SimplifyMedia: Share Your Tunes over the Web

iTunes has many often-forgotten features. Among them are the web radio, visualizer, and (what I think is the coolest) shared music libraries. iTunes users on the same wireless network can share their entire music libraries (or only specific playlists) with each other by turning on “Sharing” in iTunes’ preferences (in either the Mac or PC version of iTunes). Once both computers are setup to share libraries, users at both ends can browse each other’s libraries and stream each other’s music. However, there is no way to download the music; users can only listen.

If your iTunes library is spread out over numerous computers in your house and all on one wireless network, then this is incredibly useful, but that’s as far as the fun goes. Outside of a wireless network, no sharing is allowed. That’s where SimplifyMedia comes in. SimplifyMedia works exactly like the sharing feature in iTunes, but with one difference: You don’t have to be on the same wireless network to share your music.

Downloading SimplifyMedia is easy, and it’s even available for PCs, too. Once you’re all signed up and installed, opening up the application presents you with a window that allows you to invite up to 30 friends with whom you can share your music library (you can invite someone simply by entering their username or email address). Once they accept your invitation, all you have to do is be online at the same time as them and you’ll be able to stream each other’s music libraries. Granted, your computer has to be on and both SimplifyMedia and iTunes have to be open, so this isn’t free music 24/7.

Besides sharing with friends, one of the ways SimplifyMedia can be used is to bring together music libraries spread out over various computers that aren’t necessarily in the same WiFi network. Or, it could be used to listen to music in someone’s home music library while at work. The possibilities are endless. As long as you have a capable computer connected to the internet, you could bring your music library with you anywhere, regardless of hard drive space.

One of the main problems with SimplifyMedia, though, is that you many not have any friends to share your music with. I’ll get you started, you can add me: swruler9284. There are also some music-hungry users on iusethis who have shared their usernames.

SimplifyMedia is available for free on Macs and PCs (also with Winamp support) and there is experimental support for Linux and even the iPhone — probably the coolest use of SimplifyMedia I can think of!