Filed under: iTS, iTunes, Apple
Apple introduces My iTunes Widgets
Everyone is going bonkers about social networking sites, the kids they like 'em. Apple, not being foolish, hopes to cash in on that trend with My iTunes Widgets. My iTunes Widgets are 3 widgets that you can embed into a website (Apple suggests your blog, or your social networking site profile) which will display either your most recent iTunes purchases, your favorite iTunes artists (based on how much of their stuff you have purchased), or your iTunes reviews.You have to enable My iTunes widgets via your profile in the iTunes Store. Once enabled you are whisked to a webpage to design your widget (within limits) and get the code which you then paste into your website. No muss, no fuss.
[via Mac Rumors]
Update: I forgot to add that the widgets use Flash, so they won't work on the iPhone (whoops!), and these seem like they were made with iWeb '08's new Web Widget feature.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jesse said 11:14PM on 8-09-2007
cool!
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Christopher L. Williams said 11:20PM on 8-09-2007
So I can tell people what I buy, but not what I'm currently listening to? That seems odd.
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Steve said 11:28PM on 8-09-2007
Just tried it out and then disabled it. It ONLY works with items you have purchased. What it should do is work with all your items (music, movies, tv shows, etc) in your library just like iLike and Last.fm does.
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chris said 11:34PM on 8-09-2007
it's cool, but i'd like one that shows my library info not my itunes store info. all i've bought on itunes store is 2 ipod games :\
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Erik Madsen said 11:49PM on 8-09-2007
Our iPhone social network (irovr.com) allows you to download a desktop app that sends your currently playing track info to our site for perusal.
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George Penston said 11:49PM on 8-09-2007
Looks like you can grab these from widgetbox as well: http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/my-itunes . They seem to let you change the widget afterwards and add it pretty easily to a bunch of popular places. I don't see install to wordpress but i guess you can use the widget code.
They also have a iMix-based widget that lets you build it off your iTunes playlist.
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john russell said 12:23AM on 8-10-2007
Like most everyone else, I'm a bit miffed at the fact that it only displays 'purchased' music. It doesn't even bother to show all of the free stuff that I've downloaded through the store. And worst of all, as someone who never actually buys things off of the iTunes store, this widget gives no real representation of my library whatsoever. I am largely disappointed.
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Kelly said 12:37AM on 8-10-2007
I like Itunes buddy best, Shows all the hottest songs and albums aswell as the features from itunes.
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/music/itunesbuddy.html
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Taylor said 2:40AM on 8-10-2007
For my Music section on (insert social networking site here), I just use my Artists Rating for the Week widget. I don't buy music from iTunes - prefer to have a tangible copy of what I buy, with liner notes, just in case
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error said 2:45AM on 8-10-2007
For a moment I thought Apple was going to do their own Last.fm* kind of trick... but when I discovered the iTunes Store limmitation I thought "never mind". Looks nice, but if you base my taste on the few things I have bought at their store the result is silly... and not suitable to be published on a website. * I really love to see a Last.fm/iTunes (the app) integration!
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Danny Espinoza said 9:59AM on 8-10-2007
FYI, for those of you who want to run these widgets on your desktop outside of the browser, you can do that in a couple ways:
1) On the Mac, you can instantiate a new desktop widget from the widget code Apple provides using Amnesty Hypercube. Once the widget is running in Amnesty Hypercube you can also "push" it into your Dashboard with one click.
http://www.amnestywidgets.com/HypercubeMac.html
2) On the Mac (and Windows) you can convert the widget code Apple provides into a Dashboard (or Sidebar) widget using Amnesty Generator.
http://www.amnestywidgets.com/Generator.html
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required said 11:57AM on 8-10-2007
NOTE: The only way to set your privacy for Flash is here:
http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager02.html
Sadly very few understand this little detail about flash.
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brian said 12:00PM on 8-10-2007
Wow. This is really, really cheap... the kind of stuff AOL and Coke and Pepsi do. This is nothing more than advertising for the iTMS disguised as something cool for kids. Apple--you *are* cool. This is the kind of crap that companies like Frito-Lay and Energizer pull because they *wish* they were cool. This is almost as embarrassing as that make-your-own-Heinz-ad thing. Please Apple, don't devalue your brand like this.
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Wayde Christie said 7:52PM on 8-10-2007
Everything I've purchased through the store is for my 5 year old daughter. Think I want Britney, Christina, the Veronicas and Agadoo publicly associated with my name? Ag-a-don't!
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