Playlist
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In its most general form, a playlist is simply a list of songs. The term has several specialized meanings in the realms of radio broadcasting and personal computers.
The term originally came about in the early days of top 40 radio formats when stations would devise (and, eventually, publish) a limited list of songs to be played. The term would go on to refer to the entire catalog of songs that a given radio station (of any format) would draw from. Additionally, the term was used to refer to an ordered list of songs played during a given time period. Playlists are often adjusted based on time of day, known as dayparting.
As music storage and playback using personal computers became common, the term playlist was adopted by various media player software programs intended to organize and control music on a PC. Such playlists may be defined, stored, and selected to run either in sequence or, if a random playlist function is selected, in a random order. Playlists' uses include allowing a particular desired musical atmosphere to be created and maintained without constant user interaction, or to allow a variety of different styles of music be played, again without maintenance.
Some websites allow categorization, editing, and listening of playlists online, such as Webjay and Plurn. Others such as [FIQL], Musicmobs and Soundflavor focus on playlist creation aided by personalized song recommendations, ratings and reviews.
Playlists are lists of songs (or other audio files) that you can create to organize your library or burn to a compact disc. For example, you might want to create a list of songs to listen to at a dinner party. Or, if you want to make your own CD, you add the songs you want on the CD to a playlist, then burn the playlist onto the CD.
Celebrity playlist
A list of songs prepared by a celebrity and is represented on the Apple iTunes Music Store as such, is referred to as a celebrity playlist. This has become popular because a fan of a particular celebrity may have an affinity towards the celebrity's choice of music. This arms-length connection between the fan and the favored celebrity has become so popular (2004-2005) that "celebrity playlist" has become a part of recent vocabulary.Types of Playlist Files
There are several types of playlists. Some of the most common are:- .m3u, a simple text-based list of the locations of the items, with each item on a new line.
- .pls, a text playlist similar to .ini (program settings) files. It normally contains only the location of the items in the playlist.
- .asx, an xml style playlist containing more information about the items on the playlist.
- .smil is a true xml playlist, with standards proposed by the World Wide Web Consortium.
See also
External links
- [FIQL]
- [WebJay]
- [Musicmobs]
- [Plurn]
- [Yahoo! Radish]
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