Keiler said...

Well thanks. I guess that's one vote in favour.

Don't know how long I'll keep this particular playlist up. I have another one which is jazz. A bit more focused. When the "related artists" began leading me away from my original purpose, I dragged myself back.

Anonymous said...

When i tried it said the fine tune server was down. Never got to hear it. I guess I won't get to find out how it works.

Larry Keiler said...

It's 5 hours later and working now, so try it next time you're back.

S. Camille said...

Larry, as I promised in a previous comment, I deliver information to you regarding my findings about embedding music players in your site.

I've currently got the free version of Draftlight's Flash music player in my sidebar. You can put 5 songs in the playlist and the reader has to click the play button to make it go. This seems very workable for me and what I want because occasionally I will change the artist and put up a different set of five songs.

The only stipulation with this player is that you have to host it somewhere, along with the songs. I'm borrowing space from a friend right now, but I'm trying to figure out how to host it myself...

I like the player you've got up here. I will check it out. My concern is that it won't have the artists that I'm looking for. But we'll see.

Ciao!

Help! I've written and I can't get up!