Cross-posted from my other home at Black Web 2.0 where I write about technology from a different perspective.
Finding the exact types of content you’re looking for is an ongoing battle for many of us. Sure, you probably know a few sites where you can find hot new music, maybe even download it. You probably also follow a few hip-hop blogs. Wouldn’t it be easier if there was one place you could go that brought all of your favorite content together? Maybe an aggregator for hip-hop, rap, and R&B music that also pulled in the latest news about your favorite artists? This seems to be the vision for CurrentHipHop.com.
Hottest New Music
I got a chance to speak with Fahim, the brains behind CurrentHipHop.com, and I could tell that he has a passion for music. Fahim is a student at Penn State and founded the site with his roommate. He also knows where to find the latest tracks as you can see in the sidebar at CurrentHipHop. You can listen to and download the latest stuff, as well as some older tracks (yesterday is old, right?). The music player is neatly tucked away at the top of the site. If you’re an artist and want your music to be included, just go submit it.
Hottest Content
CurrentHipHop has partnered with a few blogs in order to include their content on the site, including videos. Clicking a story headline will take you to the original article. There are new partnerships in the works, so we should expect to see much more content available here. I like the fact that CurrentHipHop is linking out directly as some other aggregation sites in the past have used the scraping method. If you have a hip-hop blog or website and want to be included, use their contact link at the bottom of their site.
What I’d Like To See
Fahim and his roommate drew CurrentHipHop on paper on March 31st, so it’s just 2 months old. I’d say it already has serious potential. There are a few things that I think would be cool to add:
- Easy methods for sharing individual tracks and stories right from the site.
- Possible integration with social sites like Last.fm and Pandora on the individual artist pages
- Maybe a system for tracking plays so you can tell which tracks are the hottest
- I don’t want to see it turn into another Digg clone as we already know those don’t really work
I’d really just like to see the site get a little more social by integrating tools already available. Maybe that’s just the social media geek in me, though.
The Future
We have previously talk a lot about content aggregation and how powerful it is in this new age of information overload. Having everything in one place is just useful. Eventually, the process of adding content to the site will be automated to make it easier for content creators.
Go check out the site and tell us what you think and feel free to hit up @Fahim on Twitter.