Blip!

A fellow blogger (who will remain unnamed only because I'm not sure she'd want the publicity) recently turned me on to new(?) web site called Blip.fm. Think of it as Twitter, but with music as the focus and cross-pollinated with Google.

I've always had eclectic musical tastes and used to think that disc jockeys had the absolute best job in the world. At least, until I came to realize that most disc jockeys don't get to play what they like. Most have to play the songs that their program managers have established – using complex statistical analysis of demographic surveys – are least likely to cause the most listeners to tune to a different station before the commercial break.

Blip.fm is a great way for wanna-bes like me to inflict our musical tastes on a lot of other Blippers who are doing the same. It's also a great way to sample a lot of different music by bands I've never heard of and then download the ones I really like from Amazon or iTunes.

Music hasn't been quite this fun since the mid-'90s, when I was buying half a dozen CDs a week and cranking out mix cassettes for my buddies and me.