At a dinner a while ago, there was a guy who worked for Tiffany's and he was saying how difficult it was to get the right sort of music for the shop. There seemed to be one bloke, working in the City (of London) branch who essentially acted as company DJ.

Anyway, my happy experience with LastFM, made me think you might be able to do the same for shops and solve Tiffany's (albeit small) problem.

Here's a scenario:

• A company wants to have better music for its customers (to help them part with their money)
• It gives each shop the following: an mp3 system(a means to store, a means to add/delete, and a means to play mp3s) and a connection to other shops.
• The company then sets up the same sort of collaborative filtering options as LastFM (individual shop playlists, shops can be friends of etc
• ... and er the rights/payments are sorted out as well
• All shop-front staff choose the company's shop music - and we get the tastefulness of crowds syndrome
• And then, the company thinks "hey! Why not share playlists with customers?

Not very well ironed out. At all. But it might solve the Tiffany's problem, and certainly seems to be in line with the destination venue thinking of some marketers (where brands are a lifestyle not a label).

And more selfishly, it would make it easier to get hold of the music played in some of the shops I go in.