Zara wrote a great entry on spotify, so here’s another website for you music lovers out there.

Blip.fm can be summed up as a Music Social Network in that it combines streaming music as well as giving you the option to communicate with other users.

Users are called DJs and that is essentially what you are, choosing your own songs or listening to other users’ choices - a bit like creating your own radio station or choosing to listen to other users’ music.

Once signed up, the search function on top lets you look for artists or song titles, giving you a list of search results including covers, remixes as well as original versions.

search for an artist

In the list, you can then listen to the songs before blipping them via the preview function to make sure you got the version you want, as well as providing a neat way to find cover versions you may not have been aware of. Aditionally, the music video (if available) will play in a YouTube plugin below your profile picture.

the list

After picking your song, click on “blip” and you can then add a short message – what the song is about, some lyrics, or a shoutout to another user.

add your message

Finally, click OK and your song will be blipped and play for you as well as anyone listening to the stream on the main site.

After your song has played, you can either blip the next one or listen to what other users are blipping. It’s a great way to discover new music and bands you may not have been aware of, as the users are international and everyone has a different taste. If you don’t like what you’re hearing, just go to the next song.

So far, playing around with it, the site has a pretty impressive  choice of songs and artists, mainstream as well as lesser known artists, so this will keep you occupied for quite some time. And if you like a song you’re hearing, click on the little star on the right of a song and it will save it to your playlist for future retrieval.

Another nice option is the way Blip.fm ties into other social networks like facebook or twitter. Click on the plus next to the star and a new window will open with a list of sites on which you can share your song. Enter your login info and the song will be blipped automatically for your friends to listen to via an URL.

share your song

To get even more interactive, you can add users to your list of DJs you listen to. To show you like another user’s song choice, you can write them an @message, re-blip their song or give them props. The more props you give, the more likely it will be that other users follow you. And the more songs you blip, the more props you get to give out.

One downside for me is the somewhat clumsy personal playlist. Heavy users will end up with hundreds of songs that are listed chronologically instead of alphabetically, which would make for easier browsing. Also, you cannot sort your playlist by category, so you end up with a wild mix. But you could say that this goes with the basic idea of the site that seems to eschew categorizing music in general categories as on other sites, thereby opening up the playing field.

But that aside,  it’s a great way to listen to the music you like when at any computer, find new music, and get in contact with other music lovers.

Here’s my Zoot Woman song for you to listen to: http://blip.fm/~9bx5c

Get your own DJ profile at the website and find me under idreamedmusic.