Rolling Stone’s archive going online — for a pricet

AP – In this screen shot provided by Rolling Stone magazine, the RollingStone.com website is shown.(AP Photo/Rolling …

By ANDREW VANACORE, AP Business Writer – Fri Apr 16, 6:52 am ET

NEW YORK – For the first time Rolling Stone is inviting its readers on the long, strange trip though the magazine’s 43-year archive, putting complete digital replicas online along with the latest edition. But you’ll have to pay to see it all.

With a new site launching Monday, Rolling Stone will become one of the most prominent magazines to decide that adding a “pay wall” is the best way to make money on the Web.

To many publishers and media analysts, charging for Web access is the fastest way to drive readers to free competition, where advertisers will follow. But even free sites with lots of readers haven’t been able to charge the kind of rates for advertising that print still commands. As one of the few major consumer magazines now asking readers for an online fee, Rolling Stone is likely to get a close look from the rest of the industry.

The magazine’s revamped home page will remain mostly free. The kind of material that seems to work best on the Web — quick updates on who’s breaking up, slide shows of popular bands on tour — won’t cost readers anything.

But there will be reminders planted throughout the site that full access to Rolling Stone’s latest issue is just a few clicks and a credit card number away.

A one-month pass will cost $3.95 and annual access is $29.99. Online subscribers will automatically get a print subscription, which normally costs $19.95 a year. But print subscribers don’t automatically get Web access.

The magazine has never put a full issue online except to tease an article here and there. On the new site, readers can flip through, search and zoom in on a complete replica of the print edition.

The same goes for every issue since the magazine launched in 1967. If you’re willing to pay, you can peruse a big grid with thumbnail views of every cover.

In an interview, Steven Schwartz, who is heading the revamp as chief digital officer for the magazine’s parent company, Wenner Media, referred to the archive as “the collected history of everyone who’s grown up over the past 40 years.”

So is there a touch of mid-life crisis in all of this? A music magazine that planted itself in the countercultural zeitgeist of the 1960s now trying to prove that it’s still relevant? The first thing a public relations representative pointed out to a visiting reporter recently was that the average age of Rolling Stone’s readership is 30. It’s not just old hippies!

Like every print product these days, Rolling Stone faces an array of Web-savvy competition. Young music fans are as likely to find new bands or artists on sites like RollingStone.com had about 1.3 million unique visitors in March but only 9 million page views. Pitchfork had 906,000 visitors but 19 million page views.)

But while Rolling Stone and the rest of the publishing industry had a painful 2009 — it sold nearly 20 percent fewer ad pages than the year before — it can still boast about its print readership. It had an average paid circulation last year of about 1.5 million, up from 1.3 million in 2000, and it is still profitable.

It also ran one of the most widely cited stories of last year — Matt Taibbi’s excoriating look at Goldman Sachs, “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”

Rolling Stone’s relative health could give the magazine more flexibility than most publications to experiment with a new business model online.

“We’re taking control of our digital destiny,” Schwartz said.

The whole look of the site is being updated. The layout is getting broader and features more and bigger photos. The Rolling Stone masthead, which occupies a small corner at the upper left-hand side of the existing site, is ballooning across the top of the page.

Schwartz said the magazine’s reporters will produce daily updates on music, culture and politics for the site’s blogs. He wouldn’t reveal how big of an editorial staff is devoted to the Web, but he said, “there is a commitment to it and it is growing with the launch of the new site.”

It will also take advantage of Rolling Stone’s access to musicians for a Web video series called “Live at RS.” One segment already prepared features a performance by singer-songwriter Jason Mraz that was shot in the magazine’s New York offices.

Album reviews will include audio samples.

Implicit in Rolling Stone’s approach to the Web, however, is a major bet on the future of print. The magazine’s feature articles are available online in a way that appears exactly as they do on paper. And the new digital subscriptions are bundled with the kind that come in the mail.

“This is not, let’s rush to the Web because print isn’t strong,” Schwartz said. “This is our brand’s ability to tap into a new medium.”

Source: AP

Music’s lost decade: Sales cut

in half….

 ….

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — If you watched the Grammy Awards Sunday night, it would appear all is well in the recording industry. But at the end of last year, the music business was worth half of what it was ten years ago and the decline doesn’t look like it will be slowing anytime soon.….

Total revenue from U.S. music sales and licensing plunged to $6.3 billion in 2009, according to Forrester Research. In 1999, that revenue figure topped $14.6 billion.….

 ….

Although the Recording Industry Association of America will report its official figures in the early spring, the trend has been very clear: RIAA has reported declining revenue in nine of the past 10 years, with album sales falling an average of 8% each year. Last decade was the first ever in which sales were lower going out than coming in.….

“There have been a lot of changes over the past 10 years,” said Joshua Friedlander, vice president of research at RIAA. “The industry is adapting to consumer’s demands of how they listen to music, when and where, and we’ve had some growing pains in terms of monetizing those changes.”….

The two recessions during the decade certainly didn’t help music sales. It’s also a bit unfair to compare the 2000s with the 1990s, since the ’90s enjoyed an unnatural sales boost when consumers replaced their cassette tapes and vinyl records en masse with CDs.….

But industry insiders and experts argue that the main culprit for the industry’s massive decline was the growing popularity of digital music.….

“The digital music business has been a war of attrition that nobody seems to be winning,” said David Goldberg, the former head of Yahoo music. “The CD is still disappearing, and nothing is replacing it in entirety as a revenue generator.”….

The disease of free….

The battle for paying digital customers may have been lost before it had truly begun. In 1999, Napster, a free online file-sharing service, made its debut. Not only did Napster help change the way most people got music, it also lowered the price point from $14 for a CD to free.….

“It’s pretty easy to give away something for free,” said Russell Frackman, the lead attorney for the music industry in its 1999 case against Napster. “It’s not that the music industry thought the technology was bad, it just objected to the use to which it was being put.”….

 ….

Click here to see Napster video:….

http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/02/news/companies/napster_music_industry/….

 ….

 ….

Apple’s (AAPL, Fortune 500) iTunes is credited with finally getting people to pay for digital music, but it wasn’t unveiled until 2003.….

In the time between Napster’s shuttering and iTunes’ debut, many of Napster’s 60 million users found other online file sharing techniques to get music for free. Even after iTunes got people buying music tracks for just 99 cents, it wasn’t as attractive as free.….

“That four-year lag is where the music industry lost the battle,” said Sonal Gandhi, music analyst with Forrester Research. “They lost an opportunity to take consumers’ new behavior and really monetize it in a way that nipped the free music expectation in the bud.”….

Now just 44% of U.S. Internet users and 64% of Americans who buy digital music think that that music is worth paying for, according to Forrester. The volume of unauthorized downloads continues to represent about 90% of the market, according to online download tracker BigChampagne Media Measurement.….

“People will steal music regardless, so it’s not worth trying to fight against something where the fight’s already over,” said Dan Ingala, founder and lead singer of the band Plushgun.….

When Plushgun released its album “Pins and Panzers,” it was the most downloaded album on the popular peer-to-peer Web site What.cd with more than 10,000 illegally downloaded tracks.….

“It’s just a matter of adjusting,” said Ingala. “At the same time, it’s helping us create an audience.”….

Where we’re headed….

The problem for the music industry may actually be its greatest opportunity. Despite the great decline in sales, the Internet has exposed consumers to more music than ever before. But that accessibility has been difficult to monetize.….

The music industry has tried to keep up by licensing ringtones, licensing music on popular Internet radio stations like MySpace Music and Pandora and licensing music videos on YouTube. Digital licensing revenue reached $84 million in 2009, and it is expected to grow substantially in the coming year. (See correction below.)….

Licensing fees don’t make up for the volume of total lost sales, but Gandhi says the fact that the music industry is finally embracing these new technologies and revenue streams means the industry is finally getting it.….

She said the combined effect of interactive multimedia, a growth in digital licensing and services such as Lala, which was bought by Apple in December, will ultimately help give sales a boost.….

“The industry is actively doing a lot of things that are putting us back on the right path,” said RIAA’s Friedlander. “We’re switching to an access model from a purchase model.”….

Forrester forecasts music industry revenues will continue to decline until it reaches about $5.5 billion a year by 2014, as new revenue sources begin to lift sales again.….

Correction: An earlier version of the story incorrectly reported the figure for digital licensing revenue as $84 billion when it should have been $84 million. ….

Source: CNN

Tech group to launch digital music file successor

LONDON (Reuters) – A leading technology company is set to launch a new digital music file format which will embed additional content for fans including lyrics, news updates and images in what could be a successor to the ubiquitous MP3 file.

The music industry has been hammered by piracy in the last decade and is looking to develop new offerings to entice consumers to buy their music from legitimate sites, instead of taking it from illegal outlets.

The new proposal, which is called MusicDNA and has the backing of the original MP3 digital music file inventor, would allow fans to download an MP3 file on to their computer, which would carry with it additional content.

Music labels, bands or retailers could then also send updates to the music file every time they have something new to announce such as the dates of future tours, new interviews or updates to social network pages.

The user would receive as little or as much of the information as they want, every time they are online. However anyone who downloads the music file illegally would receive only a static file which would not receive any updates.

BACH Technology, the group behind the MusicDNA file, says it is looking to partner with retailers, music labels, rights holders and technology companies and is happy to provide its technology for others who could use it under their own brand.

BACH is based in Norway, Germany and China and has Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology as a partner.

“We are getting very good feedback and the fact we are looking to include everyone in this, and not competing against them, helps,” Chief Executive Stefan Kohlmeyer told Reuters.

The music files can play on any MP3 player including Apple’s iPod. The music player, or online music library, can also be adapted to suit the user and could, for example, be integrated into existing social networks.

Kohlmeyer said the service would hark back to the time when music fans enjoyed looking at the lyrics and artwork on an album almost as much as they enjoyed listening to the music itself.

“What we are bringing back to the end user is the entire emotional experience of music,” he said. “We think it got lost in the transition to the digital era.

“We think a beautiful piece of audio has been reduced to a number code. We want to enrich it again.”

BACH, which counts the inventor of the MP3 and a former chief executive of Sony Music Entertainmentamong its investors, is also hoping that software developers will create new applications and content for the MusicDNA player.

A beta version of the file will be available in the Spring and a full commercial rollout is expected by the summer. It also hopes to roll out a mobile version of the music player.

BACH has already signed up a host of partners across the industry and is in talks with the major record labels.

Rob Wells, the senior vice president of digital at Universal Music Group International, told Reuters he thought the new offering was exciting and said Universal could quite possibly work with the company, but said they still needed further commercial conversations.

“I think the music industry has got a great opportunity to open up completely new revenue streams,” Kohlmeyer said. “They haven’t contemplated in the past all the aspects of rich media.”

(Reporting by Kate Holton; Editing by Rupert Winchester )

New free music sites learn from others’ mistakes, US

Alt-rock for the under-10sMilkshake, the Sippy Cups and other artists are creating cool music that connects with kids — and their parents too.

POURING IT ON: The Baltimore-based band Milkshake performs at the Grammy Museum. (Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times)

When Karen O was trying to compose music for the rumpus scene in the feature film adaptation of the beloved children’s book “ Where the Wild Things Are,” she would think about writing for kids — and run into a wall. “The first few versions kept falling prey to being upbeat and happy,” said O, the lead singer for the rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs. “As soon as we’d start doing that, I felt specious, like I was writing for a Muppets movie.”

So the 30-year-old songwriter, who is not a parent and had never written anything specifically aimed at children before, stopped thinking about the audience. Instead, she focused on what she and the team of A-list indie-rock musicians she assembled did best. The approach worked. Singing in her reverb-free tomboy yelp, Karen O and the Kids’ playful songsprovide the expressive heart of director Spike Jonze’s emotional movie.

In the same way as Jonze’s movie and Maurice Sendak’s original book do, O’s soundtrack stretches our idea of what children’s media can be. “Kids respond to music that’s pure of heart,” O said. “They’re emotionally complex little human beings.”

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FOR THE RECORD:
‘Kindie rock’: In today’s Arts & Books, which was printed in advance, an article on rock music for children says the club Air Conditioned is in Santa Monica. It is in Venice. —

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Like O, a slew of musicians from the worlds of rock, folk, alternative, reggae, country and hip-hop are expanding the edges of what family music can and should sound like. Dan Zanes, Ziggy Marley, Laurie Berkner, Ralph’s World, the Sippy Cups, Justin Roberts, Elizabeth Mitchell and many more are creating for the under-10 set — and their parents — the sort of listening alternatives that grown-ups have enjoyed for years. As Dan Perloff, founder of the new Venice-based label Minivan, said: “There’s a lot out there that’s not Disney.”

Kids stages have sprung up at major festivals such as Stagecoach and Lollapalooza. Moodsters the Shins and hip-hop band the Roots have contributed songs to the new album “Yo Gabba Gabba! Music Is Awesome!,” based on the popular Nick Jr. TV show. Ozomatli, Los Lobos and the Decemberists are all putting on family shows. There’s even a groaner name for some of this music: kindie rock.

Kindie rock is subject to many of the same charges of eliteness and boutique trendiness as its “parent” genre, indie rock. But at their best, the new makers of music for kids offer live and recorded cultural experiences that parents can share with their offspring without suffering the aural equivalent of having pigged out on cotton candy. They also provide kids a way to understand music that’s not as distancing as taking in a big show.

“If kids just wanted to go to a spectacle, they would go to the Ice Capades,” said Mikel Gehl of the Baltimore band Milkshake. “You have to realize what makes this different.”

Zanes, widely considered the daddy of this scene, doesn’t call what he does kindie rock or even kids music; he calls it all-ages or family music. And he says it’s not new but timeless. A dozen years ago, when his daughter was 3, he began looking for “the music I grew up with: Pete Seeger, Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie. They drew from a variety of traditions and made records that sounded like they were recorded in the kitchen. I thought I would find an update of that, or I would never have made an album.”

Before recording the first of nine CDs of family music (his newest, “76 Trombones,” will be released Tuesday), Zanes led the rock band the Del Fuegos. He admits that when he started making family music, “a lot of people felt sorry for me, like it was a big step down.”

“But actually, it was a huge step up,” he adds. “I feel like I’m working at a much higher creative level than I ever have.”

Many other leading kid rockers have previous or double lives as adult musicians. Peter Himmelman already was an acclaimed singer-songwriter when he made the kids record “My Best Friend Is a Salamander” in ‘97. They Might Be Giants make youth-themed albums for Disney and grown-up alt-rock too. Members of Milkshake played the Lilith Fair as Love Riot, and members of the Moldy Peaches, the Mekons and Medeski, Martin & Wood have all dabbled with family music, generally because they have become parents.

“Established musicians really taking the plunge doesn’t hold any stigma anymore,” said Berkner, who’s throwing a pajama party at downtown’s Orpheum Theatre on Nov. 28 and at Long Beach’s Terrace Theatre on Nov. 29. “There’s such an air of agreement that it’s really important to bring your kids up on music.”

Paul Godwin of the San Francisco band the Sippy Cups calls the explosion of family music part of the growth of “conscious parenting. We’re grateful to be parents and want to share every wonderful cultural experience with our kids.”

Milkshake and the Sippy Cups both incorporate clowning elements — goofy props, colorful costumes — into their shows. A Cups concert is like “Romper Room” meets a rave. Their music is bright, riffy psychedelic rock; along with such original tunes as “Use Your Words,” they cover the Ramones and theRolling Stones. At the band’s recent show at the House of Blues, the entertainers wore crazy glam outfits, and kids and parents sat on the floor, playing with giant beach balls and confetti or dancing, hippie style.

Himmelman, a former Minnesotan who has lived in L.A. for years, represents the other end of the kid-rock spectrum: He’s a straight-man troubadour who talks to his young listeners like they’re grown-ups. He sings about trampolines, candy and baseball but rarely cracks a smile.

“Somebody had an idea you’re going to make a kids record and dumb it down,” he said. “Kids aren’t dumb. You’re never as intelligent as when you’re a kid. I try to be careful not to adopt this oversized adult posture. I’m writing exactly the same way as I write for adults, except I’m careful to write about subjects that children will have a context for.”

Regional bands

There’s a considerable difference between the Sippy Cups and Himmelman, but that divide might reflect the cultural split between San Francisco and Los Angeles, given how regional family music can be: Zanes reps multicultural New York, while Milkshake are alt-rockers from Baltimore. It’s difficult for most acts to gain national attention, though, unless they are lucky enough to get face time on Nick Jr. or Playhouse Disney (like Zanes, Berkner and Milkshake have). Touring doesn’t quite work the same way it does for most adult-oriented acts; after all, who’s going to take their children to a show on a school night?

Nonetheless, an industry is sprouting up around the explosion of family-friendly acts. “People are very savvy in terms of the creativity that comes out of it, how they connect to their fan base,” said Minivan’s Perloff, who’s also launching a live family series at the Santa Monica club Air Conditioned with a concert today by the Hollow Trees.

Karen Rappaport, who has worked in children’s entertainment for years, founded Muddy Girl Productions, which books the kids stage at Stagecoach and many other L.A. shows. She says the biggest issues for the genre are CD distribution and finding places to play. CD Baby and NewSound are favorite online outlets for kids albums; many artists also sell CDs at toy stores and other children’s retailers.

“It’s shaking the trees of the music industry to get them to pay attention,” Rappaport said.

There are striking similarities between the current rise of what could be called alternative kid rock and the rise of alt-rock in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Both have grass-roots bases in local scenes and DIY aesthetics. Both see themselves as oppositional to a more corporate entity.

Himmelman, who has an online kids show, “Curious World” (at www.peterhimmelman.com orwww.landofnod.com), says music like his is the last stop before the prepubescent pop that’s the Disney Channel’s stock in trade, which he describes as “the disappearance of innocence and wonder.”

For Zanes, family music is about parents sharing a love of listening to and making music with their children. While he bemoans the lack of cultural diversity in the new wave of kids rock, he’s happy that it’s developing the thematic and aesthetic complexity already seen in books and movies.

“Of all people, young people deserve to have options,” he said. “There should be a lot of choices. Music can be such an integral part of being a human being and learning [about] the world around you. That’s really where we can learn about life and death and the natural world and feelings and friendships.”

 

 

Source: LA Times

Would Anyone Pay for MySpace Music?By Paul Bonanos | Saturday, November 14, 2009 | 9:00 AM PT | 
Speculation arose this past week that News Corp.-owned MySpace Music is considering moving to a paid model, as the cost of free streaming is making its current model unsustainable. News Corp. digital chief Jon Miller expressed some interest in such a move in an onstage interview conducted by paidContent’s Rafat Ali in Monaco on Thursday, noting that he believes in the “freemium” music model conceptually, even if a practical and sustainable version hasn’t appeared yet. (The audio and video are out of sync, but the segment concerning MySpace begins around the 7:15-minute mark, with deeper discussion of MySpace Music after 12 minutes.)

But even if the freemium model does work for music — and I’m far from convinced that it does — MySpace is so far behind in terms of user interface and experience that it’s hard to imagine the company launching a compelling paid product. A primary reason Spotify has garnered attention is its user interface, and the emerging battle for the music subscription marketplace will likely hinge on a compelling user experience. Consumers already know plenty of places to find free music, and historically they’re only liable to open their wallets for a superior experience. MySpace, however, isn’t seen as a premium provider of anything — and MySpace Music is viewed as a place where clutter and advertising are tolerated in order to get something for free.

What could MySpace deliver that people would pay for? Neither charging to hear music that used to be free nor crippling the free service by taking away music from people’s playlists are very good options, and violate the 10 commandments of freemium. Building a premium ad-free desktop, browser-based or mobile service would merely put MySpace in more direct competition with Spotify — which is having its own troubles satisfying content owners — and other music subscription services that are still seeing more experimentation than customer traction. And for a company that’s already admitted it’s long stopped innovating, MySpace would have to overtake more nimble competitors to draw users to a paid music service while overcoming the perception that it’s a messy-but-free one.

Asked if MySpace Music is nearing profitability, Miller told Ali, “On an operating basis, it’s getting there, but no, because of the payments to the music companies,” adding that he considers a paid model “something to look at.” Fourteen months after MySpace Music’s launch, with the four major labels on board as equity partners, time appears to be running out for its free ad-supported model. It’s worth revisiting Om’s remarks from back then:

This article also appeared on BusinessWeek.com.

Source: Gigaom

MSN in talks with MySpace on music collaboration
Category: Music

Exclusive: Microsoft’s MSN Is in Early

Talks With MySpace About Music

Tie-Up

by Kara Swisher
Posted on October 27, 2009 at 3:34 AM PT

Microsoft’s MSN is in preliminary talks with MySpace about using the social networking site’s music service, MySpace Music, to help power music offerings on the giant portal.

While sources at both companies cautioned that the talks are still early, Microsoft (MSFT)–which has its own music site that it programs with original and partnered content–execs are interested in goosing it.

That’s because MSN Music consistently ranks substantially lower than other big online music properties in terms of traffic, while MySpace Music is always near the top.

Sources said Microsoft execs don’t think they can do as good a job as MySpace is doing and don’t see the point in striking needed but complex deals with music labels, which the News Corp. (NWS) property already has.

In an April report by comScore (SCOR), for example, MySpace Music was No. 2, just behind AOL Music, with 27.4 million unique monthly visitors. MSN Music was No. 6 with just 7.4 million.

Nonetheless, music is an area MSN cannot lag so badly in, given that entertainment is one of the key categories it is focusing on as it preps for a major renovation of the portal.

As BoomTown wrote in mid-July about a wide variety of changes coming to MSN:

MSN, Microsoft’s online portal, is also preparing a major redo of what U.S. and, possibly, international consumers will see, as it doubles down on five key content verticals, while cutting back on others.

In a new focus that will start to be apparent in the next month, MSN will heavily add to its News, Sports, Finance, Lifestyle and Entertainment offerings, weaving more data from [its search service] Bing into the mix.

“It’s a decision to make it so MSN does less better,” said one source close to the situation. “So there will be a focus of attention on a smaller number of categories in which we can be either #1 or #2 in, rather than #4 or #5.”

It is not clear exactly what the financial terms would be in any tie-up between MSN and MySpace, which could include licensing of content and other services related to music.

But such a deal is not unusual–MSN’s sports site is powered by Fox Sports, which is another News Corp. property.

And such a partnership would also key into concepts that MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta outlined in a recent interview onstage at the Web 2.0 conference.

Key among them was boosting music and entertainment overall and making them the prime focus in the site’s efforts at reinvigorating itself, as well as expanding distribution of MySpace.

In fact, MySpace recently bought social music service iLike to expand its distribution all over the Web, for example–including on Facebook, the longtime social networking rival from which MySpace is now trying mightily to differentiate itself.

In his appearance, Van Natta also unveiled a music video hub, the ability by users to buy music using Apple (AAPL) iTunes, and a set of better analytical tools–called MySpace Music Artist Dashboard–to help artists figure out how to best work with fans.

But MySpace needs more than these, and a link with Microsoft would provide it with a traffic gusher, since MSN’s main page remains one of the most trafficked sites on the Web.

If such a distribution partnership were struck, it would also raise the question of what will happen regarding MySpace’s negotiations with Google (GOOG) over renewal of their search deal, which expires next summer.

Dissatisfaction over the pricey three-year deal has been expressed by both sides; their mutual grumbling is one of the biggest open secrets in Silicon Valley.

Doing a search deal with Bing is the obvious and only alternative, although few expect any agreement to be as rich as the one MySpace did with Google in 2006 for $900 million.

Interestingly, it was recently reported that both Google and Facebook were bolstering music search and sales offerings, and Google’s apparently includes the use of the iLike player.

In other words: This could get really complicated.

Execs at both MySpace and Microsoft I reached out to declined to comment.

Post from Boom Town

Eliot Van Buskirk 

• October 26, 2009  | 

Photo courtesy of Flickr/ici et ailleurs

In the olden days, boys and girls used to spend hours using double cassette decks to carefully craft mix tapes to share in order to express their innermost longings in an artsy way. It sometimes led to love and inadvertently increased record sales by sharing a little taste of previously undiscovered bands.

Then came Napster and the CD burner, making the process even easier. Finally, mix sharing was thoroughly disrupted by online “mixtape” sharing sites such as the popular Muxtape, whose sharing function was disabled by the RIAA over a year ago. Following the closure of that site, we posted a list of alternatives last summer. Already, 60 percent of them are now offline for various reasons, in at least one case due to major label lawsuits.

These online mix-sharing sites are clearly something of a moving target, because they tend to operate under the radar or pay unmanageable licensing fees. But we’ve turned up a fresh batch you can use to share virtual mix tapes with friends and strangers around the world, without paying a cent.

Without further ado, here are the eight best ways to share playlists (honorable mentions below):

1. QCMixtapes or MixCloud: If you’re a disc jockey who records your live sets, a bedroom DJ who handcrafts mixes by adding cross-fades manually, or just a plain old control freak when it comes to virtual mix tapes, you’re best off with one of these sites or something similar. QCMixtapes uses the excellent SoundCloud as a back-end database to let you upload and share lengthy mixes as single files so you keep total control over the flow. There’s a great selection of mixes from the community there for browsing (including by genre), and you can share mixes with specific friends by sending them a URL. Mixcloud offers a similar concept, although we prefer the QCMixtapes interface. The only downside with these options, which offer more freedom and control than anything else on this list, is that you have to handcraft your mixes the same way people did back in the cassette days — which is either a good or a bad thing, depending on your point of view.

2. 8tracks.com: Essentially a lawyer-approved version of Muxtape, 8tracks offers surprising flexibility with mixes of eight songs or more (updated; also, the name has nothing to do with the plastic cartridges of yore). The site complies with webcaster licensing rules that bar users from adding more than two songs from the same artist, mentioning more than three artists in the title of a mix, mislabeling tracks and so on. The company pays a percentage of expenses, so long as it enforces mild programming rules and doesn’t make above $1.25 million in a year (updated, see below). Users, however, need only worry about which songs to include in their mixes so long as they follow those simple rules (if not, the site will remove your mix from the site until you edit it). 8tracks recently added a smart queuing feature that starts a similar-sounding mix when the one you’re listening to ends, as well as a widget that lets you post your mix directly to your Facebook feed.

3. Playlist (formerly Project Playlist): No stranger to legal wrangling, Playlist fought off a lawsuit from EMI, which now licenses the service, but is still working on inking deals with other copyright holders. Don’t let that faze you; the site has a large catalog of music from sites all over the web, all of which you can add to your shareable, embeddable playlist with a single click. Unlike other sites that use this approach, Playlist manages smooth playback and avoids dead tracks by caching songs on its servers. Bonus: You can turn any of your playlists into a Group Playlist that any of your friends can edit.

4. Opentape: Do you still actually have your own website? Good for you. The rest of us socially networked types with no domains of our own are just being lazy. OpenTape lets you upload a bunch of MP3s to your server using a web tool or FTP and present them in a user-friendly, Muxtape-like interface that lets you reorder, rename, customize and share your mix using your own server. This open source software was developed in direct response to the closure of MuxTape and borrows a piece of that site’s publicly available code for rearranging songs in the mix. And although Opentape lives on your server, it lets you embed playable mixtape widgets anywhere HTML is used. The freedom is nice, but the legal ramifications are all yours with this service.

Photo courtesy of Flickr/not an egg

5. Imeem: This ad-supported social media site is not exactly a secret. By now, you’ve no doubt heard that it contains free, full-length versions of millions of songs you can listen to in their entirety as many times as you want. But Imeem’s playlist feature is quite powerful too. One caveat: If you want your friends to be able to hear the full versions, send them to the playlist’s URL on the site. If you embed it somewhere else on the web, some of the songs turn into 30-second samples. In order to listen, your friends will have to have or create an Imeem account, but that’s a small price to pay for access to your handcrafted masterpiece.

6. Lala: This music service was (re)designed to help you move your music collection into the cloud and let you buy streaming songs for a fraction of what they cost in iTunes. But its playlist-sharing feature is also worthwhile — the site has a legal catalog of around 8.5 million songs, which you can arrange into mixes of any length. There’s one big drawback: Your friends will only be able to listen to each song once for free before paying for them. If they want to hear the playlist again, they’ll have to pay 10 cents a song in Lala credits. Bonus: Lala recognizes playlists you’ve created in iTunes, so there’s no need to recreate them online.

7. Grooveshark: Another veteran of a major label lawsuit, the latest version of Grooveshark (to be unveiled later this week) is an improved design created with listening, rather than playlist-sharing, in mind. The site relies entirely on user uploads and responds to copyright-holder complaints by removing content, so you can’t always find what you’re looking for. But the service is now licensed by EMI, and it’s working on signing the other three majors. It includes a healthy selection of playlist-sharing options: e-mail options, embed codes and hooks for Facebook, Twitter and StumbleUpon.

8. Mixtape.me: Much like the Europe-only Spotify, Mixtape.me is a streaming-music application that closely resembles iTunes and other software designed for local music playback. The powerful playlist-creation engine lets you search for tracks, or link to an MP3 somewhere online if what you’re looking for isn’t already in the catalog (and there are plenty of holes; most files come from the Skreemr MP3 search engine). Extra features include a “quick playlist” feature for sharing a playlist without creating an account, drag-and-drop functionality that works anywhere on the site to add songs to a playlist and comment-enabled playlist liner notes that include artist biographies from Last.fm, lyrics from LyricWiki and videos from YouTube. Share playlists through your profile, URL, embed code or Twitter, directly from the site.

What did we miss? Add your suggestions to the comments section; we’ll circle back with a voting-enabled version of this story featuring your suggestions.

Photo courtesy of Flickr/Landroid

Honorable mentions:

ArtoftheMix: This one includes a selection of excellent mixes you can’t listen to.

Blentwell: One of many blogs that links to DJ mixes, Blentwell includes a wide range of electronic and dance genres.

ffffoundtape: The catalog on this site depends on users adding URLs. It’s still useful for cobbling together playlists from MP3 blogs — just copy the songs’ URLs and add them to ffffoundtape to construct your mix.

Hypetape: We like nearly everything about HypeTape, including the Muxtape-like interface. But it uses blogs for its catalog, so you run into plenty of songs that won’t play, and the only way to search is by artist.

MixTapeCollective: You’ll find great stuff here. As with ArtoftheMix above, none of the mixes are playable, so you’re on your own when it comes to tracking down the songs.

MakeMyMixTape: This site lets you create a quick mix using only the name of a genre — a novel approach, but it has yet to launch.

Mixa: This clever site takes the “virtual mix tape” thing literally, by offering a USB stick shaped like a cassette that you can hand-label before giving it to that cute girl from English class who never answers your texts.

Muxtape: After its relaunch, you can still use Muxtape to create online mixes — but only if you’re an artist or label with full copyright control over the songs you’re uploading.

Spotify: This much-loved freemium music app, which allows playlist sharing and collaboration using a simple URL, is still only available in Europe.

R.I.P.:

Enjoy the above services while you can; by next year, some of them may have joined the following mix-sharing sites in oblivion.

FavTape

Mixwit

Muxtape (the original version)

SeeqPod

Source: Wired.com