Ok, so I may be a little behind the times, but I just discovered ‘Songza‘- basically a music search engine that allows you to stream and share songs for free. It’s pretty cool and can definitely be a bit of a time waster if you are trying to procrastinate from some important task that you need to complete.

There are also playlists which you can browse through. For instance, if you are feeling a little nostalgic and wanted to listen to,  say Everybody Dance Now by C +C Music Factory, circa 1991 , all you have to do is click here or go to http://songza.fm/

Enjoy!

Bits and pieces this evening.

• Great interview with Mike Gordon at Jambands.com

“[ideas] are cheap. You can think of a million ideas in a minute, and it’s the following through that counts. I spent the first fifteen years of my life typing up very elaborate schemes, even when I was six years old. Then finally when I was 15, I saw the value of following through and finishing something. I just decided from then on, I would plan a lot less and do a lot more. So it’s definitely all about the following through.”

• This April 2009 story from the Wall Street Journal, “The Green House of the Future,” just came to my attention. Nothing much related to music, but it falls under the category of stories that help me believe humanity is not doomed.

The surface of his house, like a leaf, contains a photosynthetic layer that captures sunlight. Unlike today’s solar panels, which are often pasted above a roofline, these are woven into the fabric of the exterior. They heat water and generate electricity for the home — and create oxygen for the atmosphere, to offset carbon produced in other areas of the home.

• Songza: “music search engine and internet jukebox.” On it I just looked up XTC’s “Easter Theater.”

Biju domājis iztikt tikai ar divām daļām par rakstiņu sērijā par Last.fm alternatīvām, bet kā izrādās tēma ir laikam daudziem sasāpējusi un arī jēdzīgas alternatīvas uzrodas aizvien vairāk.

Kristaps  un PiRX komentāros pie iepriekšējiem rakstiem man atgādināja, ka ir vēl kāds normāls serviss – Jango.

Ideja līdzīga pārējiem līdzgaitniekiem. Ievadi blices nosaukumu un kad tā tiek atrasta klausies, vai arī klausies citu lietotāju izveidotās mūzikas stacijas. kad noskan Jūsu izvēlētā melodija jango turpina atskaņot līdzīgos māksliniekus. patika iespēja uzreiz nokļūt lapā, kas atrod dziesmu tekstus (lyrics). Bija arī lietas, kas vnk. kaitināja – daudzās reklāmas visās malās un mazais staciju skaits, kas izveidotas pēc stila (maz stilu).

Līdzīgs projekts ir arī Finetune.  Sākums tāds pats kā parasti – ievadi ko gribi atskaņot un pārējo dara finetune serviss – atrod dziesmas, parāda līdzīgos māksliniekus un ļauj veidot savas playlistes. Serviss itkā bezmaksas, tomēr uzmanīgi ieskatoties var pamanīt, ka tāpat kā Last.fm tiek piedāvāti 30 sekunžu gari izgriezumi no dziesmām kuras jāpērk caur iTunes. Šajā ziņā Finetune darbības princips ir vislīdzīgākais Last.fm.

Savukārt, ja vēlaties ieraudzīt ko vismaz vizuāli atšķirīgu, tad Meemix būs tieši priekš Jums.

Būtība tā pati, tikai maz reklāmu un “viegls’ dizains. Patika tas, ka ātri varēju maniz izvēlētā mākslinieka dziesmas atzīmēt, kā favorītus. Nedaudz neierasta likās piedāvātās mūzikas secība – skanēja 4 metalcore dziesmas, kad pēkšņi ne no kurienes pilnīgi alternatīvie smashing pumpkins sāka dragāt “Zero” Nu tas viņiem piedodams, jo labi, ka nepiedāvāja kautko no R’n'B repertuāra – dabūtu es pasvīst vēl

Protams vēl ir pilns nets ar dažādiem servisiem, kas dod iespēju klausīties mūziku no interneta. Būs daudzi, kas slavinās Imeem, klausīsies Nullsoft (Winamp) Shoutcast interneta radiostacijas vai kautvai to pašu Myspace, kā labu online mūzikas servisu. Tomēr no manis līdz šim aplūkotajiem, šķiet, ka Spotify vislabāk atbilst manām prasībām.

Daži kurus aplūkoju, bet par kuriem esmu noklusējis un neuzrakstīju (pagaidām):

Musicovery

Tunerec

Songza

Ja neesi lasījis iepriekšējos rakstus par šo tēmu, tad tie atrodami lūk šeit:

1. Manas last.fm alternatīvas
2. Manas Last.fm alternatīvas #2

Papildināts: asdfg komentāros arī iemeta linku uz visnotaļ solīdu online radiostaciju – AOL Radio. Galvenais pluss ko pamanīju ir Lielais mūzikas stilu daudzums! Paldies

 Então você esgotou sua coleção inteira de MP3 e está cansado de pedir para seus amigos indicações de novas músicas e receber, entre centenas de sugestões, uma que realmente valha a pena. O que fazer? Bem mais fácil que baixar dezenas de pacotes de arquivos mesmo em redes P2P, sem contar o aspecto legal, são as rádios online.

Diferentemente de rádios tradicionais, hoje cada vez menos apreciadas pelo público jovem, as estações online ganham por um fator: a maior parte delas é formada pelas chamadas “rádios inteligentes”, estações que se adaptam ao seu gosto. O que isso quer dizer? Que em vez de você dizer de que tipo de música gosta e sintonizar em uma estação cheia de jabás (músicas pagas pelas gravadoras), você pode especificar o ponto inicial de sua rádio a partir de uma banda ou música específica.

Surpreendente, não? Mas como diria o comercial, “não é feitiçaria, é tecnologia”. Com uma grande base de usuários e a informação das músicas de que eles gostam, é possível mapear sons que possam agradar determinados tipos de ouvintes. Há ainda sistemas que fazem uso do chamado Projeto Genoma Musical, uma lista criada em 2000, que relaciona mais de 400 atributos que descrevem canções e são organizados por semelhança, por meio de um complexo algoritmo matemático.

Seja qual for a tecnologia adotada, o que importa é o resultado: uma fonte inesgotável de novas bandas a serem escutadas e, ainda melhor, sem interrupção para comerciais, dependendo somente de uma placa de som e de disponibilidade de velocidade de acesso em sua rede.

Abaixo você confere o que  de mais legal e inovador na Internet, sites pelos quais você poderá descobrir novas bandas sem se preocupar em incomodar seus amigos ou encontrar “aquela” música que não sai de sua cabeça.

Quero Ouvir

Musicovery: uma árvore de canções de artistas e bandas com afinidades

Ao selecionar um ponto de partida, o software gera uma linha com cada uma das músicas. Em nossos testes, a rádio foi eficiente e não engasgou nenhuma vez. O serviço funciona sem qualquer registro, mas se você fizer o cadastro gratuito pode banir músicas de sua lista. Se fizer o cadastro pago (US$ 4/mês), pode ouvir as canções em alta qualidade e ter acesso direto a suas favoritas.

Adicionalmente, o Musicovery mostra a capa do álbum cuja música está em reprodução e permite comprá-lo em canais internacionais de venda.

Jamendo: um imenso catálogo gratuito para ouvir, baixar e aumentar a coleção

O Jamendo é um dos melhores sites de conteúdo Creative Commons (licença que permite download gratuito e, em alguns casos, até mesmo uso comercial de material criativo), o Jamendo é uma grande comunidade de músicos independentes.

Cada banda possui um perfil e ganha a possibilidade de hospedar gratuitamente suas músicas, que poderão ser reproduzidas pelos visitantes em forma de streaming ou, ainda, por meio do download das faixas no formato MP3.

O site relaciona todas as bandas em um listão a partir da capa de seus CDs, que podem ser procurados com o auxílio de um sistema de busca ou de etiquetas que identifiquem seu estilo. Ao registrar- se no serviço, além de escolher suas bandas favoritas, você poderá ver quantos álbuns serem descobertos ainda existem na comunidade, ou seja, aqueles que você ainda não ouviu.

Shoutcast: uma lista de rádios online para você ouvir em seu Winamp

Criada pela Nullsoft, a Shoutcast é uma rede para a criação e reprodução de rádios online. Em seu vasto catálogo – que pode ser explorado em seu site oficial e reproduzido pelo tocador multimídia Winamp, criado pela mesma empresa – estão relacionadas rádios comerciais e amadoras, de todos os estilos possíveis e imagináveis de som.

Para usuários que não se contentam em ouvir, o Shoutcast disponibiliza ferramentas de servidor que, a partir de um pequeno software integrado ao Winamp, transmitem sua lista de reprodução em tempo real para qualquer ouvinte no mundo inteiro.

O site da Shoutcast cataloga dezenas de milhares de rádios online que podem ser pesquisadas por nome da estação ou gênero. Um dos grandes problemas dessas rádios é que você não escolhe as faixas que deseja ouvir, nem pode configurar suas preferências, como é o caso da Musicovery, citada anteriormente, já que você ouve conteúdo selecionado por outros usuários.

TheSixtyOne: um híbrido de rádio e jogo em que se aposta em bandas independentes

Encontrar apenas uma categoria para o TheSixtyOne foi difícil. Este site une sob, a mesma interface, uma comunidade e a possibilidade de baixar músicas e conhecer bandas da cena independente.

Na realidade, o site incentiva seu visitante a explorar o cenário musical underground, seja qual for seu estilo preferido, e votar nas bandas mais interessantes e capazes. O TheSixtyOne traz um sistema de pontuação, uma espécie de aposta sem dinheiro, em que você poderá colocar suas fichas nas músicas que acredita que serão a preferência dos usuários.

Mas se você tiver esgotado suas fichas com apostas furadas, o site oferece uma alternativa para levantar um “dinheirinho virtual”: ouça as músicas menos exploradas da comunidade a partir de um jukebox (chamado de The Rack) e ganhe pontos. Ao mesmo tempo em que é um site divertido para os meros ouvintes, é uma porta de entrada para músicos, que poderão ganhar notoriedade entre os receptivos membros do TheSixtyOne.

Jango: uma rádio inteligente que aprende com seus gostos musicais

Nos moldes do bom e velho – e bloqueado para os brasileiros – Pandora, o Jango é um site que cria rádios online baseadas no gosto do usuário, que deve se registrar para definir suas preferências e armazenar suas criações.

As rádios são feitas com base no nome de uma banda, seja internacional ou nacional, e tenta seguir sempre o mesmo estilo de som. O design simples abriga não apenas um tocador multimídia, mas também aspectos de comunidade, chegando a se assemelhar com a rede social Last.fm, ainda que em menor escala.

Em nossos testes, as músicas selecionadas pelo Jango foram bastante fiéis ao estilo musical da banda escolhida, embora em um ou outro caso, alguns artistas clássicos da MPB foram comparados a Ricky Martin, e outros, como o Rei Roberto, não foram encontrados.

Meemix: escolha uma banda e deixe que este serviço gere uma rádio para você

Mais um site de rádios inteligentes, o Meemix tem uma série de funções para manter seus usuários o maior tempo possível conectados ao serviço. Além de criar as rádios baseadas em seu gosto, o programa possui dois modos de definir as próximas canções: um deles aumenta a “surpresa” na escolha da próxima música, e o outro define se você deseja um som mais relaxante ou mais agitado, dependendo de seu humor.

O sistema de pontuação funciona além de “gosto” ou “não gosto”, e traz uma escala que vai de -6 a 6. Além dessa abrangente votação, o site possui outro diferencial: um jogo no estilo “Qual é a música”.

A interface limpa do Meemix torna dispensável o conhecimento da língua inglesa, idioma utilizado pelo serviço. O site peca, contudo, na criação de rádios com músicas brasileiras.

Songza

O Songza é um site que, diferentemente de uma rádio online, permite apenas que você procure músicas na Internet e as reproduza via streaming individualmente. O programa utiliza fontes como o YouTube para sua canções, de modo que permite que você veja, em outra janela, o videoclipe da faixa escolhida.

Por utilizar o YouTube como fonte, é possível encontrar inúmeras bandas nacionais, muitas em apresentação ao vivo, embora a qualidade do áudio não seja garantida.

Fiquem ligados que em breve falaremos mais sobre

PHD by the Crystal Method

Songza was able to do what google/youtube couldn’t. Pretty sweet.

And another:Bath Time in Clerkenwell by The Real Tuesday Weld

My idea of heaven? Lying in the sun, chewing gum, with a juicy magazine while listening to music!

So let’s talk about music…You should basically have music on all summer, so I want to help you with some good sources. Now, my brother’s in a band so, I am REALLY into musicians’ rights, copyright, bleedi-blotti….all these sources are legit.

This library has a lot of books ABOUT music…Jazz, Country, Classical, even Punk! In general you’ll find them in the 780’s (that’s Dewey talking). I like to flip through The Rolling Stones : A Life on the Road for the pictures…and of course, Rolling Stone magazine!

The CD collection has some gems in the rough.  No comment on the tapes… The other day I discovered that my favorite CD in the collection by The Devil Makes Three went missing.  I immediately exercised my patron rights and requested the CD be purchased, AGAIN!  Request CDs by all means – share your musical taste with the world, or at least Brattleboro. All you have to do is fill out a small green form at the main desk or send an email from the library website.

I am a bit of an alterna-chick so, I like to head to pitchfork.com for album reviews, band information, and video links. If you are more Top 40,  then billboard.com is your home for what’s hot and what’s not.

As far as listening to the jams, there are three sites I am particularly into…These are great for listening to songs and creating playlists in a wide range of genres.

allmusic.com

songza.com

pandora.com

The last site is particularly fun because it helps introduce you to new music based on the music you like.

I can’t end this post without mentioning that the great internet movie theatre youtube.com is also a great place to not only listen but watch those rock and roll stars…

Yours,

Babette

These past couple of months I have been hearing so much about Spotify that I finally decided to give it a shot. Truth be told, I had already set up my account for some time now, but never really took the time to download the Spotify player and fool around with it. Well now I have and it’s amazing. Frankly speaking:

Spotify is currently solving all my problems in terms of finding and listening to music

Since P2P networks started to take off back in the day, I, like so many other music consumers, neglected the CD purchasing process.

About five years ago, I had a couple of hundred of original discs, but unfortunately I wasn’t organized enough not to lose them, break their casings, lend them to friends without asking them back etc. Having moved a few times in different countries didn’t help either. So as time passed by, the number of burned CDs I had in my possession gradually exceeded my original stash. Now I probably only have no more than 100 CDs, 80% of which are bad quality burned ones.

Of course, with the advent of portable computers, I hadn’t felt the need to buy or use a stereo at home, so the only times I used my CDs were with my laptop (pretty rare – opening it up just takes too much time:) and occasionally in a car. In other words, almost never.

The same thing occurred with my MP3s. Since I wasn’t buying them, I didn’t mind deleting gigas of tunes at a time when I needed free space in my hard drives. Add to that all my Mp3s stored on different computers, HD crashes, un-cautious formating etc, my Mp3 folders were a mess of folders I never really took the time to order.

For two years now, I have been practically only listening to music thanks to online music search engines (here’s a good list for ya). Deezer, Songza, Musicovery, Skreemr, Finetune…and I’m sick of it! We waste enormous amounts of time just searching for music, dealing with slow buffering, complicated websites with complicated interfaces. Granted that it’s extremely cool to live in an age where all music is free; a decade ago that wasn’t the case, and of course I appreciate the luck I have as a music lover living in 2009, but there is the obscure and absurd factor of having too much choice nowadays that kills the beauty of say, buying the latest release of one of your favorite bands in a real physical format who’s quantity is limited. That and many other things.

Whatever the sociological reasons, since I have been using Spotify, I feel this enormous weight just lift off my shoulders. I feel as if my hunger for music is under control because I can easily satisfy it. I now feel that it’s within my power to supply all my friends’ wants and needs in terms of music when they come over.

I also feel this weird guiltiness about having access to a service like Spotify and its 6 million free tunes, but that feeling is easily suppressed.

So, how does Spotify work? Easy:

• You download the Spotify player.
• When it’s launched, you perfectly understand how the interface works because it’s sober and simple, so the music search process commences instantly.
• Unless you are looking for Romanian regional bands, or 50 year old back catalogs of electro-acoustic music, chances are you’ll automatically find what you are looking for (again, 6 million tracks, and thousands of tracks added very regularly from all over).
• Playing a few tracks will make you realize there is practically no buffering delay (haven’t felt buffering even for a second yet).
• The search process is flawless, and Spotify’s recommendation system is as good as any other (definitely better than Deezer’s…)
• Creating playlists is also super easy and intuitive
• Oh yeah, and, its FREE

Well, at least for me it’s free. See, Spotify is a Swedish start-up who’s geographical span is still somewhat limited. The service is not currently available in the United States or Canada but it is available in western Europe, and here in France it’s free.

Depending on where you live, Spotify proposes different subscription plans. The free version is only available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France, Spain and The Netherlands, and in some of those countries an invitation is required (I got my invitation via Techcrunch I think and only have 10 invites left). In this case, free means you have access to all the music, but you must endure a couple of graphical ads popping up from time to time in the player itself. In some countries, users will have 15 second audio ads between songs every half hour or so. If you want to get rid of the ads you must pay ($1 for a day pass and $10 for a monthly pass).

And that’s about it really. Not much else to add – Spotify rocks. Go to their website at www.spotify.com, check out their video, create an account if you can (sorry for the canadian and american readers of this blog – at least you’ll know you have to keep an eye out for its release across the Atlantic), and just listen.

Mruff.

Har du behov for en Internet Jukebox?  Her har du to!

Den første (og yngste) heter just hear!t og er fremdeles i privat Beta. Du kan vha. denne jukebox’en GRATIS og LOVLIG spille musikk fra nettet.

I tillegg kan du lage playlists (altså spillelister).

Ps. Du kan jo forsøke å bli Beta-tester (“join it” på hovedsiden) og evt. dra nytte av de fordelene det innebærer…
–> JUST HEAR!T

Den andre jukebox’en har vært ute en stund nå og heter SONGZA:

Her kan du også enkelt lage dine egne playlists i tillegg til raske funksjoner for å “dele” og “stemme” (rate).

–> SONGZA

ENJOY THE MUSIC!

Just Hear It è a quanto pare il progetto di una coppia di studenti universitari, e si tratta di un motore di ricerca musicale piuttosto bravo a trovare esattamente i brani che volete ascoltare. Dove li trova? Mah, la mia risposta è “un po’ ovunque”, o almeno credo.Difficile credere che gli sviluppatori abbiano davvero fatto un “patto col diavolo”, ovverosia le Major, come dicono nel loro About. Non è cosa comune mettersi d’accordo con le case discografiche e i loro mastini, ma se davvero sono riusciti ad ottenere un accordo che tiene a galla la loro compagnia e accontenta gli artigli rapaci dei detentori dei diritti, tanto meglio!
 
Ci sono moltissimi siti che distribuiscono in un modo o nell’altro la musica in streaming, come YouTube per esempio, e credo che Just Hear It sia semplicemente un front end per essi. Di sicuro se la musica è presa dal sito di Video, anche la componente grafica è visualizzata (ma può essere eliminata). Per il resto Just Hear It si comporta come una specie di media player online, e sono riuscito a trovare di tutto, dalle track più oscure fino alle star della musica, il tutto con velocità e relativa comodità. Dico relativa perchè la sua interfaccia non mi piace: troppo scura e difficile per gli occhi. Spero le diano una sistemata in futuro!  Conclusioni? Speculazioni sul suo funzionamento a parte, lo ritengo un prodotto interessante che potrebbe guadagnarsi un posto tra i miei segnalibri.

Pubblicato da rammit in Applicazioni Web, Audio.

There’s a new kid on the online music block, and though still in private beta, it offers users a fast and free way to create and listen to online playlists. Created by two college students, Nicolae Ivanescu and Cosmin Panait, Just Hear It is a new site that wants to let you, “search the web for any song in the world.”

Similiar to Seeqpod and Songza, Just Hear It offers registered and unregistered users alike a seamless interface for song search and playlist creation, all from within the browser. Registered users can create a media library to build an online music collection that they can listen to from anywhere, create mulitple playlists, view play history, and rename songs.

Just Hear It claims to be completely legal, following DMCA guidelines, and paying royalties to all of the major performing-rights organizations, like ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC. In the future, Just Hear It aims to negotiate licenses to share revenue with labels. Currently, much of the music actually seems to come from YouTube () – much like another site we recently reviewed, StreamDrag.

I’m already impressed with the extensive music selection, incredibly fast speed in returning search results, and immediate playlist creation with user-friendly drag-and-drop options.

I’ve got my name on the list. What about you?

So Carolina wins the championship in a cake walk and the closing video, everyone’s favorite “One Shining Moment” of the tournament, ends with an image of the writer of the song.  The tv is showing dancing in the streets of Chapel Hill and for the second night in a row I’m taken back to my Duke days.  I’m listening to music on Pandora and Songza and feeling like I never would have graduated from college if this much music was available at my fingertips.  I even entered the name of a former student’s band, Cacaw, and by golly there were multiple tunes and videos readily available.  So that taked me back to Doug Towey, the songwriter heard on this Monday night every year.  It’s easy to download the song, accompanied by videos official and home-spun, but what do we know about Mr. Towey.  OK, so sure you can quickly put together a full dossier with a quick Google, but is there more of a disconnect between the music and the musicians / writers than back in the LP or CD days?  MP3’s and torrents trade hands freely, and my mind wanders to Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” – read it and tell me what you think.

I am convinced that I am 80% more effective at my job when I have Channel Live sparking Mad Izms in my ear. That percentage goes down a bit if Kanye accidentally slips a verse in somewhere. The point is that I listen to music for about 60% of my day. I’ve exhausted my iTunes library, been a Slacker, and done the Pandora thing. Those and countless other options are tentative fixes. However, my recent discovery of Songza has further proved the existence of a higher being.

http://songza.com/ is beautiful and genius. Simply search for any song or any artist. You will be given a list of results that vary between videos (shaded in white) and songs (shaded in yellow). Select a song, click play, and enjoy. That’s it! If you sign up for an account (free of charge or gimmick), you can save your play list! I have yet to be unable to find a song, and I have certainly tested the database.

How is it legal you ask? Here is what Songza has to say:

Songza pays the major performing rights organizations (ASCAP, BMI,
SESAC), who then pay the publishers and songwriters in proportion to the number of plays they get on Songza. YouTube.com
and imeem, the sources of the music played by Songza, pay the sound recording owners.

It seems that everyone wins. Now they just need an iPhone app…

Das überarbeitete Urheberrechtsgesetz trat am 1. Januar 2008 in Kraft. Dieses sieht eine Verschärfung der Gesetze für Tauschbörsen-Nutzern vor. PC-Welt zeigt, wie Sie ihre Musiksammlung weiterhin legal um aktuelle Titel erweitern. Dabei können Sie entweder den klassischen Weg über Web-Seiten gehen, Videos zu MP3-Dateien umwandeln oder Internet-Radios nutzen.

Das überarbeitete Urheberrechtsgesetz trat vor über einem Jahr – am 1. Januar 2008 – in Kraft. Mit dem Gesetz bleibt die Privatkopie von digitalen Medien weiterhin erhalten, wie gehabt darf jedoch ein Kopierschutz nicht umgangen werden.

Insbesondere für Musikliebhaber, die bislang Tauschbörsen wie Bearshare, Bittorrent und Co. nutzen, enthält das neue Gesetz eine Verschärfung der Bestimmungen. Bisher war allein die Kopie einer offensichtlich rechtswidrig hergestellten Vorlage untersagt. Dieses Verbot wird nun ausdrücklich auf unrechtmäßig zum Download angebotene Werke ausgedehnt. Damit soll die illegale Nutzung von Tauschbörsen klarer gefasst sein.

Pie menu. Site: Songza

Exemplo de bom uso do Pie menu (também conhecido como Radial menu ou Marking menu).

http://songza.com/

Seeqpod is a new search engine, focussing on multimedia content. You can hunt down music videos and mp3s and play them instantly, and what’s more, it’s all fully legal.

The service is available to embed into your website as just the search engine, or a playlist which you can share with your music loving chums. This is the most comprehensive service of its kind I’ve found yet, and it’s also available on your windows mobile.

What’s more, by going through to the In Silico page, you can find a list of things the Seeqpod team are working on, well worth checking out.

This I believe is a something that is becoming more and more common – we’re finding ourselves in a stage of anti-google. Google is so vast and expansive that sometimes it’s tough to find exactly what you’re looking for in amongst the page after page of ‘not quite but close’ search matches.

Are we going to find ourselves hunting for specific types of information through different search engines which speicialise in hunting down just the one type of information? Division of labour is one of the first things you learn about in business classes after all.

So here’s a lovely list of my top 5 anti-google music search engines:

Songza – nice and simple, quick, and very orange.

Track9 – gives you the option to download or embed your favourite songs into websites.

Mix Turtle – again very simple; you can’t download tracks but you can ad them to a playlist accessible by signing up to the service.

Playlist – add your favorite songs to a playlist by signing up, gives you the option to get the song as a ringtone.

Cuil – the epitome of anti-google, Cuil is a standard search engine, but it is fantastic for finding information about music and far more efficient than it’s big competitor, but poor for finding MP3s.

Die meisten Applikationen bzw. Softwareprodukte die wir kennen und benutzen, stellen uns unterschiedliche Optionen auf unterschiedlicher Weise zur Verfügung.

So haben die meisten Programme eine oder mehrere Menüzeilen am oberen Bildschirmrand, mit denen unterschiedliche Funktionen ausgewählt und aktiviert werden können. Als LeserIn dieses Beitrages in einem Webbrowser stehen bei den meisten Browsern gerade die Menüzeile mit “Datei”, “Bearbeiten”, “Ansicht” usw. an oberster Stelle, darunter sind die Schaltflächen für “eine Seite zurück” und “eine Seite” nach vor angeordnet, daneben weitere Symbole und die Adresszeile.

Weitere Optionen erhalten User bei einem Klick mit der rechten Maustaste auf einen Link auf dieser Website. Also eine weitere Möglichkeit, dem Benutzer/der Benutzerin Zugang zu Funktionen zu ermöglichen.

In manchen Computerspielen werden diese Funktionen anders angeordnet: in einem Kreis. Die Auswahl der Funktionen ist kontext-sensitiv, d.h. je nach dem gerade ausgewählten Objekt verändert sich die Anzahl und die tatsächliche Funktionalität.

So sieht ein Beispiel einer solchen Anordnung im Spiel “Heroes of Might and Magic V” der Fa. Ubisoft aus. Ein Objekt im Spiel wurde selektiert, die dazugehörigen Optionen werden rechts unten am Bildschirm angezeigt und eben im Kreis um eine Hauptoption angeordnet.

Vorteile einer solchen Aufteilung sind:

• Kurze Wege für die Aktivierung mit der Maus
• Nur mögliche Optionen werden angezeigt, gerade aktive Optionen werden farblich hervorgehoben
• Keine unterschiedlichen Menüleisten
• Umgehung der “langen” Wege durch verschachtelte Menüs, die verschwinden, wenn die Maus nicht exakt über den vorgegebenen Weg geführt wird

Nachteile sind:

• Nur eine begrenzte Anzahl an Befehlen in der ersten Ebene möglich
• Unterschiedliche, da kontext-abhängige Symbole könnten verwirrend sein

Interessanterweise wird auf der Website “www.songza.com” dieses Konzept aufgegriffen und erstmals (meines Wissens nach) im Webkontext ein-/umgesetzt. Auf dieser Seite können Songs gesucht werden und mit diesem Menü zum Beispiel Lieder zu Playlisten hinzugefügt, abgespielt und bewertet werden.

Menü von Songza

Auch hier ist zu bemerken, dass wieder nur eine geringe Anzahl von Funktionen in der ersten Ebene angeordnet wurden. Dadurch ist der Kreis eher als Quadrat gestaltet, die Funktionen des Menüs sind jedoch nach dem selben Prinzip designed.

Ich stelle mir nun die Frage, ob wir solche Menüs in anderen Applikationen ebenfalls zu sehen bekommen werden. So wäre es natürlich möglich, bei einem schlanken Textverarbeitungsprogramm bei der Markierung eines Wortes hier Formatierungen wie “Fett/Kursiv/Unterstrichen” oder “Grösser/Kleiner”, “Kopieren/Einfügen” und ähnliches anzubieten. Hier spielt es eine besondere Rolle in welchem Kontext welche Stellen markiert/selektiert werden. Dennoch ist es für mich doch vorstellbar, vor allem die häufigst gebrauchten Funktionen so anzubieten.

Over the last couple of months I have discovered several different ways that make it possible to listen to music on the Internet. The first and possibly most amazing is a site entitled Wolfgang’s vault. This site focuses upon live concerts, so it is possible for example to listen to rare Halloween Zappa recordings from the 1970’s, to early Hendrix shows, to Bob Marley, etc, etc. The list is enormous. Additionally, there is a large list of rare interviews with artists ranging from Bowie, to Bruce Springsteen, Dylan, etc, etc. All of the music streams in a separate window, making it possible to search the net without disrupting your listening pleasure. The site is made even more interesting by the addition of free access to Crawdaddy Magazine, artist memorabilia, photos, posters, and the Mojam concert search engine. This type of resource seems to be becoming more popular, with sites such as My Space now not being the only way to access free streamable music. I am particularly fond of the Last FM utility for Firefox called ‘Fire FM’. This toolbar enables you to create artist radio stations that automatically play music which is similar to your chosen search. A great way to listen to new music and discover different artists. It is also worth checking out Indestore, We7, and Songza,all of which offer free music in incredibly specific and detailed ways. Aside from being interesting in any-ones views on these sites, I would also like to ask this question – How will this type of provision affect the music industry? If we can listen to music in this fashion, why do we need to download mp3’s. Will they benefit or destroy the industry? Do we really need to own music when we can ‘borrow’ it in this way? Anyway, enough for this post – Back to Zappa’s 1977 Pallidium concert.

I have just come across a website called Songza (songza.fm), it looks not bad at first glance.

I typed in a search for Weather Report, and it returned a reasonable list of results.  When I clicked on one of the results, a Celtic cross “thing” appeared to let me select “add to playlist”, “share”, “rate” or “play”. I chose “play”, and it tried to open a video. It took an age.  Naturally, I moved on and tried several others — all of which took too long.  I never actually got to hear anything because I am not that patient. Anything longer than 2 minutes is far too long.

Pity!

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