It's hard to take a site called Worry About You seriously, especially when they claim that their search engine will direct to you to over 15 million songs. In an attempt to overlook the bizarre name choice, we're just going to refer to it as WAY from now on because Worry About You is possibly the most irrelevant Web 2.0 name in history.
Despite the fact that they might be prone to exaggeration and might need a lesson or two in brand marketing, the site works pretty well. We tried a bunch of different searches, from obscure eighties one-hit wonders to every cover of Wild Horses we could lay our hands on and WAY always delivered.
They give you the choice between streaming the song or downloading it, not that we're encouraging the latter. The site follows in the footsteps of countless other web-based mp3 search engines that are anything but legal, but it doesn't really differ much from its predecessors, apart from offering the service in six languages.
BlogAmp is a service that generates embeddable podcasts for your blog. BlogAmp calls them audiocasts, to include both streaming and downloadable 'casts, but we'll stick with "podcasts." Those were streaming too, last we heard. BlogAmp basically handles the generation of your podcast from start to finish: uploading, creating an embedded player, and creating an RSS feed.
BlogAmp's business model seems to be based on selling storage space. For a fee, you can upload your mp3 files -- support for other formats would be a plus! -- and avoid the need for other hosting. If you've already got plenty of storage space on another server (the server that hosts your blog, for example), you can use BlogAmp's other features for free. Some of these are cool: you can reskin the player a little bit and add download links for the individual mp3s in your list. Some of them are a little bit obnoxious: do we really want to make it easier to add "e-commerce" links to a podcast player?
If you know how to put together a podcast, but you're having trouble creating an RSS feed or finding a way to play it from your blog, BlogAmp could be a useful tool. For veterans of audio on the web, there's probably nothing here you can't already do yourself and customize more carefully.
SeeqPod is a search engine for finding music on the web. But it's much more than that. Enter an artist or song title in SeeqPod and it will look for MP3s, video files, or web sites related to you term and present them in a nice clean list -- with links to play the files on the site. You can use SeeqPod without registering for an account, but if you want to save playlists you'll want to sign up for a free account.
SeeqPod has been around since last year, but we're having one of those days where we keep thinking of cool things we've never shared with you before. This morning it was the K-Meleon web browser, and now we bring you SeeqPod.
There are a few other nifty things you can do with SeeqPod, like embed audio clips on your web page or find lyrics or tour dates from an artist. Or you can even embed an audio search and playback widget on your web site.
Bear in mind, many of the songs that SeeqPod finds on the web are not exactly being legally distributed. But since SeeqPod isn't actually hosting the files itself, the company is sort of gray market and may be able to stand up against any future legal challenges. Or it may not.
While Joost competitor Babelgum is busy looking for independent films to showcase, Joost is still looking for ways to get people excited about watching mainstream television programs over the internet without the help of a web browser.
While Joost has historically offered a video on demand type service, allowing users to watch old episodes of Star Trek or slightly newer episodes of Robot Chicken at their own leisure, there are some TV programs people prefer to watch live, like Sports. So starting today, Joost plans to partner with CBS to provide a live stream of the NCAA March Madness tournament.
The move is more of an experiment than a business model shift. We don't expect Joost to give up on video on demand anytime soon. But if the service can handle live video streaming, we might see other live events streamed in the future. Of course, most folks will find it's a lot easier just to turn on the TV if they want to catch a basketball game, but if you're stuck at work late one night and there's no TV in sight, it's nice to know that procrastination is still an option.
CamTwist is a free application for Mac OS X 10.4+ that lets you either add video effects to a physical webcam or simulate a webcam so that you can show your desktop, a movie, or pictures. It currently works in Stickam, Yahoo Messenger, aMSN, Skype, and Ustream -- but not iChat.
You can use CamTwist by running the app, then opening your chosen service (like Stickam). Choose your desired source and any effects (flames, bubbles, snow, etc), and CamTwist should stream the combined output to the service.
If you want to show a Flickr set or a movie, choose the CamTwist camera in Stickam's Flash applet, and choose the respective display source in CamTwist. You could also display your desktop through CamTwist so you'd have an easy way to show your friends that fancy desktop wallpaper you just downloaded.
YouTube co-founder Steve Chen has confirmed that the 800 pound gorilla of the online video world plans to add a live video feature sometime in 2008. Chen spoke with video-blogger Sarah Meyers recently. And while there aren't a lot of details yet, we can engage in a little speculation:
None of those sites has a user base anywhere near the size of YouTube's
Ergo, we're probably not going too far out on a limb when we suggest that live video or "lifecasting" is about to explode. Sure, there have been folks broadcasting live streams of their life over the internet for years. But it's one thing when you have to put in all the hard work of building an audience for yourself. It's another thing when you're broadcasting on a site that has millions of viewers. Now, we're not saying that getting a million people to watch you eating breakfast is going to be easy once YouTube enters the game. Just possible.
Anyone want to place bets on whether Google will develop their technology in house or buy out an existing lifecasting service?
Myspace is currently in talks with the four major record-labels to offer its users an ad-supported music delivery service. We say "music delivery service" because it's currently unknown whether the record labels will concede to free downloads or force the News Corp owned company into creating a streaming service similar to Last.fm.
Either way, the service will be ad-supported and DRM-free.
Whether or not the new Myspace service happens, the news is great for consumers. Even if the record labels haven't figured it out yet, other companies are trying to come up with ways to get music to the people for free (or at least cheap and easy - like Amazon's MP3 Download Store).
Through our posts about Pandora and Google Hacks, our insightful readers have pointed us towards Skreemr, an mp3 search engine that actually doesn't use Google for its results. Skreemr says that they check their mp3 links to make sure they work, and they utilize "AudioRank" which helps rank results to ensure the highest quality, full-length songs are at the top of the list.
The Skreemr search page has a keyword search button and a similar artists search which is very useful for finding new music. A standard search results page provides detailed info for the mp3's returned: direct-download link, file size and duration, artist lyrics, and links to Wikipedia, Amazon, Gruvr, and Flickr for artist-related information.
Skreemr also provides an embedded Flash player so you can immediately play your search results without downloading the files. You can also build a playlist with different search results, but that functionality seemed sluggish.
Online streaming service Last.fm is making a few major announcements today. The good news is that you can listen to practically any song you like, even full albums for free. The bad news, is you can only listen to a track three times before a notice pops up suggesting that you sign up for Last.fm's upcoming subscription based service.
The CBS-owned music discovery/online radio service has signed deals with all the major record labels, and also has a system in place to pay independent musicians as well. Last.fm will pay artists each time a song is streamed, with revenue coming from advertising and the upcoming subscription service. No word on how much subscriptions will cost.
Users in the US, UK, and Germany can access the full music library today, and the company is working on expanding coverage. The site claims that it has the largest library of free streaming music on the web, and we're inclined to take their word for it.
You probably know that you can stream recent episodes of popular TV shows from network websites. Miss the last episode of Lost? Just go to ABC.com. Want to see 30 Rock? Try NBC.com. But did you know that a ton of TV stations and networks provide live streams of their content? You can watch live content from CNN, C-Span, and hundreds of local or internet-only TV stations broadcasting in the US and around the world.
Sure, it may not be the most exciting content, but if you're bored and don't have a TV tuner in your PC, you'd be amazed what you might be willing to watch. Of course, nobody wants to bookmark every single live TV stream one by one.
That's where AnyTV comes in. This free Windows application acts as both a media player and channel guide. AnyTV includes a huge list of internet television streams. Odds are you'll have trouble getting some of the streams to play. For example, ESPN is listed, but we weren't able to watch any video from ESPN.com using the AnyTV Player. But C-Span certainly worked.
As an added bonus, AnyTV includes Radio and Video tabs. Radio includes a long list of streaming radio stations, while Video features video clips available from various web sites, including a handful of clips from the Daily Show and from NASA TV.
Since our recent invite bonanza, we've enjoyed the heck out of our Hulu membership. But, since its inception, Hulu has been a US-only party. And, while OPENHulu or TVparadise opened up Hulu to a crowd of non-invitees, international users were still out of luck.
Of course if you're willing to trick Hulu into thinking your non-US computer is actually connected to a US internet connection, you can get around that restriction. One way for non-US residents to watch Hulu videos is by using a program called Hotspot Shield. We say "it seems" because, since we are inside the US, we don't have a method of testing whether or not this works.
Here's how it done:
Hotspot Shield is a free program which creates a virtual private network between your computer and a wireless router. While its focus is mainly on protecting your private information from hackers (you've seen them before: those shady characters sunk deep into a comfy chair at Starbucks, a Dell on their lap, a dark beanie almost covering their eyes, a decaf java chip mocha Frappucino melting silently on the table next to them), in this case, it keeps Hulu from recognizing that you are outside the US. Therefore, because Hulu doesn't know where you are from, it assumes the best and gives you full, unadulterated access to all content.
The best thing is, if this works, it will work for all US-only sites (Hello, Pandora)!
International Download Squad readers, please let us know if this works for you in the comments.
The Register reports that streaming media company Orb Networks plans to announce support for the iPhone and iPod touch this week. Orb is sort of like the software version of the Slingbox. You install a client on your home PC and then you can login from pretty much any device with a web browser and stream your music, picture, and video collection over the internet to a remote computer or mobile device. If you've got a TV tuner on your home computer, you can even watch live TV over the internet.
While you could theoretically access Orb's web interface using Safari on an iPhone today, Apple blocks Orb's usual streaming protocol. So the folks at Orb went and reworked their system to stream MP4 files instead.
Oh, and if you're wondering why the video above is showing Winamp Remote, it's because Winamp and Orb have teamed up to provide support for controlling your Winamp playlists over the web.
Nintendo's affable Wii gaming console hasn't really been positioned as a home media hub, but it makes a great alternative to Apple TV just the same. But before you can start using your Wii as a media streaming station, you'll need to convert your movies (and pictures) into a format the Wii can deal with.
Enter Riverfold Software with their Mac-based Wii Transfer utility. This app does the video and audio conversion necessary to experience movies, photos, and music on your Wii, streamed from your Mac. Wii Transfer will also make your Firefox and Safari bookmarks browseable on the Wii, and copy a virtually unlimited number of Wii save-game files to your Mac for backup.
If you want to rent a video, you can go to pretty much any video store and walk out with a movie of your choice. It doesn't matter what studio produced that film.
But if you want to watch streaming video of network television programs, you either need to visit the network's website or find a site that streams pirated copies.
It looks like that could be changing. Increasingly we're seeing networks offer up programming on sites like MySpace, Yahoo!, and AOL. You know, pretty much anywhere but YouTube.
Today ABC and this blog's parent company AOL have announced an agreement to stream ABC programs through AOL's video portal. You'll still be able to watch recent episodes at ABC.com, but if you want to watch free, advertising-supported videos from ABC, CBS, and several other channels, you can visit AOL. While we work for AOL here at Download Squad, our dream is that one day streaming video will be more like video rental stores. You'll be able to visit the portal of your choice and watch all the video you want.
ABC will offer about four episodes of popular programs at a time on AOL's video site. AOL and ABC will split the advertising revenue. Meanwhile, NBC and News Corp are preparing to launch their own video portal, possibly within the next few weeks. NBC also plans to launch a service that lets users download free programs that can be watched within one week of their original broadcast date.
When you're at work, do you wish you could listen to your home music collection without an iPod or other portable media player? When you go to visit the extended family, do you always forget to bring the latest photos of the kids with you?
Most of the time, we'd recommend Orb. Install an application on your home PC and you can access your media from pretty much any web browser, including the browser on your mobile phone. But if your data is scattered across multiple computers, you might want to check out WeBot.
WeBot lets you install a "bot" on any computer you like. When you login using WeBot's interface you have access to your photos and music files from each machine running a bot. There's no video. And there's no download option. This is for streaming your own media collection, not for letting your friends download all of your music tracks.
There's also a pretty slick iPhone interace, although WeBot leaves something to be desired if you try using a mobile web browser beside Safari.
WeBot is in a private beta right now, but we learned about WeBot from GigaOM, who has been kind enough to give us a registration code that will let you download and try out the service right away.
