Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Shameless Plug: Introducing MyStrands.TV

Remember when MTV used to actually play music videos? I had friends that were completely addicted to it... a TV replaced their radio and they would just leave MTV on all day to serve the roll as their personal soundtrack. Well, we all know that you couldn't find a music video on MTV anymore if your life depended on it. Sure, you can find lots of great music videos on the web, put it's a painful experience of fits and starts. Think of a song or artist, click play, watch. Think of another... rinse, lather, repeat. It's actually quite paralyzing... quick tell me the next 5 songs you want to listen to. I'm guessing most of you can't, because you don't actually *know* - you need a programmed experience to get you kick-started and then give the freedom to explore once you are one you way.

Well, I'm happy to announce the arrival of MyStrands.TV. It's simple... if you already have a MyStrands account then you just log into MyStrands.TV and start enjoying and endless playlist of music videos that are personalized specifically for you.... based on your music listening history and recommendations. Want to veer of course a little? Great, under the video player there is a selection that will help guide you... either select the next song in the playlist to be either: 1) From a Similar Artist, 2) From the Same Artist, or 3) From a Different (non-similar) Artist that we think you may also like. Away you go.


While you're listening, bookmark your favorite videos check out other people that have recently listened to the artist. Want to hear what that user's personalized channel sounds like? Just click on their avatar. Or, jump over to another featured artist for the current channel or and entirely new recommended channel. Hear or see something you just *have* to share? We've made it really easy to email a link to the video to anyone you want, or just as easily embed the video directly into your MyStrands Journal. It's up to you... use it as an interactive video channel or just let it run in the background like radio.

Don't have a MyStrands account? No worries, just sign-up (it's free), download the client software (available for Windows, Mac, Linux, Windows Mobile and Symbian operating systems) and start capturing your playback history from you favorite media player. We'll do the heavy lifting of publishing your history and favorites to all your friends as well as offering you up recommendations of other stuff you may like and other listeners that share the same tastes. There's a ton of other features to the client too that I think you'll enjoy... instant track recommendations, community tracker, automatic playlist builder, playlist publisher and more.

Want to just try it out before deciding whether to sign up? That's cool, just type in the name of an artist and we will build a custom music video channel from that. Feel free to explore.

Have any ideas on improvements or new features? We'd love to hear them. We've got some ourselves - including better integration with the rest of MyStrands. Stay tuned.

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