Social Networking Music Widgets: Round Up
(* Source: Pete Cashmore *)
Finetune, a music community that lets you stream mainstream music from a variety of artists, is set to unveil a player today that lets you play your favorite tunes on blogs and social networks.
Finetune itself is an interesting attempt. Like all social networks, you can set up a profile page, add a list of friends and leave comments on other profiles - but you can also add favorite artists and albums, and build a playlist of 45 songs. What’s nice about this is that the player sits at the top left of the site, and continues to play constantly while you’re browsing - visiting another page won’t interrupt it. They also have a music recommendation engine that serves up lists of related artists.
More here
TuneFeed from Faces also has its own separate site at TuneFeed.com. What’s interesting here is that the tracks don’t come from a database of licensed music. instead, Faces.com allows you to upload your own MP3s into your music locker and syndicate them through the widget. You can also import playlists and MP3s from iTunes, MediaPlayer, WinAmp and Windows Media Center. There are already a number of services that allow you to play your MP3s through players on MySpace and Xanga, but these raise some serious legal issues. It’s interesting to note, then, that TuneFeed claims to be 100% legal. If that’s the case (and even if it isn’t!), it could be massively popular on the biggest social networks. More here
ProjectOpus, the music community has music player for MySpace, Piczo, Xanga, Windows Live Spaces and other networks. In fact, there are two: a single track player (”the solo”) to post an individual track to your website, and a larger widget (”the folio”) that plays multiple tracks and can fit into your blog sidebar. They’ve also included a feature I love: the ability to get your own version of the code - complete with a custom color scheme - from within the widget itself. They generate unique IDs for these players so they know how many are out there and how they were propagated. And there’s a link to a page where you can buy the song (although you’ll need a Project Opus account). More here
Sonific Songspots is licensing as much music as possible and providing a player to add to your website. Flash and javascript widgets are both available, and they create custom code for users on Blogger, hi5, MovableType, MySpace, Piczo, TypePad or Xanga. Once you’ve chosen a track, it appears in the “My Songspots” section of the site. However, the widget only plays one track, which seems limiting. It’s also worth noting that there are already plenty of tools for adding your own MP3s to MySpace, even if that’s not strictly legal. What’s more, these widgets play multiple tracks - unlike the default MySpace music player, which is limited to one.
More here
BeatPort, an online music store that specializes in dance music and remixes. They’ve just announced the launch of the Beatport player and a site, based entirely in Flash, to promote it. Users can create widgets from Beatport’s Top Downloads, a certain genre of music (mainly dance), one of the 10,000 electronic/dance artists in their store, or from one the 4,000 labels they work with.
In short, Beatport is targeting a niche - it’s simply seeking further distribution for all the dance tracks in its store. The player looks ok, albeit a little bulky and lacking customization options. I actually think every music store should roll these out if they have the right licenses to do so. The obvious next step is to integrate an affiliate scheme, but sites like MySpace prohibit ads on widgets, which would presumably include sales.
More here
eSnips, the sprawling media-sharing platform, announced the release of music players to post tracks to social networks - these come with a selection of nicely designed skins. They’re promoting them as a way for independent artists to distribute their music, but no doubt users will want to upload copyrighted music, too.
eSnips also announced 12 new music communities - Electronic, Hindi, Reggae, Metal, Gothic/Industrial, Hip-Hop/Rap, Elvis, Jazz, and Blues. Clearly, those continue eSnips’ strategy of rolling out niche “microportals” on certain topics. Additionally, they’re increasing the free storage to users from 1 GB to 5 GB and allowing users to email their favorite songs to each other in customizable, animated email messages
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Snocap, the latest startup from Napster founder Sean Fanning, has just launched a service, which sells unencrypted, unprotected MP3s through a player on MySpace.
Artists on MySpace Music (or hi5, Bebo, Multiply, Windows Live Spaces and any other site that supports Flash embeds) can post a widget that plays the tracks and allows you to buy them right away. Indie band “The Format” is currently using the player on its MySpace page, where you can buy songs from their album “Dog Problems”. Tracks cost $0.79 each, which Snocap automatically charges to your Paypal account. However, artists have control over the format, pricing and copy protection - so it’s possible that DRM’d tracks could also be sold through the system.
More here
