Remembering myTunes

I've done a lot of wistful remenescing lately-- mainly because my matriculating class is graduatin' in like a week. They're all selfishly leaving me for a real world ripe with full-time, career-building opportunities while I finish up my BSEE and work part-time mining coal for wages that would upset Human Rights Watch. And while I cope (completely un-bitter, I promise) with the reality of spending one more year at Rice without the familiar faces I've known since my arrival in Houston, I can't help but think about the good ol' days...

myTunes Redux

The little piece of software pictured above, myTunes Redux, was one of the most influential facets of my freshman year. You know, besides the Seniors.

Allow me to weave a yarn: The tale of a ragtag bunch of incoming Rice University freshmen, all assigned to spend their first year in the dingiest digs offered on-campus. These kids were all trapped in Will Rice Long Hall and didn't (apparently) have much in common besides 4-point-ohs and arrogance galore. Sure: They broke the ice with grain alcohol and casual sex just like any collection of close-proximity teenagers, but real friendships started to blossom thanks to a little tool called myTunes.

myTunes allowed anyone with iTunes (Mac or PC) to share their music library across a local network (but not outside that local network). For Long Hall's purposes, that local network was Long Hall. One would simply select a user on the network, pick and choose which songs they wanted, and voila.

Music became a significant common thread along which these hallmates could establish friendships. Some users brought completely unheard genres to the table, such as Louie introducing the Hall to his collection of Houston/3rd Coast Rap. Others (such as myself) used myTunes to identify those with worthy tastes and immediately recognized that Andrew Flowers and Augusta Bartis were the coolest people in the world, ever. Whether used to share or used to judge, myTunes allowed for an expression of individuality that you couldn't find on early Facebook profiles or roommate selection forms.

...and they all lived happily ever after.

Since 2006, myTunes has been more or less defunct thanks to those bastards at Apple blocking network file-sharing in iTunes. Which is a pity, really. I can't imagine my freshman year without the advantage of swapping songs with friends and getting to know people through their respective tastes in music. Nowadays, Rice freshmen probably Tweetup after O-Week or something weird that will probably doom my entire generation forever.

That or Swine Flu in Houston.