Over on Soup Greens I have posted a playlist of pre-1923 recordings by a banjo player named Vess Ossman.
The playlist is a standalone page of hand-coded HTML. The design is influenced by Muxtape. The blog post over there is a stub to enable comments and channel blog visitors into the playlist.
The blog post is at http://soupgreens.com/2008/05/14/vess-ossman-playlist/. The playlist is at http://www.soupgreens.com/vessossman/.
My goals in terms of my own music were to provide context and to keep the flow of fresh content up. Context gives notes a back story and cultural kick. Fresh content creates momentum.
My technology goal was to explore playlists as a form of album packaging. I wanted to do such a tight job on the page that it would give the same kind of experience as opening a new CD and listening while you read the liner notes and look at the pictures, so I really sweated the graphics, writing, song selection, outbound links, and usability. I don’t want people to download the MP3s; I do want them to listen with the page open, and ideally to return to the page when they want to hear the music again.
I couldn’t figure out how to give the playlist social liveliness of the kind that Greg Borenstein articulated in his comment on the Jon Udell piece. Ideas are welcome.