seeqpod

Songite offers instant gratification for single songs

The first free on-demand music service I ever encountered was Songerize. The page was a simple white box on a red background. Enter the name of a song, and it would scour the Seeqpod database of user-posted content, find the song, and begin streaming it immediately.

There were no fancy playlist features like Grooveshark, no social-networking features like Imeem, no embedded player or song locker like LaLa, just instant gratification. Unfortunately, Seeqpod declared bankruptcy and around the same time, Songerize became useless.

Now, Songerize creator Will Johnson is back with a second take on the same concept: Songite. The interface … Read more

Microsoft-Seeqpod acquisition: Good idea, wrong company

The rumor mill has been all atwitter about a link from Seeqpod's newly sparse home page to the search page for Microsoft's Web site. (Not to be confused with Live Search, Microsoft's Internet search engine.)

Seeqpod was a playable search engine for music files--essentially, its crawlers scoured Web sites looking for MP3 files, then it transformed those MP3s into streamable audio files. It offered its own user-facing Web page, as well as APIs for third-party sites, and was used as the back-end for Songerize (which no longer works) and Bandloop. After being hit by copyright infringement lawsuits … Read more

Seeqpod bankruptcy will affect other sites

TechCrunch broke the story Tuesday that Seeqpod, a Web search engine for music files, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company is facing lawsuits from record company Warner and EMI because even though it doesn't post any material itself--it's just a search engine--it makes no effort to filter out copyrighted material.

So far, the site itself still up and running, but my absolute favorite name-it-and-play-it service, Songerize, which uses Seeqpod as its back end, appears to be broken. The labels have been targeting independent developers who use Seeqpod's API, so I wonder if the heat got … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 943: Confickrolled

The whole world was fooled into fearing a huge storm of worminess that never happened. Was it because we were prepared or because it really wasn't that big of a deal at all? We also avoid most of the April Foolery and talk some Nehalem processors and BlackBerry App World.

Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 943

Want April Fool’s updates? Go watch Loaded. http://cnettv.cnet.com/2001-1_53-50005651.html

Web 2.0 Expo http://news.cnet.com/webware/

Live blog: Countdown to Conficker http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10208722-83.html http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/conficker-war-r.html… Read more

Webware Radar: Mozilla gets cute with new skins

Mozilla announced a variety of new skins for its Firefox Web browser Tuesday. Many of the skins are from well-known brands and fashion designers. According to the company, All American Rejects-, Lady Gaga-, and No Doubt-themed music skins are currently available. Those looking for fashion designs can have a BCBG Max Azria skin, while those who want to support Lance Armstrong and the fight against cancer can download the Livestrong skin. Many more free skins are available on Mozilla's new "Personas" page.

The Weather Channel has launched the second version of its iPhone app, the company announced … Read more

Bandloop vs. JamBase for online show tracking

I've often praised JamBase, which lists tens of thousands of shows across the United States. If you want to know who's coming to town or who's playing tonight, it's infinitely more convenient than scanning the listings in your local paper.

Now it looks as if JamBase has some strong competition in the form of Bandloop. It's hard to improve upon JamBase's near-perfection, so Bandloop works in basically the same way, with a few improvements here and there.

Artists and fans populate the show database, which keeps it up-to-date--the site has more than 50,000 … Read more

Lala.com's pay-per-stream program faces tough competition

Lala.com has a history of coming up with innovative ideas that don't quite conquer the world. The company is best known for its online used-CD trading service, which is an interesting idea but works well only if you have a large list of CDs available to trade.

It also offers a music "locker" service that allows you to upload your music then listen to it from any computer with an Internet connection...but it only works with MP3 files, so you're out of luck if you've been using (for example) iTunes to rip your … Read more

Get the song stuck back in your head with Songerize

Got a song stuck in your head? Get a quick fix with Songerize, a super simple Google-esque search engine for popular audio tracks. Just type in the song name and artist, and within seconds it'll start playing right under the results. It's powered by SeeqPod, which offers a more robust feature set, but without as much simplicity. Songerize doesn't tell you where the tracks are from or where to get them, but in testing it managed to pick up nearly every mainstream artist and popular hit I stuck in.

Another service that has been doing this with … Read more

Eight (and a half) free Web music players

If you're the sort of Web surfer who hangs out on social-networking sites like MySpace and Facebook or someone who frequents MP3 blogs, you've surely seen and used one of the free Flash audio players in this article. All of the Web-based apps below let you add a functional music player to your home page or blog with no muss and very little fuss.

In this article, I am focusing on Web software that lets you create custom playlists with specific songs that you want to include. I also include Last.fm (the half in my count) because I love it, but its embeddable player works by offering a personal radio station based on your musical preferences. The music is fantastic, but you can't pick specific songs to add to your playlist.

I have compiled my own mixes using all of these players at a new blog. (I even used MyFlashFetish twice!) Go to MP3 Playlist Overload on Blogger to listen to some of my favorite music and try out the Flash players. I'm sure that there are lots of other free, embeddable music players online, so please tell me about your favorites in the comments.… Read more