Songbird [finally] Sings
That’s right; it’s been a long and painful wait - for all involved, developers and future users alike - but at long last Songbird 0.1 Alpha has been released!
What can Songbird do?
Utilising the same powerful technology that powers Mozilla Firefox (amongst others), this newest entrant into the Media Player war is sure to be a BIG contender! Beyond the simple functions you would expect of an mp3 player - Listen, Organise, Rip and Burn - Songbird offers it’s users an unprecedented level of connectivity to music and music-related services on the internet.
The difference between the Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers is substantial, but it’s nothing like the difference between iTunes or Windows Music and Songbird.
[Rob Lord, Songbird’s Lead Developer to BoingBoing]
The only thing you will have seen that could even compare to what Songbird seeks to do is the iTunes Music Store, and as Lord says, “Songbird is to iTunes what the Firefox browser is to… AOL.” With this program, you will be able to download and play music directly from your favourite music blog, access internet radio stations and P2P networks directly, conduct live searches for lyrics and other information, and a whole plethora of other activities - all through the one interface: your new hub of Musical explorations.
How can Songbird do all of these things?
Earlier I mentioned that Songbird runs on the engine that powers Firefox. It’s actually fairly accurate to say that Songbird is itself a web browser - of sorts… One could even go so far as to say that the Songbird interface is nothing but a fancy web-page! But that’s getting awfully technical and confuses even someone like me, let alone the poor sod who just uses Firefox because everyone says it’s better [Kudos to you!]
But a web browser; sure! Songbird is essentially a hacked up, pimped out version of a Mozilla browser which sees the web as a carrier of music. It will pick mp3’s right out of the the text on a page and display them in a list for your listening pleasure; to Songbird, every webpage is a potential playlist - even this one 
Note: For those wondering where all this talk of web browsing leaves Songbird’s ability to play media; it uses the popular video player VLC for all of its [many] codecs.
Can Songbird do more?
Yes! And that’s the truly exciting thing about it! Being built on Firefox’s XUL, Songbird will boast the same adaptiveness and extensibility that has helped make Firefox the people’s choice in web software. Want Songbird to synchronise with your iPod (who doesn’t want to get rid of iTunes!?) - Songbird’s developers can’t make it; apple would shut them down… but John Doe certainly can!
But that’s just the start. John’s wife Jane can go a step further and make it synchronise with ANY portable mp3 player, or maybe have it access lyrics from a list of your favourite song and compose the words into an award-winning essay on the real consumer benefits of pharmaceutical isolationism (damn, you listen to some strange music!)
The point is; where Songbird’s development stops, it’s status as Open Source software and the extensibility of the code it runs on will enable end users to take over, developing extensions to perform functions undreamed of even by the program’s coders! That’s the power of XUL, that’s the power of Open Source, and that will be the power of this exciting new program!
As for this Alpha release… well let’s just re-iterate the fact that it’s meant only as a preview and leave it at that…
February 10th, 2006 at 4:23 am
Nice software, but I prefer Winamp by far.
September 29th, 2006 at 6:41 pm
hmm… i found it before, i’ve tried using it, but havent gotten it to work yet, i cant even get it to boot…
December 3rd, 2008 at 5:35 pm
I just updated my version today, I actually had to update twice I guess my version was pretty old, but I really love the concert plugin, any one with songbird should give it a try.