In this first part of a new tutorial on Ryan Malesevich's blog today, he introduces you to a set of scripts that can help you get the play stats from Apple's iTunes software out to a MySQL database for report/display/whatever you want.

I'm back with the third and final way that I know how to get iTunes play stats. In case you missed it, the previous methods were Javascript in Windows and Applescript in Macintosh. This way is Mac-centric again, well just the exporting the iTunes data to a MySQL database is only for Mac, you can write the PHP scripts with whatever platform that makes you happy.

He starts off with the "hardest step" in the whole process - using SQLTunes to export the data from iTunes. He goes through the configuration of the software and the steps needed to actually get the stats out. With the data in the database, he wraps up part one. Keep an eye out for the second part, display those stats via PHP scripts to your anxiously waiting viewers.