14 DAY TRIAL // There are a lot of virtual communities out there, oodles of them, far too many to start counting. While many have some sort of central theme or subject, and some focus on music, few are as tightly integrated into iTunes and the iPod the way iLike is. iLike is both a community and a service, and through the iTunes sidebar it is also a very nifty little tool. While the iLike community itself is not really something that can be reviewed, the little Sidebar plug-in for iTunes is. And, much like you can't really review Yahoo messenger without touching on the Yahoo service itself, the same stands for iLike.
What it does The iLike Sidebar is an iTunes plug-in that bring the benefits of the iLike community to your desktop, allowing you to both share and expand your music preferences. It recommends songs similar to those you are listening to, lets you know what your friends are listening to and informs you of any messages that you might have received. All this is done from a simple, stylish side drawer right from within iTunes.
Working with it After installing the iLike Sidebar, you will notice a new drawer on the right side of the iTunes window that shows the track you are playing at the top, and a list of similar songs on the bottom. Generally, there will be 8 songs in this list, grouped under two categories 'Related Music' under which you will find 4 tracks from established artists, similarly to what you get as recommendation in the iTunes MiniStore. However, the second half of the list falls under the 'Free Music From New Artists' and here you will find tracks that you won't get from other sources, courtesy of GarageBand.
These recommendations change with every song, and the list is updated quite quickly, and is nearly always populated.
While installing the iLike Sidebar will give you access to some of its functionality, to get the most out of it, you need to create an account. This is rather fast and hassle-free and you only have to provide a minimum amount of information to get going. Once you create an account, two things will happen. First, you will be able to see what your friends are listening to via the second tab of the sidebar, as well as being able to keep tabs on what is happening with your iLike account, including any messages you receive. Second, the Sidebar will send out information about your listening preferences to the iLike servers and gather all the information it needs to create your profile.
The resulting profile is pretty much like a web version of you library and iTunes activity. It generates automatic playlists that contain your most played tracks, all your recent played tracks and even duplicates any other playlists you might have. Throughout all this, it computes you listening habits to determine who your favorite artists, albums and tracks are. With this information, iLike then tells you what other iLike users have similar tastes, and what music they recommend.
Share and Expand Sharing your music preferences with others could not be simpler with iLike. Thanks to the integration of the Sidebar, one look at your profile page will instantly let someone know exactly what kind of music you like and what you've been listening to recently. Furthermore, you can send out recommendations for individual songs which will be received by other iLike users.
When it comes to expanding your musical preferences, iLike gives you a lot to choose from. Every song, whether on the site or in the sidebar is a link to more information and either a playable sample or the entire track itself. You can instantly take a look at something that looks interesting, right on the spot, and the streaming is fast and problem free. Whether you are taking a look at what your friends are listening to, browsing the recently played music of people with similar tastes, or just looking at the recommendations, iLike gives you a lot of potential music to discover. In fact, there is so much of it that you can never listen to it all.
Still a few bumps While the Sidebar is quite functional, there are still a few things that sometimes work screwy, if at all. The first issue I had was managing to sync my login on the site to the Sidebar. Apparently, this is a very common problem for people using Macs and there were several suggestions on how to solve the issue. After several attempts, it worked, and fortunately, once it is synced it stays synced, so you only have to deal with this once.
The second issue I came across a lot was playback of various songs from the Sidebar. They load, they start playing, and then sometimes, for no apparent reason, the progress bar disappears and the programs thinks it is not even playing anything. While this might not sound like a big issue, it does mean that there is no way to stop what is playing except start playing something else and then stop that.
The Good
A great little bridge between your music library and your music community. Looks good, works well, and gives you lots of new music to sample.
The Bad
The occasional bugs and issues can be annoying but they come and go without any regularity so they rarely become serious. What is a major pain however is the fact that you cannot change the position of the Sidebar.
The Truth
If you're into broadening your musical horizon, iLike is just the thing for it.
Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge:
