Music Streaming Service Comparison/Migration Tool

I've been a Rhapsody subscriber since 2003. Although it was one of the earliest music streaming services, it never really got a lot of attention. Lately, though, a bunch of new services like Rdio and Spotify have been getting a lot of attention and new subscribers.

One advantage of on-demand music streaming services like Rhapsody, Rdio, MOG, Spotify, etc is that monthly subscriptions means there's no investment to lose if you decide later to switch to another service. However, one thing you do have stored with the service that you'd have to give up if you left is your personal library of tracks, playlists, and ratings. Since all the services store similar information, why doesn't there yet exist a tool to allow you to copy your library and playlists from one services to another, not by actually copying any music but by automatically setting up identical playlists from the new service's catalog.

Along with this functionality comes another incredibly useful feature. When deciding between music streaming services one of the prime points of comparison is the size and makeup of the catalogs. Comparing these things in general is tricky with reviews saying things like "service A has the biggest collection, while service B's somewhat smaller collection is still pretty large but with certain glaring holes." Without them specifying what these holes are, I have no idea if they would be a deal-breaker for me or not. However, as an existing subscriber of one of the competitors, there is a very straightforward way of showing me whether the catalog gaps would be significant to me. Any tool that could migrate my library from one service to another could also do a side-by-side comparison of potential new services to my existing service by showing me which tracks from my existing library I would lose after the transition.
Keywords:Music | Ideas
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My New Favorite Thing

For some reason I'm currently in love with Palladia. It's an HD digital cable TV channel that I get. I used to just use it as my go-to demo of my HD setup when people would come over. It was great for this because it was always showing beautiful crisp HD footage, usually of concerts. It is better than finding some show because you can watch it for a just a few minutes without getting wrapped up in the show. Lately I've realized I could enjoy watching it. It is amazing because it is a music channel that actually plays music 24/7. Even better, a lot of the time it is live music (concerts) instead of just music videos. It's funny because I was never even someone who liked watching MTV, music videos or anything.
Keywords:Music | TV
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Music Midtown Wrapup

Wow, I'm exhausted. I'm forcing myself to write this tonight because it will be the best time to recall it all. Today was the 3rd and final day of Music Midtown. Since we didn't need to show PlayMotion and had packed up most of our stuff last night, most people didn't go to the concerts today. I, however, didn't have much else to do and wanted to take advantage of the free passes to such a cool event. I knew I would regret it if I did not go. I wish I went earlier but I got there around 4. People had apparently been using our tent and some of our stuff was stolen, a chair and some drinks. But today I didn't hang out, I went to concerts. I saw Coheed and Cambria, The Lemonheads, and Kid Rock. It was all great. I also saw this guy on the street drumming on buckets. He was amazing. I bought his CD. This day was the first one that was pretty nice. It was nice in the morning, rained for a bit around noon (before I went out), but was then beautiful the rest of the day. Shortly after the last concert ended and everyone left it started to rain again. I had to stay to strike the screen and the rest of our stuff. Luckily it let up and stopped by the time everyone got there to meet me.

Taking the screen down was scarier than even putting it up. We were afraid to walk it down with people in the middle. We wanted to lower it with ropes (or in our case an extension cord) but were afraid that what we tied to (some plastic zip ties) might snap and send the thing flying down. We weren't sure what effect the rain had on the wood.

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Keywords:Music | PlayMotion! | Summer
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Rain, My Mortal Enemy

Today was the second day of the Music Midtown concerts. We woke up a little later today, but it was still Patrick and I heading over to get set up. We stopped for some snacks and then unloaded me and the gear. While he went to get people I cleaned up our area and set up everything except a few things we wouldn't need until much later.

The weather in the morning was cloudy by good. It was hot out when I was running around fixing fuses in the speakers, shaking old rain out of tarps, and hanging new PlayMotion! banners from our "booth". It only lasted for a little while though. Before long it was raining again. At first it was light and plesant, particularly from our dry tent. As it went on it only got stronger. Other people, friends and friends of friends, started coming by. They were wet from the rain and they brought it in, crowded our little space, and ate our food. I wouldn't normally be so inhospitable, but it was the weather and I wasn't comfortable anymore. When I have no place to go I don't always mind getting wet, but when there's a little bit of shelter the small about of water that finds its way in or the small amount of time I have to spend out starts to really aggitate me. I went out to the Honestly concert, taking the rain head on, but my spirits were down. We came back to the tent where I was soaked, could barely get in underneath the cover, couldn't sit down, and couldn't imagine having to spend 6 more hours out in that foul weather. It was absolutely pouring.

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Keywords:Weather | PlayMotion! | Music
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