January 10, 2008 3:15 PM PST

Yahoo tool eases music playback from personal Web pages

by Matt Rosoff
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If you often link to music files from your personal Web page or blog, and have some control over the code on that page, Yahoo's got an interesting tool for you. With a few lines of very simple Javascript code, you can add small "play" buttons that link to specific songs. When users click those buttons, the Yahoo Media Player launches, letting visitors play the song without leaving your page. There was a previous iteration of the Player, but it worked only on Yahoo Music and linked only to music files from Yahoo's own site.

How does it work? Judge for yourself--these are two songs from old bands on which I played bass (so I have at least a plausible claim to partial copyright). I simply followed the instructions here and here (to insert album covers). Click on the small arrows (after the page break) and they'll play right within the Yahoo Media Player at the bottom left of the page. (Worked for me on Firefox on Windows XP, your mileage may vary!)

Click the 'Read More' button below to listen to the tracks.

American Volume SwellsDiminished Men, "GG Narrows."
Wait for SomedayHalf Light, "Falling Away."
Matt Rosoff is an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, where he covers Microsoft's consumer products and corporate news. He's written about the technology industry since 1995, and reviewed the first Rio MP3 player for CNET.com in 1998. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattrosoff.
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About Digital Noise: Music and Tech

Matt Rosoff is an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, where he covers Microsoft's consumer products and corporate news. He's written about the technology industry since 1995 and reviewed the first Rio MP3 player for CNET.com in 1998. He's also a bass guitarist and an avid collector (and digitizer) of LP records. DISCLAIMER: This blog contains the personal opinions of the author and does not necessarily represent the opinions of his employers or of CNET Networks. As an IT industry analyst, the author occasionally agrees to nondisclosure agreements from Microsoft or other companies, and he will not violate the terms of such agreements on this blog.

He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET.

Disclosure.

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