Checkit: iLike for iTunes

If you’re into the internet social networking thing, you might want to give iLike a try. It’s basically a iTunes plug-in which becomes a sidebar attached to your iTunes application that monitors the music you play on your iTunes. When you play music, the iLike plug-in sends information about the music you’re playing to your profile page on iLike.com. From there, you connect with iTunes and iLike users who have similar music interests as you. You also of course get iTunes MiniStore-like recommendations for songs similar to the ones you play. If you’re like me and you don’t keep up with the latest tracks coming out, this might be a good way to discover music you don’t have. 

The downside of iLike is that it can add unwanted space to your iTunes and sometimes it’s a little buggy. I’ve had it crash on me once and the sidebar can get stuck, so I wouldn’t recommend it for small screen laptop users. You can, though, completely hide the plug-in by going to iTune’s View>Hide iLike Sidebar.

On the other hand if you don’t like this type of plug-in but still want to give social networking a try, you might also look into the recently revised last•fm. It requires a monitoring download as well, but without the sidebar attachments.