My first meme

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I've never participated in a "meme" before, but my pals Lisa and MacAllister came up with one I can't refuse, so I'm doing it. Here are the rules...

Gift-A-Song Meme

1. Pick one or more of your friends who listens to digital music; preferably someone who already has iTunes and an iTunes account, and who has a blog or Live Journal or something similar.

Songs are .99 cents on iTunes; if people want to send MP3s directly, that's up to them, but post the song title, artist, and album anyway. You can use a credit card or PayPal to purchase songs. You must have installed a copy of iTunes to play or download the songs. I suspect it's possible give music with other music services, but I don't know. There are also lots of good sources for free music on the net; feel free to use those, or to publicize indie artists you like a lot. There are free songs at Amazon too.

2. Select the song you want to give.

3. Post this meme on your blog or Live Journal, and list your friends, the song you've chosen for them, (keep the song a secret until after you friend receives it, if you'd like), a link to their blog, and these instructions. Feel free to add a comment about why you chose the song.

4. Purchase the single song for each friend, one at a time, (that is, don't buy three songs for three friends.) If you use the iTunes store, find the song, then click on the link for the album; you will see a link near the top of the screen that says "Gift This Music; click it, then click the Gift button that's included in the link for the song. When you check out, you'll see a form with spaces for your name, your friend's name and email address, and a short message. This will be emailed to your friend, with instructions about how to download their gift song. Use the message to send them a link to the permalink for your blog post about the meme so they'll know to blog about the song. If you use Tags, tag the post as "Gift Music."

5. If you decide to "gift back" to someone who tags you, please also tag someone else, so we can have a variety of musical tastes, journals, blogs, and people.

Troubleshooting: Get iTunes for Mac or Windows here. It's free. If you can't get the URL/Web link from the email the iTunes store sends to tell you you have a song to download, try copying the URL to a new document, making sure that there are no spaces or returns where the very long URL has broken. You can covert the songs in iTunes from Apples DRM/protecte AAC format to an mp3 if you'd like.


I've tagged Aston, Frank, and Dawno (oops... before I noticed Mac already tagged her)-- but have also decided to seek out a couple of bloggers I've never met before and send them songs just to see how they react. (Would it be really weird if a stranger sent you a song? Would you think it's spam and delete it?) I did the same thing once with Amazon wish lists... I was looking for a baby shower gift for a friend who had put her wish list on Amazon, and I decided to look up other wish lists and send a gift to a stranger for no good reason. It was a couple of years ago, so I don't remember what I sent (something inexpensive) or what the occasion was (wedding, I think). I'm attracted to the whole idea of sending little presents to strangers... sort of like a secret Valentine, only with no romantic overtones.

My "theme" for the meme is relaxing songs that make me grin. I know Dawno already got hers, so I can tell you that it's Puff the Magic Dragon (Peter, Paul, & Mary). Don't think Aston or Frank have opened theirs yet, so don't tell them that I sent them The Wind (Cat Stevens) and (Sittin' on the) Dock of the Bay (Otis Redding), respectively.

I'll edit this post later to tell you which bloggers-I-don't-know I chose and what I sent them.

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