As part of MusicMob's Rhapsody integration, the company made available a resolver, which converts open standard playlist files called XSPFs so the songs can be played back in Rhapsody. This is very exciting as it allows for an excellent bridge between silent playlists of data and Rhapsody playback. See Toby Padilla's blog entry on the subject for more background.
Lucas Gonze, Webjay creator and XSPF chieftain, penned a nice explanation of MusicMob's integration. Lucas writes:
An important part of the XSPF design is the idea that a playlist entry is not so much an exact locator for a song as it is a collection of metadata that a kind of software called a content resolver can use to locate an instance of the song. For example, you might have a track listing containing nothing but a song title, and the resolver would look up that song title in the MP3s on your hard drive to see if you had it available....
Musicmobs long ago shipped software that allowed you to do this relative to the iTunes store; what they have done here is allow you to use Rhapsody's catalog.
MusicMobs' work is an excellent example of creating a consumer-focused product, but also having an eye on making an impact in the echosystem. Users of competing services such as Last.fm, which enable sharing playback preferences and playlists, will now be able to use MusicMobs to not only share the data of the songs, but the actual songs--played in full length and full quality with Rhapsody. It's an example of how developing in an open manner on open standards will strengthen your business, not diminish your differentiation. The availability of this tool will no doubt serve MusicMobs well in marketing to the technoaudiophiles who may not have been aware of their service.
--Dave Hanley



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