Archive for October 14, 2009
Turning YouTube into a Jukebox
A couple of new streaming music sites have launched recently that use YouTube, the massive video sharing site, as their source of music. Youtube has millions of songs on its site, including live shows, bootlegged copies, and stuff that’s hard to find elsewhere. In a new twist on streaming music services, TubeRadio and Muziic have come up with ways to turn Youtube into a jukebox for listeners.
Muziic was created by 15 year old developer David Nelson. It requires a download, has a neat user interface that offers you the chance to search for music, listen to Internet radio stations, watch music videos, build playlists, chat with friends, or post what you are listening to on Twitter. All the functions are right on the player, it’s very easy to use. I searched for the song that’s been in my head for the past few weeks, I’ve Got a Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas, and had the choice of watching them play it live in concert, or watching the Jonas Brothers play it live in concert, or any number of people play it on their guitars or dance to it, in their bedrooms, living rooms, or yards.
TubeRadio is a web based platform that does essentially the same thing. Because it is web based you can access it from anywhere. In addition to similar playlist building and socializing tools, it offers a pretty cool discography feature that enables you to type in any artists name, and have a list of the albums displayed. Choose an album, and TubeRadio will serve up a list of the songs in album order from the resources on YouTube for your listening pleasure.
British TubeRadio Founder Rogerio Mota said he noticed a friend who didn’t own much music used YouTube whenever she had friends over as a source of music, so he thought to create a more user friendly interface for building playlists. YouTube is a vast source of unique online music and related content – possibly the best source of live recordings and interviews on the web.
These services effectively put video options into streaming radio. Can you say game changer? I wouldn’t bet against it…
