Music playlists part 1 - iTunes Genius

I don't own an iPod, neither I'm an usual iTunes user, so just about a couple weeks ago I've started to hear about iTunes Genius. I'm more of a Winamp kind of guy, but I got curious and decided to give Apple a try...

For those who don't know iTunes Genius, it's a feature to generate playlists with similar songs from your local library. It requires an internet connection to do its magic, and the first thing it does when the feature is activated is to send information about your entire library back to Apple servers.
I confess, at this step I felt a shiver in the back of my head.. not good, not good at all. Nevertheless, I closed my eyes and pressed Next.
I mentioned it generates playlists with similar songs (and not only similar artist) because it's just like that. The concept is to mimic human-made playlists, emotional playlists as I tend to say. For instance, I recall a mix-tape I made containing Phill Collins's In the air tonight, and Metallica's Mama said (just to prove my point).
When you are playing a song and press the Genius button, the (en)Genius remote server looks for previously generated playlists containing that song and retrieves a mashup from songs on those playlists and your entire library (hence the need to upload your local library info, and to keep it updated when you add/remove/rate items). The freshly generated playlist is itself added to the Genius system, so it can improve next collections.

For me, the most helpful thing about it is to provide playlists on-the-go, so I can upload them to my PMP of choice for that roadtrip I'm about to make...
At least one downside (without mentioning privacy and legal issues): the generated playlists tend to ignore less known artist and songs so, if you have a purely alternative library, the Genius won't do you any good... No one have yet made a Genius playlist staring b (fachada) ?! Not useful either to discover hidden treasures on your library...

part 2 will focus on an alternative, using MediaMonkey and Last.FM...