Webware

I have received requests for an inclusive index of all 300 of the Webware 100 finalists. So if you're looking for a particular product in the Webware 100, check out this alphabetical list of all of them. Click through to the product's category page to read more about it and cast a vote.

As of this writing, we've recorded more than 840,000 unique Webware 100 product votes. That's already more than we got last year! We think this highlights how important Web-based apps are becoming to mainstream technology users--the audience that CNET aims to serve with this site, as we currently do with Download.com and CNET.com itself.

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For some reason, I had never heard of Qloud until getting a release yesterday about it celebrating the registering of more than a million users via its Facebook application, which launched three months ago. The service hooks up with your iTunes library and scraps together any versions of the songs it can find hosted online, while taking advantage of your iTunes XML file to include such niceties as play counts and the last time you listened a song.

It manages to do this with a (Windows only) plug-in that installs itself on whatever machine your iTunes library resides in. It will periodically keep tabs on your iTunes XML file, which is the one that has all your track names and metadata for playlist organization, play counts, and song data. It then cross references this list with any legally hosted versions of the songs online, and will play them with an embedded player right in the app.

The company says that after installing the plug-in, it takes 15 to 20 minutes for your library to appear. My 50GB library managed to make it in about 12 minutes, and to my surprise, a great deal of it made the cut from metadata to music--although nearly every song was a video from YouTube.

Get a list of your iTunes music aggregated automatically so you can listen to your music in Facebook with Qloud. Just be wary, a lot of the content isn't top-notch like this shaky fan-made concert video.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

What was apparent from the get-go with this app is that it's not quite a replacement for some of the other music-streaming services out there, like Orb, MediaMaster (coverage), and Simplify Media (coverage). Many of the fairly popular bands I had in my library had music videos with decent audio, but the majority were live recordings from concerts made by fans. This translates to bad video, and even worse audio. Audiophiles will not be pleased, nor will those who enjoy a particular version of a song that's on their library, be it live or an alternate studio recording.

MediaMaster is a Web based jukebox and music storage service we've covered a few times here on Webware. It launched in mid-March, and has since gone on to roll out a successful Facebook app, and a directory of user-created radio stations, which are playlists people have decided to share. In a nutshell, the service lets you upload your music and manage it in a Flash-based jukebox that's about as easy to use as Apple's iTunes software. Today they're launching their mobile service, which lets anyone with a Palm Treo or a Windows Mobile handset access their playlists or individual songs while on the go.

You don't get full access to your library (which would be nice), but it's incredibly simple to start listening to a playlist. Just login to the mobile version of the site, plug in your login credentials, and see all your playlists on one page. To get going, just click the "Listen" link, and your music starts playing in whatever order you've set for the playlist. I also managed to download individual song files to my phone from each of my playlists when going through Internet Explorer mobile and visiting each playlist's "info" section. Media Master recommends installing Green Software's GSPlayer to stream the music files; otherwise IE simply doesn't know what to do with the URLs. Palm Treo users get a slightly better end of the deal, as Palm's browser recognizes the URLs and will start streaming right away.

This is a good first effort from MediaMaster, although without the GSPlayer on Windows Mobile handsets, it's not nearly as friendly on the eyes as solutions from Orb, or some of the file-sharing services that offer mobile access for media files (e.g. Box.net). I also don't see much merit in accessing music files on your phone unless you're in a pinch, or have a phone with a 3.5mm headphone jack. Considering most handsets running Palm and Windows Mobile likely didn't come with these jacks until recently, owners of older models are stuck listening through the built-in speaker or carrying special 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter to get their music on without perturbing others.

MediaMaster is one of many companies worth keeping an eye on, mainly for the potential of having your entire music library available anywhere you go, as long as you've got an Internet connection. Their Facebook app, which went live just a few weeks ago, is a prime example of a great use of the service.

The app lets you set up a huge playlist of music, and serve it up right on your profile in a miniplayer. Anyone who comes by your profile can then get the full quality versions of the tracks streamed in whatever order you set up. Uploading and rearranging tracks is all managed at MediaMaster's site, and once you're done, the site will jump you back to Facebook. The best part--your friends don't have to install a thing to enjoy the fruits of your labor. There are also quick button presets to play the track list in Winamp, iTunes, or Windows Media Player, in case you want to subscribe to the station or feel like venturing off the profile page.

The Facebook app is an extension of the radio feature, which the company unveiled earlier this month. To take it beyond Facebook, you can give a direct URL of the playlist to your friends, or plug it into a smart phone. If you've got a speedy mobile data connection, you'll be able to stream your music to your phone from anywhere you get range.

The one major drawback at this point is the lack of playlist controls. The inline player merely plays the stream from beginning to end, with no real control for playing music on demand the way you can on other popular Facebook music apps like iLike, Last.fm, and even Box.net's file-sharing widget. At this point you're limited to finding out whatever the song's track name and artist are from the radio stream's metadata.

The real killer app MediaMaster has over the others is its core service, which at this point feels a lot like an online version of iTunes. You can find our hands-on take on the service earlier this year here.

Friends and profile visitors alike can listen to your own custom playlist any time they want, right on your profile or on their favorite music jukebox software.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

• AOL relaunches its news service. AOL relaunched its news service with an all-new design earlier this morning. In addition to adding an extra column, it now features some Web 2.0 goodies such as a tag cloud of popular story headlines, and the most-read stories and comment threads. The service will also aggregate news from other sites. Read more about it here.

• CircleUp launches embeddable widget. CircleUp [review], the social-planning service has a new widget called MyQuestions that lets people add their questions and subsequent list or responses to blogs, Web sites, or social-networking profiles. Users can interact with these widgets and respond without having to leave the site.

• MediaMaster adds iTunes importing. Users of MediaMaster [review] are now able to import music from their iTunes music libraries. They can also view their songs in a new list view that shows all their tracks. The team is currently working on a Facebook app to let users share their music libraries on user profiles, similar to Last.fm's efforts.

MediaMaster is a Web-based jukebox service that launched last week. MediaMaster gives users free storage space to upload their tunes and listen to them anywhere they have Internet access. The interface is clean, simple, and intuitive--if you're used to iTunes or Windows Media Player you'll feel right at home. Users can upload their tunes with two uploaders, a simple one for a few tracks and an advanced version that lets you simply drag and drop files from file folders right into the uploader.

Once your tracks are uploaded, you can create and manage playlists, rate individual songs, and share your music with others with embeddable widgets for blogs, Web sites, and social networking profiles.

MediaMaster has a lot of personality. Having an incomplete album will give album art a little "bite mark" out of it. Its radio station feature gives you a URL to publish so people can subscribe and listen to your customized playlists or music recommendations.

For copyright concerns, neither the widget or radio subscriptions actually give people copies of your music, it's all streamed. Likewise, there's no way for you to download the music once it's been uploaded, it can only be deleted.

For now, the service offers unlimited storage space, with plans to cap off user accounts at 4GB. There's also planned iPod integration. MediaMaster will let users upload any unprotected MP3, WMA, and M4A (AAC) file, complete with album art if it's within the file's metadata. Give it a spin here.

(Credit: CNET Networks)