FoxyTunes unlocks access to a wide range of music players.
(Credit: Yahoo)FoxyTunes, the popular music-player plug-in for Firefox, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Thunderbird, and so on, is now a plug-in supporting Yahoo Messenger for Windows, versions 8.1, 9, and 10 beta.
Maybe we should to call it "FoxyHoo."
With the plug-in installed, you can control your desktop music player in addition to sharing what you're playing in the status bar. Specifically, you can launch about two dozen supported music players from the Yahoo Messenger interface, manipulating everything from volume to skipping a song. Here's a sampler of integrated players: iTunes, RealPlayer, VLC, Windows Media Player, WinAmp, and MediaMonkey.
In addition to commanding your music player, the FoxyTunes plug-in for Yahoo Messenger can also open lone audio files. To check out song lyrics while a tune plays, there's a FoxyTunes Planet button you can click. The Web site features music news, lyrics, and videos.
We would have thought that FoxyTunes' integration with Yahoo Messenger for Windows would have been the first thing Yahoo did when it snapped up FoxyTunes in 2008 for its music division. After all, the ability to share musical selections via Yahoo Messenger ha been available for the Mac client since 2006, a Yahoo representative told CNET. However, one look at the Web site, which promotes a Download.com review from 2006, tells us that maintaining the brand isn't very high on Yahoo's list.
That said, FoxyTunes has been far from idle. Back in August, FoxyTunes integrated support for posting music choices to Twitter, Facebook, Skype, Yahoo Messenger's status bar, and Last.fm (Last.fm is a part of CBS Interactive, which also publishes CNET.)
The easiest way to get started downloading the plug-in is to click "Add Plug-ins" from your Yahoo Messenger interface and select FoxyTunes.
Corrected on 10/30/09 at 3:10 pm: A Yahoo representative has clarified that Yahoo Messenger has been able to post FoxyTunes selections on Mac since 2006.
Last week FoxyTunes rolled out a cool new feature called Signatunes that lets users add whatever music they're listening to as their e-mail signature. Users with the latest version of Foxytunes get access to a button that integrates into supported e-mail and blogging services. Clicking it inserts a small link that lists artist and song information. This link goes straight to the song's FoxyTunes Planet page--a helpful service that aggregates artist information from various music reference sources on the net, and in many cases includes a preview, or free streamed version of the track.
I had a go with it earlier today and came away impressed. Like the rest of the Foxytunes extension, Signatunes is highly configurable. You can pick out how you want the song information displayed, along with customizing the signature to say anything you'd like.
Signatunes is currently supported on nine platforms, including major Web e-mail providers like Gmail, AOL Mail, and Yahoo Mail, as well as blogging platforms like WordPress and MySpace Blogs.
If you've got the latest version of Foxytunes installed, you'll get a new button that lets you add a custom signature with music you're currently listening to.
(Credit: blog.foxytunes.com)
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- FoxyTunes Planet goes live. FoxyTunes Planet, the media-aggregation tool we profiled last month launched publicly this morning. The service allows users with the FoxyTunes toolbar installed on their browser (both IE and Firefox) to pull up various information about the song and artist they're currently listening to.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
The team behind the popular browser extension FoxyTunes is hard at work on a new mashup site that integrates the music controls of FoxyTunes with an aggregation tool to give you more information and media about your favorite musical artists and new discoveries.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
Each FoxyTunes Planet artist page has several customizable widgets. There are Flickr photos, YouTube videos, albums for sale from Amazon, and even various Internet radio stations such as HypeMachine and Last.fm where you can listen to the band's other songs. If you're like me, you might be listening to a Shoutcast feed on iTunes and come across an artist you like but aren't familiar with. If you have FoxyTunes installed, clicking the little Planet button brings up the artist's page on FoxyTunes Planet.
If you want to find out more about a band that you're not currently listening to, the FoxyTunes Planet site uses a simple search interface that returns artist pages, in a system akin to Google's. Results are fast and even obscure artists are likely to return some information. If you want to add more widgets to the results page, there are currently 12 others to choose from. Rearranging them on the artist page is accomplished by simply dragging and dropping.
FoxyTunes Planet is a handy tool for music discovery. You could accomplish something similar using an aggregator like Netvibes, but the seamless integration with FoxyTunes makes sense. FoxyTunes Planet is in private beta; you can sign up here. You can download the original FoxyTunes for Firefox or FoxyTunes for Internet Explorer at CNET Download.com.
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