Idiomag: a virtual magazine mashup
Several months ago we introduced you to Idiomag, a new way of discovering music and following artists you love… though our introduction was with trepidation. Our story hit the front page of Digg and our qualm with Idiomag was resolved. Since then they’ve added a number of new features and several Puddlegum stories are floating around their virtual magazine.
Idiomag is the ultimate mashup of music blogs, Flickr, videos from Google, and Mp3s. They assemble a virtual music magazine that you flip pages by clicking on the corners. (yes, the corners actually curl up). The pages are filled with stories from blogs, such as Puddlegum. Photos from Flickr, videos from YouTube are tied in to accompany the stories.
If you already use Last.fm, Pandora, Mog, iLike, or myStrands music netoworks, you can give Idiomag your username and they’ll import your listening history (they no longer ask for your password). This helps Idiomag determine your interests so they can determine which artists you might prefer. To make your music tastes even more specific, edit your genre cloud or add artists to your love/hate list. These options are found under the Interests tab.
While you’re reading an article you can save it in your archives (it folds a corner, just like you would in a book), rip the story out of the magazine if you hate it, comment, or share it with your friends. If the magazine still isn’t grabbing your interest, tweak with your list of favorite genres, adjusting the weight of each genre, and edit your list of favorite artists.
To share your Idiomag with your friends, embed your magazine on your Facebook profile and view your friends’ magazines. When you’re viewing your friend’s magazine and you find an article you like, you can “request article to my magazine.” If really enjoy an article you can add the page to over 30 social networking sites… Digg, Twitter, Facebook, you name it.
Idiomag is carefully thinking through every way their mashup magazine is presented. While you’re reading you can listen to a playlist of songs and buy them if you dig the track. If a video or song begins playing in the magazine, the playlist and video cross-fade, and the song pauses until the video is done. Idiomag thought of everything to make your virtual music magazine as real as possible, even a table of contents.