playlists

File this one as improbable, but it's interesting that this rumor continues to crop up. Project Playlist, a little known start-up with 9 million monthly visitors, is supposedly kicking the tires on social media site iMeem, according to music industry sources.

The alleged acquiree, iMeem, which has 20 million monthly visitors, denied the rumors are true. "Project Playlist buying us is like us buying Apple. This is just not accurate," said Matt Graves, iMeem's spokesman and a longtime straight shooter.

So why is this acquisition scenario still being passed around the music industry?

Beverly Hills, Calif.… Read more

Now that Daylight Savings Time has ended, it's that odd time of the year when it gets dark while we're still at work (at least for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere with day jobs). Sun worshippers may be bummed, but night owls should be psyched about the extra hours of darkness. Either way, it's a good time for everyone to get out and embrace the nightlife!

Listen to our free playlist "Night Moves" featuring Bloc Party, New Order, Black Sheep, Metallica, Kid Cudi, Juliana Hatfield and more. To launch, click the green button … Read more

There's finally an end to the speculation over what former Facebook exec Owen Van Natta would do next: he's taken the job as CEO of a site called Project Playlist, according to Kara Swisher of AllThingsD.

He had already been an investor in the music discovery company, and there have been blog-circulated rumor about his new gig for several weeks now.

The move comes shortly after Van Natta withdrew his offer to take the CEO position at MySpace's new music venture. All signs now point to MTV exec Courtney Holt to take that job, but no formal … Read more

Back in the CD era, it was easy to keep my wife's music collection separated from my own. We kept my CDs on one side of the shelf and her CDs on the other side, and the few CDs we both enjoyed would sit somewhere in the middle. The territorial lines were easy to maintain, and for the most part, music was never an issue in our house.

In the MP3 era, however, everything's become more complicated. We have a central home computer that hosts our collective iTunes music library. Unfortunately, the CD shelf system we've relied … Read more

Dan the Mantern is responsible for a majority of the stories in the rundown today, so don't hesitate to burn him at the stake if you don't like what you hear. Personally, I think today's show is hilarious: Craigslist crime, driving exams and racial stereotypes, video game pirates, and the evolution of the Chinese "impossible" space drive. Once again, it's East meets West on The 404!

Big thanks to our buddy Jeff Sparkman for today's show title. We are literally the taint on the massive organ that is CNET.com. Anyway, even though Dan helps us by suggesting the stories for the show, I managed to sneak one by him, and apparently Caroline McCarthy also caught wind. It seems like Craigslist just can't stay out of trouble. This time around, a man used the job listings to post an anonymous ad for construction workers and requested that they show up wearing a blue shirt, yellow vest, safety hat and a blue shirt. The man then proceeded to rob an armored car before stripping his clothing to reveal the exact same uniform, effectively allowing him to disappear into the sea of construction workers. He later reappeared to make his getaway by riding an innertube down the local lake. I love the fact that robbers are getting more creative with their schemes--Jason Bourne over here, did this guy just watch "Ocean's 11" or something? For all that Craigslist has given the internet community (apartments, bikes, jobs, casual "encounters"), I think we can let this one slide.

Imeem, the social music site that was thriving on user-created playlists before MySpace Music turned it into an industry trend, has announced a handful of tweaks and updates that users will be seeing soon.

Among them are a slightly redesigned homepage with featured music and video clips, a "browse" page to look at top song, artist, and genre charts, a "discover" feature that recommends music based on past history (seems like everybody's doing that these days), and individual "artist" pages that aggregate all of that artist's songs into a single place.

For … Read more

There may be a chill in the air, but summer's not over yet! Two big music festivals remain this year: San Francisco's Treasure Island Music Festival (this weekend) and Austin City Limits (next weekend). There's an overlap of indie rockers at both events, such as The Raconteurs, CSS, and Jenny Lewis. But with an extra day and more stages to work with, ACL offers a wider array of acts such as Foo Fighters, Beck, Iron and Wine, and Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.

If you can't make the shows--or just want to get pumped for them--cue … Read more

Apple's improvements to iTunes today have garnered the music and video jukebox a full-point jump, although longtime users will only find one major new feature and a few interesting smaller ones. As for addressing the bloat factor, fuggedaboudit. iTunes is the big bad, and it's not about to get any thinner.

Available for Windows and Mac, the best and most useful new feature is the Genius playlist. This analyzes your music collection with an algorithm that compares the structure and the sound of your songs to create playlists that it thinks you'll like. In practice, it works … Read more

The oil crisis has been an easy target for the media, so now it's our turn to get in on the hype. No matter what your political views are (left, right, or center), the rising price of oil is a concern for everyone. Even the most patriotic gas-guzzlers out there are beginning to question their driving habits. Now, if you ask the R&B star Rihanna, she'll tell you to "shut up and drive," but we think (and hope) that she's making a sexual reference.

While we wait for gas prices to drop, let'… Read more