Spotify - Share My Playlists

Online mixtape site Spotify has become an internet phenomenon. And now Share My Playlists, the recently re-launched social networking site, allows Spotify users to share and discover even more playlists, and network with like-minded users. We had a nose around the new site and caught up with its founder, Kieron Donoghue.

As any child of the 80s will tell you, the romance of a mix-tape is unrivalled: the hours spent painstakingly recording songs from one cassette onto another, the labour of the handwritten track-listings and the inspiration for that oh-so important playlist order. But just as John Cusack in High Fidelity knew it, so the creators of Spotify, Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon know it.

The careful hours of hand-written inlay cards and finger-straining tape recordings may be gone, but the essence is still there, as Spotify users can share their online mix-tapes with each other in the form of playlists.
Essentially it’s the same as making a playlist in iTunes or any other media player platform, except that the links can be shared as permanent URLs.

Not content with the system as it stood, internet pioneer Kieron Donoghue has invented sharemyplaylists.com, a social networking site devoted to Spotify playlists. Kieron was one of the first Brits to give Spotify a whirl back in 2008 as a beta-tester and was blown away: “I couldn’t believe how easy it was to use and that you could get so much music on your PC for free.” However, whilst the online juke-box offers a staggering range, with more than three million tracks to choose from, Keiron thought it was missing a key ingredient. “Something just switched on in my head and I thought: ‘How can I ride on the back of that?’ It’s great for playing music, but I thought it was lacking the features to share and discover music that you like.”

From this idea, ShareMyPlaylists.com was born – a social networking site which invites readers to create a free account to share their mix-tape creations with the aim of spreading musical enlightenment to the masses.
All the playlists are rated and commented on, just like YouTube videos, leaving room for feedback and suggestions. Users are also given the option of creating their own associated blog to express their opinions and spread the news of their latest playlists.

The site’s fledgling version was launched in March and was a small-scale hit. But since the launch of version two last week, things have really begun to snowball, as Kieron explains: “In less than seven days, more than 1,000 people have registered, uploading around 100 playlists per day. We have also had great support from the musicians as well – The Saturdays , Will Young  and Marmaduke Duke have all signed up and started uploading their own playlists.” Just in case you were wondering, The Saturdays listen to Less Than Jake, Jimmy Eat World and Guns N Roses.

Big-name endorsements aside, the biggest strength of Share My Playlists is its flexibility. Since users have a palette of over three million songs to pick from, the range of playlists is almost limitless. Some have taken the topical approach, creating the soundtrack to Steven Gerrard’s trial and, of course, there are dozens of tributes to Michael Jackson  Others have gone more conceptual, with one user creating a Q&A playlist  which juxtaposes The Libertines’ What Became of the Likely Lads? with Thin Lizzy’s The Boys Are Back In Town and answers The Offspring’s stroppy moan Why Don’t You Get A Job? with The Boomtown Rats’ timeless excuse I Don’t Like Mondays.

It’s still early days for Share My Playlists, Kieron admits, but he has big plans for this burgeoning site. “We are thinking of launching an iPhone application, we would be remiss not to,” he says. “We are just waiting to see the Spotify application, and then we will decide how we can capitalise on it. Also we have just signed our first sponsorship deal, with Vodafone, which should help us along the way.”

But at the bottom of it all, as with every great idea, there’s a very simple premise. Kieron has one key aim: “I just want to reach out to music fans who have got things to say but lack the technical know-how to express themselves online.”

To get involved and start sharing your playlists, visit www.sharemyplaylists.com. All users will need Spotify installed first, which can be downloaded for free from www.spotify.com