Justin Ouellette, Muxtape's CEO and Founder just announced a preview version of the new Muxtape, which he has seeded with songs from twelve bands, including indie favorites like of Montral.

Artist Pages

The most important addition to the new Muxtape are the artist pages, which are currently dominated by profile pictures of the artists. Otherwise, the new Muxtape works exactly like the old Muxtape - just without the ability to create your own mixtapes.

Big Plans

In the future, Ouellette and his team plan to allow bands to sell downloads of their songs, issue tickets for concerts, and sell merchandise. For now, however, we are glad to see that Muxtape is still alive and well, though we are still sad to report that the old Muxtape won't return anytime soon.

SearchMe, which combines a search engine with a highly visual, CoverFlow-like interface, has seen rapid growth over the last few months and this new feature will surely help the company to attract even more users.

One of the best features of SearchMe's new music search is that it automatically plays the next item after a song is finished. Thanks to SearchMe's 'stacks,' which are basically SearchMe's more visual take on bookmarks, you can now use SearchMe to build your own mixtapes and integrate them into your blog or social network page.

Neither Imeem nor SearchMe have made any announcements about a partnership, but it seems likely that SearchMe is just using Imeem's API to power this new feature.

The only negative aspect of this new feature we have found so far is that there doesn't seem to be a way to stop the embedded music stacks from automatically playing as a page is loaded. Because of this, we decided not to embed a custom mixtape in this post, but you can find one here if you want to see (and hear) what this new feature looks like.

Muxtape will effectively remain closed for the general public and will only return as a music hosting service for bands. Favtape, on the other hand, now looks like Muxtape on steroids, with embeddable playlists, album art, integrated YouTube search, a shuffle mode, and the ability to create tapes based on your last.fm and Pandora bookmarks.

While Favtape once started out as a simple Muxtape clone, this new release goes far beyond Muxtape's feature set. One of the most important differences with Muxtape is that you do not have to upload any songs to create a mixtape. Instead, Favtape lets you search for your music and add it to your playlists. To do this, Favtape makes use of SeeqPod's APIs.

Favtape does not host any of the songs itself, but solely relies on SeeqPod's index for its music. SeeqPod indexes MP3s anywhere on the Internet, which surely leaves some doors open for copyright infringement claims by the RIAA. As Ars Technica reports, SeeqPod has already been sued by the RIAA for exactly this business model of providing a 'playable search engine.' If SeeqPod shuts down, Favtape will be left without any music to play.

From a user's perspective, however, Favtape is everything one could wish for in a mixtape service, including a list of the top songs on iTunes and Last.fm, as well as iPhone support and the ability to share your tapes by email or as a Twitter message. Favtape also includes numerous social features and lets you vote for tapes you like.

While we are sad to see the Muxtape we once loved disappear, it is great to see other services jumping into the breach and building upon Muxtape's foundation. It's probably not the perfect streaming music service, but it comes pretty close. Now we just have to hope that it will not be shut down too soon.

Mixtape from http://favtape.com/frederic/RWW Test

We've seen a number of new services lately that focus on the audio in YouTube videos, but the most enjoyable one so far is Mixtube - a mixtape maker for YouTube audio. It's based on the metaphor and interface of the now "sleeping" Muxtape.

We expect the site will be operable indefinitely, as YouTube rarely comes down on derivative services. Thanks to Andy Baio for finding this one.

How it Works

To get Tumbltape to work, all you have to do is upload an MP3 file to Tumblr and then enter your Tumblr username into Tumbltape. If all goes well, that's all you need to do. Tumbltape should recognize the ID3 tags from your music files, but if it doesn't, you can tag your Tumblr post with 'tt:artist name - track name.'

After a very short delay, your files will appear in your Tumbltape. Starting and stopping files works by clicking on the name of the file, just like in any other Muxtape clone.

Tumbltape will display the last 12 files you uploaded to Tumblr. As you upload more, Tumbltape automatically rotates the older files out.

Limitations

One major limitation for Tumbltape is the fact that Tumblr itself only allows its users to upload one MP3 file per day. You can get around this by linking to a file that you host on your own server, or, if you have permission to do so, on any other server. Obviously, this is a far greater hassle than just uploading files to Tumblr. As Tumbltape's co-developer Adam Gotterer told us, Tumbltape is looking into ways of allowing its users to mash up playlists that are hosted on different services.

One other limitation of Tumbltape is that Tumblr's Terms of Service forbid any uploads of copyrighted material, so Tumblr itself might just cut you off if they get a take-down notice.

Verdict

Tumbltape is a nice Muxtape clone and the fact that it displays a number of random mixtapes as well as the newest uploads on its front page turns it into a more social experience than the self-hosted OpenTape we wrote about last week. The limitations put upon it, however, are severe and will deter quite a few users from really getting to use it.

If you are not a Tumblr user, 8tracks currently represents a better alternative if you just want to create a simple mixtape.

However, as Adam Gotterer explained to us, the idea behind Tumbltape was not for people to create Tumblr account just for the sake of creating mixtapes, but to aggregate the music people had already posted to Tumblr.

Because it's a self hosted program, the bar for entry is a lot higher than for Muxtape of course, though as far as installation goes, all you have to do is to copy the OpenTape code into a publicly accessible directory on your server and you should be good to go (as long as your server runs Apache, PHP5, and curl). After that, all you have to do is set a password, give your mixtape a name, and start uploading songs (or FTP them into your 'songs' folder).

Playing and Embedding

Playing songs works just like in Muxtape or any of its competitors like 8tracks. Just click on a song and it starts playing - click again and it stops.

One nice feature of OpenTape is that it provides you with an embedded player.

RIAA

As others have pointed out, part of the reason people would want to host their mixtapes on their own server is to make it harder for the RIAA to shut down a particular server, but hosting a virtual mixtape with copyrighted music could quickly become a major nightmare, as the RIAA and others would probably have no problem with serving takedown notices and asking for enormous fines.

Still, OpenTape also has other applications - bands, for example, can host their own music with it (though that is also the only service Muxtape still offers), you could use it as a podcast player, or you could just use it to promote some of your favorite Creative Commons licensed music.

Limitations

While hosting your own mixtape (just one for now, unless you install numerous copies of OpenTape) is fine, the beauty of Muxtape or 8tracks is that you can also search for other people's mixtapes, which is often a great way to discover new music.

Of course, somebody could host a central repository for OpenTape mixtapes, but then that would make it even easier for the RIAA to go after alleged copyright violations.

For some, OpenTape might fill the void left behind by Muxtape's demise, but for most, the limitations of OpenTape and the fact that you have to host it yourself will make other like 8tracks a far more attractive alternative.

Is it legal? Will it last? We don't know and we don't know if we care. These services are such a joy to use that they reinvigorate our appreciation for what the social web can do.

The elegant simplicity, combined with the tech success of its New York founders, has made Muxtape the mindshare leader in the online mixtape market. Users upload up to 12 MP3 files and then publish their collection. The interface is like one big button and it's a lot of fun to explore different peoples' collections of favorites.

All kinds of mashups have been built on top of Muxtape. See, for example, our coverage of Muxtape With Coverflow [Mac] (pictured below), MuxtapeStumbler, MuxSeek Search Engine and MuxScrobbler - a script to synch your Muxtape listening with your Last.fm user profile.

Favtape

The newest entrant into this field is much easier to use for publishing collections. Favtape creates a Muxtape-like interface for listening to the full-length version of your Pandora or Last.fm favorited songs.

It's simple, but it's very cool. There are tie ins to Lyric Wiki, a ringtone search, the ability to listen to more songs that are similar or by the artist and other features. It's powered by the Seeqpod API, which must be one of the most popular APIs on the web lately.

Favtape just launched this week, but we really like it already.

Mixwit

MixWit is a Flash mixtape creator with a very nice interface and the ability to embed your player on a web page. See my example below. This service can have songs added by URL or through Seeqpod or Skreemr MP3 search.

Hint - click the play button below, or if you're reading this by RSS - click here to see this embedded player in action.

It's a relatively full featured Flash authoring environment and exemplifies the design possibilities that emerge from a confined space. The cassette tape border around images users upload is really visually appealing. It's all pretty easy to use and it's a whole lot of fun. It's more fun to use as a publisher than either of the services above and it might be more fun for listeners too.

It appears that there are some performance issues, though, as the "menu" command often doesn't work with Mixwit. That should bring up a collection of other mixtapes.

The Changing World of Mixtapes

Different mixtape services serve different purposes. The point though is that this art form is becoming easier than ever before.

Mixtapes used to be something you put a lot of time and effort into, typically making one copy to give to one other person. The loss of that art form is a little sad. These services are something very different, they are very public and considering the free music widely available online - scarcity is no longer an issue.

Are these services legal? That's unclear; they are riding a thin line and legal decisions may be made about services like this in the coming years. Streaming, as opposed to full, direct downloads, is a different animal. The original mixtapes were arguably illegal as well, though, and what a loss the world would have suffered if that medium had been strangled.

Where's Your Mixtape?

We find the new mixtape publishing scene pretty heartwarming, in fact. We hope you'll enjoy testing out the services above - and leave us a link in comments to your mixtapes so we can all know what kind of music the RWW community likes to listen to!

CC photos used above include the following from Flickr: radio:cassette drawing from my primary school days by Alicia Yeah, "The Tree" by helmet13, An intense morning break over the Angels Bay, French Riviera by mamjodh