Making iTunes More Social Free Add-On Software
Displays Listening Habits Of Friends in Real Time
Listening to music has always been a social activity: going to concerts with friends, playing favorite tunes on a jukebox in a bar or restaurant, slow-dancing with a special someone to "your" song. But as music has migrated from record players to CD players to the hard drives on our computers, we often find ourselves sitting alone in front of a monitor, grooving solo as we read through emails or browse the Internet.
The truth is that there aren't many options for social networking in the most popular music software program, Apple's iTunes. You can rate songs and even submit reviews of albums, or favorite song mixes (called "iMixes") that will show up in the iTunes Store, and a feature called the iTunes MiniStore tracks your purchased music, making attempts to suggest other songs that you might like.
But these activities are like solitary confinement for teens who have MySpace and Facebook Web sites where photos, blog entries and lists of friends are constantly shared. ITunes doesn't offer any obvious opportunities for real-time interaction so as to see what others are listening to or who their favorite artists are.
ILike, a free downloadable software program, brings social networking to Apple's iTunes.
This week, we tested a new software program that integrates with your iTunes in an attempt to add social networking to your listening routine. This program, named iLike, comes from a company of the same name. ILike is a free download that works with iTunes running on Macs and Windows PCs, and is available starting today at
www.iLike.com.We downloaded iLike on various computers and were pleased, overall, with how it worked. It studies your entire music library and your listening -- not buying -- habits before suggesting related songs. It shows you what your friends are currently listening to and sets up a Web site where your music tastes are organized for others to see, encouraging social networking according to your music compatibility with other users.
Many Web sites and services, including Rhapsody and Pandora, offer suggestions of related music, but iLike is focused on matching your tastes with those of other users, and showing what these friends are playing.
But iLike still has some kinks. We were frustrated when it suggested songs that we already owned, or when it didn't offer any similar songs for our lesser-known tracks. And when we opened our AOL Instant Messenger with iLike and iTunes running, iLike sometimes shut down completely or skewed the entire iTunes viewing screen far to the left. Another problem occurred when we tried to play samples of music unsuccessfully, but iLike says this will be fixed by the time this column appears.
To get iLike, you must enter some information, including an email address and password. If you'd like, you can take a small quiz that involves selecting names of artists that you like; this list shows up in your personalized Web site.
The first time you open iTunes after downloading iLike, the new program appears in a vertical panel on the far right side of your iTunes screen, sleekly sliding underneath the player whenever you'd like to hide it. Four tabs can be opened in iLike: Related, Friends, Playlists and Profile.
The design and user interface of iLike are quite polished and Apple-like. The side panel looks like a part of iTunes, and the Web site is designed to work like a real software program.
When a song is played on iTunes, iLike gets to work, using its Related tab to display a list of nine songs (including each song's title and artist) that are similar to the artist of the song that you're playing. Five songs come from popular artists, and four are from unsigned artists.
Most songs have play icons to the left of their titles that, when selected, play a sample of the song or in the case of free MP3s, the entire track. An arrow icon beside each song title links you to a site where you can buy or download the song -- using either the iTunes Store or iLike's servers, in the case of the free MP3s.
The Related tab showed us many tunes we knew, and some we didn't. While listening to Coldplay's "The Scientist," iLike suggested some old and new songs including Keane's "Somewhere Only We Know" from 2004 and Oasis's "Don't Look Back In Anger" from 1995. We also downloaded free tunes from unsigned artists that were similar to the song that was playing.
But when downloaded, songs from unsigned artists were listed in our iTunes library as "Unknown Album" in the album category. And these free MP3s didn't have album art.
If iTunes tracks are typed in with incorrect spellings or if the songs are fairly obscure, your Related tab may not show anything. Listeners with more eclectic tastes might rarely see songs in the Related tab, which could get frustrating. ILike plans to add a spell-checker to solve part of the problem.
ILike's Profile tab contained Web links to My Home and My Profile, both personal Web sites created by iLike. On these sites, we uploaded photos of ourselves, listed our personal Web sites and named our favorite artists. On the My Home site, iLike recommended more songs according to the music in our iTunes library, and showed us a list of other iLike users with similar music tastes.
In each user's My Profile page, lists of recently played songs, most-frequently played songs and most-frequently played artists are on display. Privacy settings that let everyone, just friends or no one see your profile and online status will be offered in the next week or so, but aren't yet available.
Much like MySpace, acquiring friends on iLike is simple: send a message through the Web site requesting to be someone's friend, and if they accept, they're added to your list of friends. These friends show up in the Friends tab of your iLike program that runs beside iTunes.
The Friends tab in iLike lists your friends' names alongside the song title and artist of the last track they played or are playing, if they're online. Friends' songs can be played or downloaded just like songs in the Related tab.
The Playlists tab was somewhat confusing. It lets you create an instant on-the-go playlist or a custom playlist that is created by choosing an artist. We used this tab least of all while using iLike. In the Mac version of iLike, this tab isn't even offered, though it's in the works.
If you're tired of listening to iTunes all alone, and wonder what your friends are listening to, iLike is a useful and unobtrusive add-on for iTunes, an already great software program. Though it has a little more tweaking to do, we like iLike, and we think you'll enjoy learning about new music and about your friends' taste.
iLike帮你以乐会友
听音乐一直是一项社会活动：与朋友一起去听音乐会，在酒吧或者餐厅让点播自己喜爱的曲子，和亲密朋友随着“你们的”乐曲翩翩起舞。不过，随着音乐逐步从唱机转向CD播放机，再转向我们的电脑硬盘，我们常常发现自己独自坐在显示器前，在浏览电子邮件或者网上冲浪的同时，陷入一个人的音乐世界。
事实是，在目前最受欢迎的音乐软件程序──苹果电脑(Apple)的iTunes里，并没有多少社交选择。你可以对歌曲评分，甚至提交唱片评论或分享自己的歌曲列表，让它出现在iTunes Store商店里，iTunes MiniStore还能够追踪你所购买的音乐，并为你推荐你可能喜欢的其它歌曲。
不过，所有这些功能就像是把十几岁的孩子单独囚禁起来。要知道，时下的孩子们可以在MySpace和FacebookITunes上时时分享自己的照片、博客和朋友列表。而ITunes并没有提供任何明显的实时互动的机会，让用户了解其他人在听什么样的音乐，或者他们喜爱的歌手都有谁。
本周，我们测试了一款新的软件，它可以与iTunes兼容，在你听音乐的时候为你带来社交机会。这款名为iLike的软件由一家同名公司制造，它与运行在Mac和Windows电脑上的iTunes兼容，现在即可从
www.iLike.com上免费下载。
我们在各种电脑上下载了iLike，总体来说，它的运行情况令人满意。iLike会识别你所有的音乐库，研究你听音乐的习惯──而不是购买音乐的习惯，然后再为你推荐相关的曲目。它能显示你的朋友现在正在听什么样的音乐，然后为你创建一个网站，整理好你的音乐品位供其他人浏览，从而根据你和其他用户的音乐口味是否合得来，鼓励社交往来。
Rhapsody和Pandora等许多网站都提供相关歌曲的建议，但iLike的重点是将你的音乐品位与其他用户相匹配，并显示这些朋友在听什么样的音乐。
不过，iLike还是有些操作上的难题。我们有时侯会感到很烦恼，因为它会推荐我们已选用的歌曲，或是对于那些我们所知不多的专辑它不提供任何相近的歌曲。另外，当我们在运行iLike和iTunes的同时打开AOL即时通(AOL Instant Messenger)，iLike有时侯就干脆完全关闭了，或是将整个iTunes的浏览窗口挤到最左边。当我们试图播放试听音乐的时候又出现了一个问题， 但iLike表示这可以在这篇专栏文章发表前得到解决。
要获取iLike，你必须输入一些信息，包括电子邮件地址和密码。如果你愿意的话，还可以参加一个小测试，从中选择你喜欢的歌手的名字，这个歌手列表将出现在你的个性化网页上。
在下载iLike后第一次打开iTunes时，iLike将出现在iTunes最右边的垂直侧栏，在你想隐藏iLike的时候，它都会优雅地滑到播放器背后。用户可以打开iLike中的界面：相关音乐、朋友、播放列表和资料。
iLike的设计和用户界面非常优美，很像苹果的风格。位于侧栏内的面板看起来就像是iTunes的一部分，而网站的设计就像是一个真正的软件程序。
iTunes一播放歌曲，iLike就开始运行了，按下“相关音乐”键会显示出一个由九首歌曲（包括歌曲名和歌手）组成的列表，这些歌曲与你正在播放的曲目风格接近。其中五首歌曲来自于知名歌手，四首来自于无名艺人。
大多数歌曲在歌曲名的左边都有播放图标，选中后，就可以播放试听片断，如果是免费MP3，就会播放整首歌曲，这时候，每个歌曲名旁边的箭头图标还会把你带到一个你可以购买或下载这首歌曲的网站──通过iTunes Store或 iLike的服务器。
“相关音乐”键既会显示出许多我们熟知的歌曲，也会显示一些我们未曾听过的歌曲。在播放酷玩乐团(Coldplay)的“The Scientist”时，iLike提示的歌曲里，既有基恩乐队(Keane)2004年的'Somewhere Only We Know'这样的新歌，也有1995年绿洲乐队(Oasis)的'Don't Look Back In Anger'这样的老歌。我们还下载了无名艺人目录下的免费歌曲，它们与正在播放的歌曲风格相近。
不过，下载后，我们发现来自无名艺人的歌曲被作为“无名专辑”列在了iTunes库的专辑类里。而且这些免费的MP3也无法显示专辑封面。
如果用户把iTunes歌曲拼错了，或是歌曲本身籍籍无名，那么你的“相关音乐”键可能无法显示任何内容。兴趣不拘一格的用户或许很少能在“相关音乐”键里看到歌曲，这一点可能会令人感到懊恼。ILike计划增加拼写检查功能来解决部分问题。
在ILike的“资料”键可以找到“我的首页”(My Home)和“我的资料”(My Profile)的网站链接，两者都是由iLike创建的个人页面。在这些页面上，我们可以上传自己的照片，列出个人网址以及喜爱的歌手。在“我的首页”上，iLike根据我们iTunes库里的音乐为我们推荐更多的歌曲，并显示出拥有相近品位的iLike用户列表。
在每个用户的“我的资料”页面，都会显示最近播放的歌曲、最常播放的歌曲、最常听的歌手等列表。iLike表示，未来几周将提供隐私设置功能，让所有人或只有朋友浏览你的资料和在线状态，或者完全不对外人开放。但这些功能现在还不能提供。
在iLike上交朋友很简单，这一点和MySpace非常相像。只需通过网站发送讯息，要求成为某人的朋友即可，如果他们接受了邀请，就会被加入到你的朋友列表。这些朋友将显示在iLike程序的“朋友”键下。
iLike的“朋友”键会将朋友名字列在他们上次播放或正在播放的歌曲和歌手旁边。用户可以播放或下载“朋友”的歌曲，与“相关音乐”键的操作一样。
“播放列表”键有点令人费解。你可以即时创建“正在播放”列表，或是通过选择歌手定制播放列表。在运行iLike的时候，我们很少用到这个键。iLike的Mac版甚至没有提供这个键，尽管人们可以使用这项功能。
如果你对独自一人听音乐有点厌烦，想知道你的朋友们都在听什么样的音乐，那么iLike着实是iTunes的一个有用而毫不唐突的补充。虽然它还需要一些调整，但我们还是很喜欢iLike，我们认为你也会愿意听到新的音乐、愿意了解朋友的音乐喜好。
Walter S. Mossberg / Katherine Boehret
