Every once in a while, someone comes up with a way of doing things in an extremely obvious and simple way. When this happens, a zillion others say, “of course that’s the way to do it!”. Songza is a music search engine and jukebox that is dead simple to use. You should try it to really grok how simple the interface is.
Songza is the single best place to search for and listen to music on the Web. Find a song and listen immediately, in one place.
Unlike KaZaa or Bit Torrent, Songza users can only listen to songs, not download them. And unlike Last.fm or Rhapsody, Songza permits users to choose exactly the song or artist they want to hear, and does not require them to subscribe or pay for its services.
Songza is the brainchild of 24-year-old Aza Raskin — the son of Apple Macintosh founder Jef Raskin. He and Scott Robbin worked feverishly to bring the idea to life. The site launched on November 8, 2007, and instantly generated significant buzz around the world. Hundreds of bloggers and news writers have praised its elegant user interface, beautiful design, and all-around utility. Like all good ideas, both the concept and design came to Aza while he was in the shower.
The thing I liked most about songza is the “pie-menu”.
useful links
- http://ajaxian.com/archives/songza-would-you-like-a-habituatable-pie-menus-with-your-social-music
- http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/03/04/songza-adds-new-features/
- http://humanized.com/weblog/2007/11/13/songza-launch/
- http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/11/songza-turns-yo.html
- http://lifehacker.com/software/music/listen-to-music-on+demand-with-songza-321638.php
Tags: music, search, songza, web
Karthik wrote,
yeah its damn cool, isnt tht illegal stuff? it took very less time to play the desired song, clever interface
Link | March 28th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
prashanthellina wrote,
It seems the songs come from youtube. Songza uses Youtube API to strip out the video and display only the audio. It do not know about the legal status of this kind of thing. Some say it is a violation of youtube TOS. We’ll have to wait and watch.
Link | March 28th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
venkat wrote,
Wonderful intro to Songza. I love it.
My dad is using the “interwabs” now. And there was no easy service that will let him play music “trivially”.
Now, he can play and “playlist” his music “trivially”.
Also, since it just plays the music alone, it keeps his bandwidth costs down and the songs stream without jitters.
To me, it is the best music service on the net. I can play what I want (except some esoteric ones), when I want (and I am always connected).
Link | March 28th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
prashanthellina wrote,
I’m impressed (with Songza) knowing that your dad is able to use it trivially. As geeks, we tend to get carried away when designing user interfaces. Songza is a breath of fresh air.
Link | March 28th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
venkat wrote,
Pie Menu usage is particularly cool.
Songza has show that UI innovation (with exisiting UI hardware) and UI simplicity (their bottom music player strip) can
add insanely huge value.
Link | March 28th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Drew'Cillia wrote,
The website takes a long time to load and the music doesn’t play so ya’ll need another website.I do not lyke the site I’ve been goin on it everyday but I’ve been gettin the same problem,so ya’ll need to do sumthin about it.
Link | July 2nd, 2008 at 6:38 pm
prashanthellina wrote,
Yes. That is quite unfortunate. try http://vtap.com, especially our mobile client.
Link | July 17th, 2008 at 9:38 pm