Plan your journey with an iPod playlist

I’m no driver but I like new sites that mash things up and give you some sort of tangible output. harman/kardon Aplified Journeys does just that.

The premise of the site is you get driving directions along with a personalised playlist for your journey.

The playlist is based on either an artist of your choice, a genre of music or your mood.

You can then decide whether your playlist is built based on driving directions (so the Oversley Mill Roundabout on the A429 for some reason triggers It’ll Take Millions in Plastic Surgery to Make Me Black by Kid 606), dictated by landmarks along the route (which resulted in nothing for the Evesham to London route I looked up) or by bands that are linked to places on your journey. Apparently the 4th exit on the M40 ramp to London/Banbury is linked to Coco Lee, whoever that is, and her song Belly Dance.

Once you’ve picked your playlist, you can email it, print it or export it to your iPod. If you print directions out, you are told the reasons for match, which in most cases for my route were either because ‘London’ was in the track name or the song, was considered ‘upbeat’, my chosen journey mood.

Right now I think it’s a great bit of fun to have a site suggest tracks for you to listen to in addition to the Google Map directions output but I don’t yet see its value.

What would make this a useful tool is it suggesting music I already own, or letting me pick what percentage of new music I’d be willing to buy for my journey.

Should I ever start driving I’ll give it a go and tell you how I get on!