uPlayMe.com - Meet New People As You Listen to Your iPod

uPlayMe offers a new way for music fans to connect and discover new digital entertainment. It´s not social networking in the trad, old school sense of profiles and posts; rather uPlayMe is a mashup of messaging and desktop recommendation technologyâ€"think of a more socially aware scrobbler; to use it you first have to download the software and register. Once it´s downloaded, all you have to do is listen to digital music, synch your iPod, or watch digital videos like you normally would. And When you do uPlayMe will actually detect users who are listening to the same music or watching the same videos or movies as you are. Each time uPlayMe finds a match it will send you an alert; you can then get in touch with your match via anonymous email, IM or through your normal social network route, such as MySpace, Facebook or Friendster. The site also features free music downloads; and if you see a song in someone else"s profile that you like, you can click to sample it or buy it. Currently iTunes, Windows Media Play and Winamp are supported. An Apple compatible version is in the works.

“uPlayMe is free software that works with your media player like windows media player, iTunes, Winamp, (and many more in the future) and then tells you by sending an alert message to your desktop that someone else is playing the same song or video you just played. Then you can speak with each other through anonymous e-mails, instant messages or social network sites like MySpace.com. uPlayMe helps people find friends, new songs and new videos! It is probably not hard to imagine that finding someone who likes and plays music by Duran Duran, U2, OutKast, or Madonna might create an even deeper relationship.”

uPlayMe is a rather ingenious way to meet people in real time who share the same interests as you do and you don´t have to do any real legwork. Unlike other networks, which require that you post and publish to keep up your status and meet new people, uPlayMe simply does the work for you; you needn´t keep up everyday, and you don"t have to change any of your behaviors.

Will some people view this as merely spyware? How likely is it that you´ll really meet people that you can actually connect with? After all, similar musical taste doesn´t exactly imply stellar chemistry.