I’ve been using blip.fm for about a year, but recently it has become a full-blown hobby.

It’s basically twitter with music: your feed is a constantly-updating playlist. I like music from all over the spectrum, so the people I listen to have pretty diverse taste. I’m currently listening to 60 people, of whom probably 15 are active daily, and at any given time I might be on at the same time as five or six.

It’s an amazing exercise in not-quite-randomness.  I get everything from lo-fi indie to 80s hardcore to techno washing over my eardrums in a glorious mix. Depending on my mood, and the mix of people on at the same time as me, I can focus on one genre for a night, or just bounce all over the place.  I get introduced to great new music every day, and sometimes get the joy of  introducing someone to a favourite of mine.

Even those friends with whom I share a major overlap in musical taste probably only like about 50% of the same stuff I do, so it’s pretty fantastic to swap tunes with people who share not only my taste, but my mix of tastes.

As a medium, Blip is interactive, but not really conversational. Between that and the fact that the content is pretty much completely confined to one topic, I have finally found a social network on which I feel absolutely no need to self-censor. I may not want to bore my friends with my professional life or feel the need to update my work colleagues about my weekend, but I am completely comfortable blipping Hank Williams, Radiohead and The Stooges in the same night – plus five other artists  you haven’t heard of (and I hadn’t two hours ago).