Until now, Phulki allowed you to share your favorite songs / playlists via a widget. We recently made it easier to share your favorite songs and playlists with your friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter.

Here is a video that walks you through Facebook sharing

And this one is for Twitter

Enjoy sharing your favorite music and, as always, feel free to send us feedback.

And what do you see in the background? Why, Phulki of course!

The song being played is Mayya Mayya and here’s a video of Mallika dancing to Phulki’s tunes at Twitter:

BTW, if you haven’t heard of Twitter yet, you must have been in a Coma this year. Welcome back!

Follow Phulki here and Mallika Sherawat here.

One of Phulki’s founders had a baby recently. We celebrated the new arrival. But it did present a problem - need to type with one hand while feeding the baby with another.

So, for new mothers and fathers, and keyboard and spelling-challenged (and lazy) folks, Phulki’s search box now gives suggestions on your partially typed query. You can type just a couple of letters and then choose from a bunch of suggestions listed. Auto-complete is available on all search boxes on Phulki’s website and for any type of search query - album, song, actor, singer etc.

We are working on further improving the suggestions in this box. Your feedback will help us prioritize the work.

As an infamous explorer once remarked - what good is an island if it is never discovered? Now you can discover and listen to these islands of music, or playlists, on Phulki. In order to search for a playlist, simply append “playlist” to your query. Phulki will show you playlists that match your search. It will also show the list of songs in each playlist and allow you to load the playlist into the player. For example, the query “playlist party” will return “Party” playlists. You can copy the playlist into your collection by loading it in to the player and saving it as your own.

So, there it is - the latest feature addition to Phulki. We know that planning a party is hard. Although we can’t help you in choosing the right place or food, we can help you choose the right music by letting you search for other people’s playlists. With the music taken care of, all you are left with is learning to dance

Today we take pleasure to announce that Phulki is now available on your iPhone or iPod Touch. Now all you music fans can listen to Indian music even when you are not near a computer. Open phulki.com on your iPhone browser, and enjoy the music!

On the iPhone, you can

1. Search for Songs
2. Listen to featured Playlists
3. Login to your Phulki account and listen to your own playlists you created on phulki.com from your PC

We have made sure you can listen to Phulki even when you use other apps on your iPhone. Simply press the home button after you play a song or a list to go back to your home screen - music will continue.

Whenever you search for a song, or view a playlist, you will see an option to “Play All” at the top. You can also start playing the list from any song, and we will play the next one after the current one finishes. Tap on a song to see the album, singers etc. for the song. Further, tapping on play button will play the song for you.

Like it? Here’s how you add a shortcut to your iPhone home-screen

Step 1: Click on +

Step 2: Add to Home Screen

Step 3: Add

Are you one of those people who enjoy sharing things on the internet? Do you enjoy writing blogs or tweeting? Do you spend a lot of time on social networks connecting and sharing stuff with your friends? If you have answered yes to any of the above questions, you are going to be thrilled to hear about some new functionality that we have added to Phulki. Phulki now enables you to share the beautiful songs that you discover, with your friends!

For casual listeners, we have added a green sharing icon  next to each song/playlist. This allows you to share the song/playlist in one of a few hundred ways, including email and posting directly to your blogs, social networks and even twitter. (In order to post automatically to these sites, it is imperative that we ask you for your username and password. We know that this is very confidential and hence we have adopted a fire-and-forget policy i.e. we do not store any of username and passwords on the site.)  For ex: To send “Kabhi Kabhi” to a bunch of friends:

- Search for “Kabhi Kabhi” on Phulki
- You should now see a green sharing icon  next to each song
- Click on the sharing icon next to the song you want to share
- A popup is displayed prompting you with various options. Select “postcard” icon in the “Email” row.
- Enter your friends’ email addresses when prompted
- Enter your name and email address as well and click “Send”.

That’s it!

For hardcore listeners (we are one of them ), we realized that it would be simpler to link to the songs directly without having to go through few extra steps of searching and sharing. Hence, we have added some nifty features to our site that will help you link to songs/playlists in a very easy and intuitive way.

- To search for a song, you can simply type
htttp://phulki.com/s/<song name>

- To search for an album, movie, director etc
http://phulki.com/s/album/<album name>
http://phulki.com/s/director/<director name>

…. you get it

- To search for a song and automatically start playing all the songs in the page, without going through the process of adding them one by one:
http://phulki.com/p/<song name>

- To play a featured playlist
http://phulki.com/p/featured/<playlist name>

- To play a phulki user’s shared playlist
http://phulki.com/p/playlist/<username>/<playlist name>

- Finally, here’s my favourite: Just play a song:
http://phulki.com/justplay/<song name>

It should be obvious why we dub them ‘pretty urls’ internally. Pretty urls are the latest of Phulki’s music search features aimed at helping you spread your love for music and Phulki in a seemingly intuitive way.

So, go ahead pass on the message and start sharing songs with your friends. While at it, feel free to share your thoughts/feedback with us by commenting on the post.

Holi Hai

Bollywood movies and festivals are made for each other. Holi, however, provides an unparalleled opportunity. It comes with colour, romance, dance, and provides an opportunity to cross the line ;-). They got everything.

Wide range of emotions have been captured (sometimes in the same song) via Holi through decades. Remember the unforgettable (and embarrassed) look at Sanjeev Kumar’s and Jaya Bhaduri’s faces in Rang Barse (Silsila)? Or the contrast between the colourful Rajesh Khanna and a white-clad and spotless Asha Parekh in Aaj na chhodenge bas humjoli (Kati Patang)? Kati Patang has a really twisted story, by the way!

Sometimes, Holi songs prove pivotal in a story - Piya Sang Khelo Holi Phagun Aayo Re (Phagun) is all about playing Holi with the loved one but when Dharmendra sprays Wahdeeda Rehman’s silk sari with colours, she rebukes him. He leaves never to come back. (actually, he does come back, but only at the end). Great music by S. D. Burman.

Mom says must mention these two evergreen Holi songs - Holi Aayi Re Kanhai (Mother India) and Holi Khelat Nandlal (Godan).

Listen to all these and others in our Holi songs collection. Comments welcome here.

Happy Holi from Phulki!

1. Check out our Valentine day’s eclectic “just-for-you” collection here. While other sites might dish out the same tired latest song hits, show your Valentine how much you care. This collection of 32 songs will hopefully fill you with nostalgia and warmth at the same time.

Now, if you are really lazy, you can simply use the ‘Share this playlist’
link and send this playlist as it is to your beloved, of course
passing it as your own

If you are somewhat lazy, you can use this green square icon
to the left of each song name in the playlist to send one or more songs
of your choice.

But, of course, if you really love your Valentine, you would
actually do some work to show you really care. Read on….

2. Log in to Phulki (or create an account if you need to) and copy this playlist to your own account. Feel free to modify it by adding/deleting songs first. (Hint: Use the ‘Save Playlist’ in the player). Use any playlist name you want. Examples: ‘will you be my valentine’, ‘main koi aisa geet gaauun…’ etc.

3. Go to ‘My Playlists’ on top right and click on ‘All Playlists’.
You will see this newly created playlist and a link next to it.
First make sure it is public by ensuring that the 3-head icon is
filled like this: . Then, either copy-paste the link in an email to your Valentine, or use the green square icon to share it on any of the social networks.

Hope you have a fabulous Valentine’s!

PS: If you had an account, you would have received this playlist in your email earlier than it appeared on this blog. So what are you waiting for? Sign up today!

But, why commemorate Darwin’s birthday here on Phulki? You see, one of the most enduring mysteries baffling human kind has been the question: “why music?” Of course, one answer to it is evolutionary. Darwin himself is said to have expounded on the reason that could explain why an average American teenager spends between 1.5 and 2.5 hours daily (i.e., 1/8^th of his waking life) listening to music. According to Darwin, in his book “The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex” published twelve years after his most famous book, musical ability is sexually selected and hence serves a key evolutionary purpose…

Music is sexy

Of course, nobody can deny that music done well is sexy - remember this song from Alisha Chinoy? What Darwin is saying is that it serves as a signal from the musician to potential mates and even to same sex competitors of his or her prowess. Looking at it another way, musical ability is an inherent signal for reproductive fitness: unfit people can’t sing or dance well or play music well. Hence they are less courted by the other sex and would therefore get weeded out over time. One strong support for this theory comes from the fact that music has evolved in other species such as birds and whales too by the same process of sexual selection. Further support comes in my mind from vague memories of my being jealous of those guitar-wielding college mates who had the pretty girls literally swing to their tunes…

Though anecdotal evidence linking music to sexual success is strong, the Darwinian theory of the origins of music is a bit controversial. At the very least, I think that the evolutionary argument is incomplete. I really like listening to Jagjit Singh and I am not gay (I do like Chitra Singh even more). Music clearly sates an appetite that nothing else can. And it has a powerful ability to sway emotions. That some songs evoke sadness (doesn’t this?) while others evoke joy (remember this?) or plain disgust (this one surely) can’t be disputed. Recently, neurologists have even identified six ways in which music affects emotion by triggering signals in different parts of the brain. There is even something called Music Therapy which identifies the benefits of fast tempo music on increasing concentration and slow beat music on calmness. (So it is not the most intelligent idea to listen to songs like this to motivate yourself for work on a Monday morning.)

The multiplicity of effects of music suggests that it may be both a glorious accident and an invention – put together by bits of pre-existing machinery and then “fine-tuned”, likely even sexually selected. Well, whatever… Bottomline, my advice to all of you reading this would be to play it safe and not mess with Darwin. So go out there and learn to sing well and play an instrument if you can. In the meantime, you can always search for your favourite songs and listen to them or share with your friends whenever and whatever you want on Phulki.

Finally, my sincere wishes to everyone in finding the fittest mate of their choice. Darwin always believed that to be the ultimate evolutionary purpose.

Happy 200^th Charles!

(Credit: This blog post is inspired by an article on the topic of origins of music in the Dec 30, 2008 edition of the news magazine ‘The Economist’)