Yesterday I made the mistake of bragging about how well I’ve been doing with my daily blogging practice. And tonight I thought I’d knock off a quick blog post that would keep me in my groove. Instead I found myself learning the ins and outs of last.fm, playlistify and spotify…not to mention download 4 new pieces of software…all with the intention of getting a playlist onto my blog. The result: I’m in yet another showdown, caught between my desire to emerge victorious over stubborn technology and my desire to get something in the vicinity of a night’s sleep.
I won’t consider myself defeated by this whole quest for the embeddable iTunes playlist, even though this is at least the third time I’ve looked for a solution. But it is a reminder of the delicate balance between blogging as writing and blogging as technology. In the same conversation that found me bragging about my blogging consistency, I told a colleague that I’ve forced myself to forswear hacking away on my blog setup unless I’m up-to-date on my actual blogging. It’s a good discipline that keeps me from spending 90% of my energy on the container and only 10% on the contents.
Tonight reminded me that it’s just as easy for the “content” to become an excuse for geeking out. And even when geeking out is (kind of) the point of your blog, trying out software is not the same as blogging.
Dear Alexandra,
This is Roeland from Playlistify, i found your blog through Google Alerts, notifying me about Playlistify mentions on the World Wide Web.
Here is how you can get your iTunes playlist (or at least parts of it) on your blog as an embeddable widget:
1. Export your iTunes playlist as XML: Go to iTunes, right click on the playlist title, hit ‘Save as’ and be sure to use the XML dropdown.
2. Go to http://Playlistify.org and choose: Bake Playlist (left option), use the iTunes and browse to your exported playlist XML.
3. Now the Playlistify Tool starts validating & verifying the tracks on your playlist with the Spotify database.
4. In the meantime, while the tool is validating, you can fill out the additional information, making it possible for other users to find your playlist.
5. Once done, and all info submitted, you will find your playlist on an online page, dedicated to your playlist. Here you can already share it on Twitters etc.
6. On this page (we are redesigning :D) you also find a link ‘Embed’
7. Click it once to load up the embed configurator. Resize to your liking, choose a Skin color which represents your blog colors or prefs the most and copy the embed code you see in the textfield.
8. Now come here to your blogger cms and paste that code (it’s html) to embed your playlist!
Let me know how it works out for you!