Songbird, a nifty new Web browser and media player — and iTunes killer?

Matt Marshall | February 8th, 2006
songbird logo.bmp

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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  1. February 9th, 2006
    5:48 am

    Computerworld Blogs said:

    Cerf lobbies Senate (and Trek UI)

    In today’s IT Blogwatch, we look at network neutrality. Not to mention is it art or is it a Star Trek UI? …

  2. February 15th, 2006
    10:47 am

    Geeksquare.info said:

    Songbird, il web browser musicale

    Agli inizi c’era il web browser poi si aggiunse un media player � nacque Songbird. Pare che chi abbia provato il nuovo software sia rimasto particolarmente affascinato, oltre che dalla gradevole interfaccia, dalle funzionalit� del prodotto e, sempr…

2 Comments

  1. February 8th, 2006
    10:46 am

    Ryan said:

    It’s definitely slick but until it supports Ipod it’ll never be a contender.

  2. February 8th, 2006
    11:08 am

    Daniel A. Munz said:

    Ryan, agreed that iPod support is key. But I will say that Songbird has the potential to be an iTunes-slayer for one reason, one word, three syllables: Ex-ten-sions. Imagine if something like Greasemonkey were ever developed for a competent, itunes-like client like Songbird. Think of all the functionality.

    Mmmm…functionality. :::drool:::

    Seriously, though, I feel like this could become something pretty big - at least as big a competitor to iTunes as Firefox is to IE.

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