As I mentioned in another thread playlists are a fantastic feature here, and so far they are still quite underutilized.

VS, in response to your invitation about ideas for playlists and such:

- maybe a “recommend” feature for playlists,
- a “Picks” page for playlists similar to the “Picks” for remixes? i.e. the idea is, that having a well managed playlist becomes recognized as well?
- a forum dedicated to discussing playlists

generally the idea becoming, that playlists are valuable objects like remixes and samples and people can develop a reputation for their playlists, just like others for their music.

re: Hot Playlists.

Is there any way to filter out playlists with only 1 track from showing up on the Hot Playlists list?

As of writing this there are 8/20 playlists showing 1 track. And only 4/20 playlists with 5 or more tracks.

I’ve always felt like there’s a ‘duh’ incentive program out there but it’s never hit me so maybe it’s not that obvious given our current resources.

e.g. some kind of contest that encourages folks to come up with ‘ready to podcast’ list and a “big time” podcaster agreed to judge and then play the thing as is.

If it works I could see us get dozens of great, theme/genre oriented playlists off the bat.

I don’t have scientific data to back this up, but at the sites that I’ve participated in, contests seemed to bring in new people and to a degree bring back inactive users, too.

But I find it interesting that the moratorium on contests at ccM at least so far doesn’t seem to have hurt. That could be because ccM has attained a critical mass of participants and/or crossed some magical quality threshold, which makes contests less important or even counterproductive.

That being said, the current user community probably see themselves more as music makers (writers, singers, players, producers), than music connoisseurs and/or promoters, etc. And it’s that latter kind of people, that might treat the creation and maintenance of playlists as their primary musical self-expression. I have met more than one person over the years, who didn’t know how to make a note of music themselves, but who’s involvement and understanding of music (album collections, historical and trivia knowledge of artists, etc.)
was totally stunning.

These kinds of people are more than your average fleeting and somewhat shallow consumer - they often invest as much time and money in their music hobby as any music maker. It’s the kind of person who during a divorce gives up the house just to keep the album collection :-)

And I don’t think they have a real good community outlet yet, especially one where they would get to interact with the artists . There are a couple of smaller sites (sometimes on the fringes of copyright) where people are making nothing but mix-tapes (in mp3). And of course there are fan sites, but these people I’m talking about aren’t simple fans - they aren’t in it for the star allure, but much more for the art’s sake. There may be some overlap with people, who are DJ’ing, but they are not all DJs (some DJs crossing over into music making themselves).

If one could attract and culture those kinds of people, that might add an amazing dimension to ccM both in the current context as well as in the ccM+ context currently under discussion.

I find the ccM playlists are a fundamental tool, but probably need to be further evolved as ccM objects in their own right much like the current primary ccM objects: samples, a cappellas and remixes, which give reputation to their creators, can be exported to other sites, be picked (by editors and by “the crowd”), etc.

So maybe the right thing to do is both:
* add more (technical) features to playlists AND
* market them to a new kind of ccM participant via contests and such.

ccMixter has so much potential (in the .org as well as in a ccM+ concept, it’s downright scary. I’ll mention some other thoughts in their own threads as well. Of course, VS may have thought of most/all of those ideas already, but at least if some others of us are mentioning and discussing them, it hopefully will help him to evolve, refine and prioritize them.

I’d say the simplest idea is to remind people that it can be fun to play broadcast DJ or music director, the key is a theme. Look at how successful the calendarsongs concept has been- something spanning genres, that all mixters would/could take an interest in would be good. I remember Project 1 had a theme, but it was a bit too vague, but the Halloween theme was invigorating for the last secretmixter… how about a link to a cc-movie at least 30 min. long, w/ the challenge not to be making new mixes to score it, but simply choosing only existing remixes? That at least would get mixters’ minds going in the playlist direction, and wouldprompt more digging amongst the less visible artists, samples etc. Maybe a cc-based work of lterature, a short story, or even an outline of the “5 W’s”, with the challenge being to create a playlist that tells/illustrates/scores/complements the story. I’m just brainstorming, but I think involving other ccmedia can’t help but get people going in new directions, and would encourage more productive crosstalk between disparate creators/users; how about asking each mixter to imagine “NASA’s called and requested YOU to select 15 remixes (only one (maybe two?) of which can be your own), for inclusion on its next interstellar probe/message to the stars”?
…OK, that’s enough outta me, HTH.

So let me begin this post by saying that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the current set-up, i’m just thinking out loud here….

As part of my job, I’ve done a fair bit of web design, and I personally think it would be really great to include some kind of cross platform, maybe flash based media player ( like this one we’ve all seen) on the homepage. The reason I’m even bringing this up is that ccmixter is all about music, but you have to link in to hear anything from the homepage. I just think it would be nice to have the latest remixes show up in a flash player on the homepage. I miss the old latest remixes text listing in the sidebar, and frankly, i think the “latest” remixes get kind of buried behind the “ed picks”. Having a dynamic playlist showing the latest remixes would really be a nice feature on the homepage, break up alot of the text that’s now there, and make the music instantly accessable to anyone who visits the site.

Just my 2 cents….

ok, maybe i’m an idiot but is it possible to delete certain selections from an existing playlist without deleting or emptying the whole playlist? i can’t quite figure out how. thanks.