A playlist is exactly what the name implies – a list of songs arranged in a specific order. For owners of personal music devices, playlists can be a godsend, with lists of specific songs matched for moods, events, even places. An iPod owner might have a playlist for romantic dinners, an exercise playlist for the gym, or playlists assembled around certain tempos, instruments, or vocals.

While being digital means having your music at your fingertips, playlists allow you to control that music, along with assembling sets and segues to rival professional DJs.

Long before trading songs via peer-to-peer networks became the Internet’s favorite international pastime, music fans were trading playlists, evolving to a point where even Apple highlights celebrity-submitted playlists on its iTunes Music Store. Now, with major online stores leasing music, playlists have taken on an entirely new perspective.

Before leasing became popular, a playlist would only be effective if you already possessed the songs on the list. With companies like Napster, RealNetworks and Yahoo leasing music, their customers already have access to millions of tracks. A Yahoo customer can send another Yahoo customer a playlist, knowing that the receiver will have access to every single track on the list.

Now an outfit called GoFish Technologies has streamlined the entire playlist process. Called The GoFish Global Playlist Publisher, the Web-based tool not only publishes playlists created by popular software music players / organizers such as Windows Media, iTunes, MusicMatch, Napster and Winamp, but also facilitates all other aspects of playlist fun, including sharing, browsing, purchasing, and even critiquing.

Here’s how it works: A user submits a playlist to the GoFish search platform, where the finished list – ranked by popularity – will appear in GoFish search results on Web sites like Icerocket.com, Campux.com, and Startnow.com as well as GoFish.com. An additional feature is the capability to publish the playlist, along with album art and song samples, on popular blog platforms such as Blogger.com, LiveJournal, MySpace.com, Typepad, and Xanga.

“Music has always served as an important form of self expression and a way to identify oneself in the greater community,” GoFish co-founder and CEO Michael Downing said in a statement announcing the service.

“By tearing down the technology barriers that prevent sharing and publishing of music preferences and tastes, we’re supporting a vibrant community of enthusiasts who want to search, share, and connect with other enthusiasts based on their personal media tastes.”

There’s more than one way to watch a movie. Lately, Hollywood has been eyeing handheld gaming platforms as yet another venue for personal film watching.

Which is why Universal recently announced that it will release six titles in the proprietary Universal Media Disc format for Sony’s PlayStation Portable, including Assault On Precinct 13, Van Helsing, The Fast And The Furious, as well as the unrated director’s cut of The Chronicles Of Riddick.

If you think you see a pattern here, you’re correct, for studios are targeting their first game-platform movie releases at those who make up the majority of the gaming audience – specifically, young adult males.

For the film industry, portable gaming platforms represent the perfect, non-TV device for film distribution, mainly because the formats utilized by the platforms offer more copy protection than conventional DVDs.

Universal is the latest studio to announce that it will distribute films for portable game platforms. Sony, Disney and 20th Century Fox have already announced plans to market movies for gaming devices, with Fox saying it will release five titles in July, including I, Robot, Napoleon Dynamite and Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.

Have you heard the latest rumor about Kid Rock? It seems that the Detroit-born rocker is actually the son of – are you ready for this? – Hank Williams Jr.

No, it’s not true. However, that’s just one of the rumors that has taken on a whole new life via the Internet.

Music rumors are almost as plentiful as No. 1 songs, and some of those old urban legends seem to have a lifespan longer than the stars themselves. Even today, there is still someone who will insist that Captain Kangaroo’s second in command – Mr. Green Jeans – was Frank Zappa’s dad, that John Denver was once a U.S. Army sniper in Vietnam, and that Mama Cass Elliot met her maker by choking to death on a ham sandwich.

Whenever you read or hear something about a musician that sounds just too doggone strange, point your browser towards Snopes.com, the de facto Web authority when it comes to urban legends. Chances are, the good folks at Snopes have already heard the latest gossip, and have spent plenty of time either debunking the latest rumors or proving that the whispers are actually true.

In regards to the Hank Williams Jr. / Kid Rock paternity urban legend, Snopes says the rumor began to surface in early 2002, although the site does mention that it was referenced as early as 2001 in a Usenet posting. Snopes goes on to say the rumor probably got started in earnest when Williams and Rock recorded a song called “The ‘F’ Word,” which included Hank singing the line, “Well I’ve been hanging out with my rebel son, Kid Rock …”

And what’s up with those other urban legends mentioned previously? Due to a lawnmower accident during his youth which resulted in the loss of a couple of toes, Denver was classified 1-Y by his local draft board, thus ensuring that he would never get a draft notice from Uncle Sam.

And Mama Cass and the fatal ham sandwich? While Snopes says rumors of the deadly sandwich surfaced shortly after her sudden death in 1974, an autopsy wasn’t conducted until one week later, revealing that The Mamas and The Papas singer had actually died of a heart attack. Needless to say, rumors of Mr. Green Jeans fathering Frank Zappa were completely bogus. Just as the current rumor claiming that Bocephus is Kid Rock’s dad is entirely off base.

However, the rumor about Mr. Green Jeans fathering Kid Rock … Well, that’s another story.