I’ll have to say one of the most powerful features of iTunes is the Genius playlist builder. iTunes sends a list of all music in your library to a centralized service. From there, it determines which songs go best together based on other peoples preferences. Afterwards, the results are sent back to iTunes. Any time there after, you can choose a song and tell it to start Genius to build a playlist of 25 songs.
Let’s look at a few things first. Many songs are categorized into Genre’s. This is often to perform the same process. Play a list of music from the same genre, and you have a better chance of it going well together. Think of radio stations here – they are often classified by the genre and/or year (Oldies, Country, Rock, Blues, Hip Hop, Electronica, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s). Genius is more of a social media aspect that improves upon the idea of classifying music manually, in that it classifies individual songs instead.
In the past (and present), iTunes lets you build up your own playlists. Mine were simply filled with only songs that i liked regardless of Genre. I didn’t have the patience or commitment to determine what songs went well with each other. I haven’t made a mix tape, but others who have may excel at this. Genius takes all the guess work and time out of the equation, or more or less depends on the guess work of the community at large.
The downside is that not every song is recognized. There is also a chance that some songs actually do not go well together at all.
With the sidebar, Genius also recommends songs based on any song you have selected. This helps you find tunes that you would otherwise not have considered. It’s a big plus for Apple, since there is a direct link to purchase music from their store. I’ve actually purchased a few tunes myself while listening to my favorite songs. This leads me to start considering the future of iTunes, streaming media, and radio stations. At one point in time, there will be a direct correlation between streaming media that will enable individuals to purchase the song that they are currently hearing. iTunes is currently able to display the song and artist that is broad casted from many internet radio stations. Why not put Genius to use and show the Genius side bar with a link to the current song (if not in the library), along with recommended listening?
