Reelr.tv – Listen In, Share With Friends

What’s the point in discovering new tunes and listening to them obsessively if you can’t share your best finds with your friends online? Reelr.tv is an app that can make that happen. The music video discovery tool actually plays music video online based on the tweets that its users send out.

Although you’ll want to sign up for an account with Reelr.tv eventually, you can create a music video playlist without actually clicking onto the site. Just login to Twitter and send a tweet with the title of the song you’re thinking of, plus the #nowPlaying hashtag. In an instant, Reelr.tv will match up the song title you tweeted with the associated music video on YouTube and add it to your queue on the site. Head back over to the Reelr.tv site and you can manage and sort your music video queue in any number of ways. Once you’ve gotten the videos in your queue into the order that makes sense to you, share the new playlist with your followers on Twitter or embed the videos on your blog or Facebook page. Friends, fans, and online compatriots can check out your broadcasts by typing in reelr.tv/ plus your Twitter username.

Reelr.tv is fun to play with if you know what music you want to listen to, of course, but it’s even more fun to play with if you’re into checking out the playlists that other users have put together. Click on the name of a city to see what music videos are being played by users in that area, or check out the playlists that other Reelr.tv users have cultivated over time. When you find a music video you love, click “Save Playlist” and you can return to it whenever you wish. For music lovers, Reelr.tv is a fun app to play around with.

Practical Uses:

• Show off your musical tastes by creating a broadcast that your friends can follow
• Find out about new the music that people in your town are loving
• Share your favorite music with friends on Twitter
• Embed new music videos on your blog or Facebook page

Insider Tips:

• Change preferences to select a unique hashtag to use, rather than #nowPlaying
• Users can find videos by keyword or by browsing genre categories
• Head to the ‘Settings’ section to change the look of your Reelr.tv channel
• Any type of YouTube video can be played in a user’s Reelr.tv channel

What we liked:

• Browsing the playlists created by “TweeJs” is a great way to find new music
• Playlists can be shared on Twitter with one click
• Reelr.tv works really quickly, so you can tweet the name of a song and listen to it on your channel almost instantly
• People without Twitter accounts can still listen to music and create playlists

What we didn’t like:

• People who don’t have Twitter accounts are limited in the ways they can use Reelr.tv

Alternatives:

• Chill – http://chill.com
• turntable.fm – http://turntable.fm

Company Info:

• Launched: December 2010
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: Hollywood, Florida
• Founded by: Ruben Mariña, David Linke, Manuel Berrizbeitia, and Eduardo Hauser
• Web site: http://www.reelr.tv

Costs:

• Free