No more trying to calculate the cassette time left thanks to muxtapes
Jul 7 2008 By Giles Turnbull
Every teenager loves music, but those of us of a certain age can remember when we shared tunes via mix tapes rather than on online social networks.
If you’re a 30-something bloke there’s a good chance you declared your fondness for the girl in class 4B with a compilation of songs, lovingly hand-picked and recorded one by one on to a tatty old C90.
Those days are long gone and mix tapes are no more. Kids are more likely to share stuff by throwing MP3 files on to a stick drive or a web server somewhere. Where’s the romance gone?
A smart web guy called Justin Ouellette is attempting to recreate the magic of those analogue days through his Muxtape website (www.muxtape.com).
It couldn’t be simpler to use. Click on the name of a user’s muxtape, click on the title of a song, and listen to it through your web browser. That’s it.
If you want to create your own, you have to register (which takes just a few seconds and is free). Then you can upload up to 12 songs of your choice, and arrange them in the order you think fits best.
As Justin says: “Music is better when it’s presented to you by a person with care.”
Muxtape is part musical journey, part blogger’s playground, and part social network. Once logged in, you can tag muxtapes you like to find them easily later.
Beware if time is short: there are lots of muxtapes to listen to. You could be in there a long time.
The BBC’s iPlayer (www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer) is one of its most popular online inventions yet. Anyone can catch up with BBC programmes they’ve missed during the last week, watching them directly or downloading copies to keep for up to 30 days.
The new version is even better. The iPlayer beta (www.bbc.co.uk/iplayerbeta) combines TV and radio in one page, has an improved interface and lots of new features.
Ever wanted a blog but couldn’t be bothered to set one up?
At Posterous (www.posterous.com), you don’t need to. Just email something – text, a photo, a video clip – to post@posterous.com and a weblog will be created instantly, matched to the email address you sent from.
It’s quick and super-easy – and because it’s all done by email, you can post from pretty much anywhere.
Loads of people swim in the sea, but swimming in lakes and rivers isn’t so common.
The creators of the Wild Swimming map (www.wildswimming.co.uk/map.html) want to make their favourite hobby more accessible and this clever Google map lets you zoom in on the best swimming spots near you. Email the site owners with your own suggestions.
