Webware

MOG offered me a free trial to its subscription-based streaming music service, MOG All Access, which launched on Tuesday. The service costs five bucks a month, and gives you unlimited on-demand streams of more than six million songs from all four major labels and plenty of indies. The site is trying to differentiate itself from competitors like Rhapsody and Napster with high-quality streams--all songs are 320kbps MP3s--and some fairly sophisticated music discovery features, like playlists posted by musicians (David Byrne got the featured spot on the day of launch) and other fans with similar tastes to yours ("Moggers like me").

(Credit: Screenshot)

I've been sampling the service for about an hour, and I do appreciate the sound quality (although better volume-leveling between songs would be nice) and recommendation services. And I'd like to thank the designers personally for the ability to add any song to the already-playing queue--a feature I love on Grooveshark and my Zune HD and that I always miss whenever I use one of my iPods. But there's one big problem: song selection.

Because MOG is licensing content directly from copyright owners, there are big gaps from artists who simply don't want to participate in online music. The usual suspects like AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, and the Beatles are mostly missing in action. There are also strange gaps elsewhere. For instance, half the songs on the Pixies' "Surfer Rosa" are unplayable. Compared with Grooveshark, which relies on user-posted content, MOG has too many holes. And of course, Grooveshark remains free (although a $3/month subscription gets you a version without advertisements).

Song selection could improve over time as MOG signs more licensing deals, but I found some other related glitches as well. For instance, '70s folk artist Roy Harper, whom I often use as a test case to see how well an online service does with relatively obscure old content, has almost no playable content, but does offer a nice list of albums with links to Amazon. The only problem: when you follow the Amazon link on unplayable songs, it takes you to the Amazon Music front door--most of his songs aren't available for download there, either.

In its demonstration video, MOG touts its online radio service as a unique feature. When you're playing a particular artist, a slider lets you control how much variety you want, from "play only songs by this artist" all the way up to "play mostly songs from similar artists." It could use some fine-tuning, however. When I started a queue with a Modest Mouse song, it used Modest Mouse as the basis for its selection. Fair enough, but when I added songs by Talking Heads and Public Image Limited, the radio algorithm didn't account for those artists. It simply switched my radio playlist completely when the new songs started playing, showing all Talking Heads songs, all PIL songs, and so on. Pandora and Slacker do a much better job of creating custom stations based on multiple artists. (Although, of course, those services don't let you play individual songs on demand.)

Finally, as I wrote last week, I still think MOG's lack of mobile support is a fatal flaw, but one that could be easily remedied: Apple's approved iPhone clients for subscription services Rhapsody and Spotify, so why not MOG?

All of these flaws can be fixed, although licensing content takes time and convincing. I'm a big fan of competition, though, and MOG takes many of the best features of a lot of other services, combines them in one place, and improves on some of them. For that, the company should be commended.

Just days after the news broke that EMI is suing Grooveshark, another contestant popped into my in-box. Today, it's Fizy, which offers essentially the same features as Grooveshark, Meuzer, and JustHearIt: search for a song name, and Fizy will compile audio and video results from public sources around the Web. Today, Fizy relaunched with a handful of new features such as the ability to save playlists and the ability to post all played songs to your Friendfeed account. (Friendfeed? Where's the Facebook app?).

The new features are nothing special, but in a quick test, I did find that Fizy offers the best selection of rock songs of any on-demand streaming site I've tested. It offered me a fairly full complement of Roy Harper songs, including the lost classic "Nineteen Forty-Eightish" (with Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page on electric guitar)--and had no problem finding tracks from Pink Floyd, Animal Collective, and the lysergically inspired new "Two Weeks" video from Grizzly Bear.

Fizy delivered Roy Harper's dystopian classic from 1984, which I've never found online before.

It's not so good in other genres--its selection of Mingus tunes was weak compared with the full array offered by Grooveshark. Its search results could also be organized better--the not-exactly-obscure query "Stairway to Heaven" returned various instrumental and piano cover versions above the original Led Zeppelin classic.

But Fizy's a worthy competitor in an increasingly crowded space. More important, it shows that on-demand audio streaming sites are becoming like mushrooms--whenever the copyright owners shut one down, two new ones will pop up in its place.

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The jukebox in the sky is a reality. When I started this blog two years ago, it was all but impossible to open a Web browser, type a song name, and have that song start playing immediately. Now, it's commonplace.

Meuzer found Roy Harper's "The Game," while Grooveshark didn't.

I still like the simple approach of Grooveshark--the other night, my brother and I set up a running DJ battle on it to reminisce and introduce each other to new tunes--but Meuzer is an interesting alternative. Search on a song or artist name, and Meuzer pulls results from YouTube--very similar to the Muziic app I looked at earlier this year--as well as Imeem and other third-party sources. Click any of the results, and you get a four-arrow widget that lets you play, share, rate, or add the song to a playlist. Hit "play," and the song begins playing in an embedded window depending on the original source (a YouTube result begins playing a small YouTube video, for instance). Other features require you to log in, and currently the only way to do that is with a Facebook ID.

Meuzer seems to have a broader selection of music than Grooveshark: a search on Roy Harper's "The Game"--a song I couldn't find on Grooveshark for the DJ battle with my brother--got several results from YouTube. But I don't like the forced log-in, particularly for the essential playlist feature, and the search results aren't organized nearly as well. For instance, searching for the dub artist Scientist returned multiple results for "The Scientist" by Coldplay (eww) but no Scientist. On Grooveshark, I simply selected the Artists tab and the top 10 results were all Scientist tunes. Still, Meuzer could be a useful fallback for songs I can't find on other services.

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If you're not using Grooveshark to try out music on-demand before buying it, you should be. I've found no other service that offers its combination of simplicity, features, and song selection--10 million and growing, according to the organization.

Today, Grooveshark announced a couple of extensions that should increase awareness. If you're on Facebook like most of the world seems to be, Grooveshark Share Song will let you share any song in Grooveshark's database in only three steps. There are other Facebook apps that offer similar features--iLike has been offering full-song playback on Facebook since last August--but Grooveshark is impressive in its simplicity. It doesn't ask you to register. It doesn't try to get you to take quizzes or create playlists or listen to world exclusives. Just type a song name--you can add the artist if you want--then share it with individual friends or post it to your profile, and you're done.

That's really all there is to it.

Grooveshark also released a Wordpress plug-in that lets you post songs to your Wordpress blog, and a new API for its link-shortening service, Tinysong, which makes it easy for anybody with a Web page to create a short, simple link that goes directly to a song on Grooveshark. Simple enough for a rock musician to understand!

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Twisten is a new music service from the creators of Grooveshark. If you're listening to something and want to share it with your friends on Twitter you can simply type in the track name and it will automatically add a link for playback inside a tweet. Anyone who clicks it can listen to the entire thing for free over at Grooveshark Lite.

The service keeps an eye on Twitter for mentions of music tracks people are listening to and cross references the titles and artist information from the Grooveshark music database. If it finds a match, it inserts an embedded music player so you can listen to the track right there.

There are two sides to the service, one that culls everyone's tweets, and one for just your friends. In my case it only pulled up a single track from the 300 or so people I keep an eye on. Presumably if you have more friends (who post a lot of music) you'll find more things to listen to. The service also lets you bookmark tracks you like and send them to friends. You and your recipients have the option to listen to it in Twisten, or back over at Grooveshark Lite.

While neat, I didn't find the service as useful as Songly, which lets people download the music track you're sharing. It is, however, a far more automated process that won't require your friends to use something outside of their usual Twitter routine.

Twisten adds music links and a player to your Twitter messages.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Although there are a slew of music-streaming services across the Web, they're not created equal. But if you find the right service to match your music style, you'll quickly realize that finding the best song for a particular occasion isn't as hard as it once was.

Grooveshark

Including Grooveshark in the list of the top five music-streaming services may surprise some since it doesn't get the kind of attention Last.fm or Pandora does. But with the help of an outstanding search interface that lets users find a slew of songs by artist, album, or song, as well as a slick, Flash-based interface, it's one of the best streaming music services around.

Overall, the site's recommendation engine is outstanding and the relevance of the tracks it offered was superb. The ability to embed songs elsewhere across the Web with Grooveshark widgets is a nice touch, but the main issue facing Grooveshark is that its library is a bit too small. Sure, the company claims it offers a library of "millions" of songs, but many are duplicates and after listening for about 20 minutes or so, I heard the same songs again when I left the recommendation engine running. To limit that issue, I decided to create my own playlist of songs without using the recommendation engine. It allowed me to skip back to songs I had already heard and although it took more work than I would have liked, the experience was far more appealing that using the company's recommendation engine.

Last FM

Last.fm is great for the social-networking fanatic in all of us and its library of songs is superb. In fact, the service is equally capable of finding Louis Prima's "Angelina Zooma Zooma" as Coldplay's "Viva La Vida." Last.fm might just be another place to create a radio station to listen to songs that sound similar to your favorites, but it's the social element that adds appeal to the service. The ability to find out what friends are listening to is a welcome feature and the ease with which you can find songs makes Last.fm one of the easiest services to use.

There's not much to dislike about Last.fm. The service is simple to use, it offers extras like videos and lyrics to sweeten the pot, and generally does well when offering up new songs. But it's that recommendation engine that doesn't perform quite as well as Pandora's that takes away somewhat from the Last.fm experience. During my testing, the service did well on newer, more popular songs, but on more obscure tracks, it had difficulty delivering related songs. But if you're not into less-known artists or indie labels, I doubt you'll even notice.

Editor's note: Last.fm is owned by CBS, which also publishes CNET and CNET News. The author of this post is a freelance contributor to CNET, and his views on these products are his own.

MySpace Music

A relatively new entrant to the market, MySpace Music has quickly become one of the most appealing music streaming services on the Web. Its library of music is huge--it features songs from all the major labels and independents--and learning more about the artist and song was made easy thanks to MySpace's wealth of information for each track. Unlike Pandora, I was able to pick any songs I wished from the company's library and add it to a playlist that I could play an unlimited number of times. That may be a simple addition, but being able to repeat songs and choosing to play any one of the millions of tracks the service offers is an extremely appealing feature.

The main issue plaguing MySpace Music, though, is its poor interface that makes it too difficult to find music, create playlists, and get down to the business of listening to music. I realize the service is full of features, which is probably why it's so difficult for the company to cram all of it onto a page in a neat way, but something needs to be done to fix it before it can truly compete on the same level with well-designed services like Pandora and Last.fm.

Pandora

Pandora is easily one of the best music services on the Web. With a huge library of songs, an outstanding interface, and the best recommendation engine in the business, the service is a fine alternative to Last.fm. And with the help of a simple "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" system to tell the service if you like a song, Pandora's ability to find related songs that you actually enjoy is second to none.

But as appealing as its music service is, it's the general lack of social features that takes away from an otherwise outstanding service. Monitoring what your friends are listening to is practically impossible and connecting to others to share music is missing. Granted, the service, which is based off the Genome Project, specializes in providing music first and foremost, but as one of Last.fm's main competitors, it seems silly to me that a more appealing social element isn't included.

Rhapsody

Rhapsody may be one of the oldest services in the music streaming business, but it still packs quite a punch. Aside from playing songs, Rhapsody displays lyrics for most songs and I was even able to perform a few tunes myself thanks to karaoke tracks included in its library. And regardless of whether I was looking for the Velvet Underground or Britney Spears, I found any song I wanted without much trouble, thanks to a slick interface and a library of songs that's one of the largest on the market.

But for all its virtues, the biggest issue facing Rhapsody is its business model. To gain full access to its entire library of songs an unlimited number of times, as well as other features the service has to offer like personalized playlists, it requires users to dole out at least $12.99 per month. The company's free offering allows users to play 25 songs for free each month, but that limit dries up quickly. And considering most of the Rhapsody's competitors offer the same music for free, I'm hard-pressed to find a reason to use it when Pandora and Last.fm are providing their own, free alternative.

Last week GrooveShark released a really cool new widget-based playlist creation tool to take your GrooveShark and GrooveShark lite created playlists off-site. The new designer which lets you put together a playlist with tracks from both the GrooveShark's online catalog and your hard drive.

If you've been looking for a proper replacement for the currently-defunct Muxtape, this is even better. While I've been fairly impressed with solutions like Mixwit, a hybrid system like this lets you search for music you don't have, while letting you upload tracks that might not be available for streaming. GrooveShark's marketing rep Steve Spalding tells me this system is entirely sustainable since the company's got streaming deals in place with SESAC, ASCAP, and BMI, meaning the copyright-protected tracks you've uploaded won't result in a take-down of your music.

I've embedded an example widget below with a mix of tracks both from my laptop's music collection and a few tracks from GrooveShark's catalog. Worth noting is that the current system only accepts MP3s, meaning AAC or WMA tracks you've ripped in iTunes of Windows Media Player won't play. I'm told support for FLAC and other lossless formats is on the way. In any case, if it's a big name band or a popular track you're likely to find it with GrooveShark's built-in search tool.

Another thing worth noting is that the widget editor seems to be duplicating songs for no reason. After publishing a playlist I've had songs duplicate and triplicate with no explanation whatsoever, which you can see in action below. It's an annoying bug (especially with larger playlists), and hopefully it's fixed soon.

Update: GrooveShark developer Skyler Slade wrote in to let us know the duplicate bug's been fixed (see the comments), which you'll now see in the playlist below.

If you're a frequent Webware, reader you might remember Grooveshark, and Grooveshark Lite--two different but equally awesome music-sharing and listening tools. From those same folks comes TinySong, a bit of a play on large link sharing services like TinyURL. However, instead of sharing Web sites with your friends, you're linking them straight to the track.

The service uses the same built-in song search found in Grooveshark Lite, and will simply jump whoever opens the link right to the Web based jukebox. What's nice is whoever is searching will have the short link copied to their clipboard automatically. For popular songs there's also a fairly good diversity of variations and remixes.

One thing missing from TinySong is a way to make multi-song playlists, but you can simply use Grooveshark Lite and share the playlist link with a friend. See also services like MuxTape and Mixwit for such a task.

[via Delicious]

TinySong lets you search for songs hosted on the Web and share them with friends using a small, sharable link like you'd get on services like TinyURL.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Yesterday Grooveshark launched the newest iteration of its music service, Grooveshark Lite. It's a big step forward for the company, ditching the need to download anything and creating a cleaner, tighter version of its player that runs right in your browser.

The core of the service is still retained in the Lite version. You can track what's popular, get recommendations, and listen to your saved library of tracks. The big change is the interface. Built in Adobe Flex, it's snappy, beautiful, and incredibly intuitive. It definitely takes a hint from the iPod with simple hierarchical menus that snap back and forth, making it easy for new users to pick it up and get started.

My favorite feature of Lite is the new playlist builder, which lets you simply click a button to drop a song into a stack that sits at the bottom of the player. You can rearrange the tracks endlessly, or simply remove them by dragging them off the playlist where they vanish into oblivion. While there's no awesome explosion like deleting photos from Flickr's Organizr, it's very satisfying and a marked improvement from the previous iteration.

Grooveshark Lite lets you search and browse music from all over and play it right in your browser without the need to download or install software. (Click to enlarge)

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Steve Spalding, who does consulting work for Grooveshark, tells me the company has every intention of keeping the downloadable Sharkbyte client around. They just wanted to fulfill one of the top user requests of being able to access the music library while at a work machine, or other places where an install is not possible.

With the move to the Web, Grooveshark joins a packed market of other music players. With services like Last.fm, iLike, Seeqpod, Pandora, Simplify Media, and MediaMaster among some of the more notable music discovery and sharing services, Grooveshark is the only one with a revenue model that pays users back. For more on that read our hands-on from September.