Jun 29 2008
iTunes - socialize through your music
You will find ways to ’socialize’ with other people connected to the all-knowing-all-seeing-internet in ways that sometimes may not be readily apparent to you. One of these ways is through sharing your music through iTunes with others connected to the same network as you.
This works particularly well if you often find yourself surfing the internet at your local coffee shop where you are connected to their WiFi. I can’t count the number of times I have browsed other people’s music and found artists/songs that have triggered my own download of them.
How does it work?
Easy. To enable music sharing from your iTunes follow these simple steps;
1. Open iTunes.
2. On the Edit menu, click Preferences.
3. Click the Sharing tab.
4. Select the Share my library on my local network checkbox.
And you’re done. You can chose to share all your iTunes content or just selected playlists or media types. When you open up iTunes you will see other people’s music libraries displayed on the left hand side of the screen. Simply click on them to connect and browse their music.
Note that you can not download music from other people - just listen.
Many people also put their email address as their userid and I think I’ve received four or five emails by now commenting on my music taste or thanking me for sharing my music. It’s not what you traditionally would label a social network but it’s a great, fun way to share something with others for free.
It also opens up a guessing game that I know many people have enjoyed… Who IS it that is sharing this music? 80’s glamrock…Hmm..is it that hottie over by the counter on her Apple covered in stickers..or the corporate stiff slaving away on his company-issued IBM? I wonder…
2 Responses to “iTunes - socialize through your music”
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I don’t use iTunes, but if I did this does seem like a fun way to network with people.