Songbird media player: the love child of Mozilla and WinAmp

News Type: Event — Seeded on Wed Apr 16, 2008 9:34 AM EDT

Article Source: Ars Technica

technology, music, media, yahoo, firefox, mozilla, players, songbird, winamp, music-engine, pioneers-of-the-inevitable

Songbird is an open source media client with tight web integration that is designed by Pioneers of the Inevitable, a San Francisco-based company whose previous efforts include WinAmp and the Yahoo Music Engine. Songbird is still in early stages of development, but is already quite usable on the desktop. Version 0.5 was released late last month with MTP device support and user interface improvements.

The Songbird developers aim to create an open ecosystem for media technologies that will liberate users from the closed end-to-end media solutions offered by Microsoft and Apple. The monolithic media architectures used by those companies, which tie music stores to specific software players and specific devices, have stifled creativity and innovation. Songbird gives users a way to escape from vendor lock-in and also creates the potential for more competition and innovation in media services and digital content distribution.

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3.8

{"commentId":1697773,"authorDomain":"fdbryant3"}

FDBryant3

I've been following the development of Songbird since .2 a year and a half ago. I am very interested in this project but wish it didn't have the development pace of a glacier.

{"commentId":1697773,"threadId":"251003","contentId":"1434209","authorDomain":"fdbryant3"}

3 votes

#1 - Wed Apr 16, 2008 10:03 AM EDT

{"commentId":1697913,"authorDomain":"michaelsautter"}

Michael Sautter

I'm with you. Has anyone tried Songbird on Windows Vista?

{"commentId":1697913,"threadId":"251003","contentId":"1434209","authorDomain":"michaelsautter"}

3 votes

#1.1 - Wed Apr 16, 2008 10:34 AM EDT

{"commentId":1699705,"authorDomain":"nickwatts"}

Nick Watts

I'm using Songbird on XP, have been since it was first released. The development pace is frustratingly slow, but it has come on loads since 0.1. I'd recommend trying the latest (0.5) build as it is working really well on my 50G library, faster than itunes anyway.

I'm still not ready to use it for managing my iPod but I use it for all other music needs, particularly discovering new music on the web.

{"commentId":1699705,"threadId":"251003","contentId":"1434209","authorDomain":"nickwatts"}

1 vote

#1.2 - Wed Apr 16, 2008 4:18 PM EDT

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MICHAEL SAUTTER

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Songbird media player: the love child of Mozilla and WinAmp

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