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[img src="" caption="" credit="" alt=""]Mxplay is a music sharing site that we've covered in the past. It's latest major release was its browser plug-in that lets you take the mxplay network with you as you surf the web. In an effort to make its service even more social and easier to use, mxplay has been working for the past 3 months on a new release that debuts today.
Some of the new features include an Amazon mp3 store, music search that's now powered by Hype Machine, and improved people search capabilities. The Amazon store allows some third-party interaction that also brings some direct purchasing options for users that would like to keep the music they hear as they surf the web. You may recall that mxplay can detect the music on a given webpage and play it for you, through its plugin.
What the Amazon store does is allow mxplay to take the music experience a step further, and purchase more music for keeps. Improved search and discovery, for both music and other users, improves the overall usability of the mxplay service, and encourages even more networking behavior.
[img src="" caption="" credit="" alt=""]Additional features include support for all major instant messaging networks, enabling you to share audio streams with your buddies, as well as sharing capabilities for audio/video streams via Facebook. This of course takes an integrated approach to sharing music across the web, through third-party networks where you have existing friends. Given the direction in which several IM clients are moving by layering in media-sharing and activity-sharing capabilities, it looks like mxplay is fully taking advantage of these incentives for enhancing the services from both perspectives.