VentureBeat

Michael Arrington pointed out last night that Songbird, the new Web browser and media player, was about to launch. So we went and looked, downloaded it, and sure enough, it works really well. First we scanned our desktop for files, and Songbird listed them all nicely. Then we played some. This has the look of something pretty cool. Some are calling it the “Firefox for Music.” It is open source, and built on…

Mozilla.

Since songbird is a web browser in addition to a media player, users can browse web sites and find music to play: If audio files are embedded in the site, they will be displayed separately and can be played, downloaded, included in playlists, etc

Here is some background on the company’s founder, digital-music veteran Rob Lord. And judging from his interesting profile, his team, which numbered only five as recently as December, is based in Santa Cruz, just south of the hills cordoning off Silicon Valley.

Gee, will this thing really kill iTunes, as people are saying? The company’s actual name is ambitious: Pioneers of the Inevitable. Songbird is the name of the product.

Click on the thumbnail below for example of screenshot you get when you first load it. And have fun!

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