Blip.fm lets members share MP3 music stored on their own computers with friends around the world. As a Blip.fm “DJ,” members share “blips,” their comments on songs shared by others, which is woven into a conversation about the song. Songs commented on are also available for listening by others.

As members add blips, the site displays the profiles of others who have “blipped” the same artist or song. This facilitates exploring people with similar tastes. Adding others to a favorites list creates a feed of the songs and comments those people share.

The main screen of Blip.fm looks a great deal like micro-blogging site Twitter. Short messages are displayed with links that play the blipped songs. Click on the first song in the list and the site will continue playing all the songs displayed or you can browse through blops to find tunes to play individually. A novel set of keyboard shortcuts, which can be found in the lower section of the right column of the home page, makes navigating through songs very convenient.

Songs can be added to the Blip.fm network by members, who must have the legal right to share the music. If you like a song on a commercially released album, the artist or record label must be the source of the song. To share a song, open the Settings menu, select “Music” and enter a URL for the song you wish to put on the network. That means you’ll need to have stored the song on a Web-accessible computer or a public file-sharing site that doesn’t require a login, which would prevent Blip.fm from reaching the MP3 file.

But the vast majority of songs are either made by members, independent bands, or are out of copyright, which makes Blip.fm a rich source of alternative music. Many “mainstream” artists songs are available on the network. They can be shared if they are on the network, but it is against the terms of service of the site to upload them.

Blip.fm provides integration with Twitter, FriendFeed, Tumblr, LiveJournal, Jaiku and Last.fm accounts, so that member blips can be republished and shared on those sites.

Since many songs are shared by members, it’s possible that a song will disappear from the network because the host PC is turned off or disconnected. We found no broken links to songs during our visits to Blip.fm.

Blip.fm displays ads and offers links to purchase songs and to buy concert tickets to earn its money. 

Home Page: Blip.fm
A member-programmed radio station built on micro-blogged messages.

Free

Tags: friend lists, Friendfeed, micro-blogging, music-sharing, twitter

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 at 11:30 pm and is filed under Social Site Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.