Analysis: Mozilla Songbird Does Music, But Can It Be A Hit?
Mozilla's most popular offering is the Firefox browser, trailing Internet Explorer as the Web browser of choice. Mozilla's e-mail and news client, Thunderbird, has made some noise in the tech world as well.
There have been a number of apps spawned from the Mozilla ideology, and while not part of the Mozilla application suite per se, they do utilize the Mozilla framework of being open-source and cross-platform. Songbird is one such app. Songbird 0.5 is the Mozilla counterpart to Apple's iTunes and has recently been released in final version.
But before we strike up the Test Center band, what does it mean for VARs?
The very thing that makes open-source apps so exciting for many may be off-putting for business use: they are very feature-rich and designed to be customized by developers. Perhaps these applications are a bit too unrestricted for business use. Applications like these are not proprietary. So, if an open-source apps blows away a customer's mission-critical data, who can you hold accountable? Really, no one (although your customer would certainly take you to task).
Open source is still not an area to be dismissed, however. The fact that programs of this genre are constantly being modified means that they are often souped up with the latest enhancements. Songbird is a great application for the development-inclined who are looking for the ultimate digital media experience. The Mozilla-based platform apps may not be the way to go yet for line-of-business and mission-critical programs, but the customization capabilities are not easily dismissed. Following the evolutionary trends of a less-critical application like Songbird gives VARs a road map into the future of open-source application development and how it can be used for more critical purposes.
Now here's the lowdown on the application. Although based on iTunes, the default look of both Songbird and iTunes seems to convey different imagery: iTunes has a metallic, almost robotic look of efficiency while Songbird opens up to an inky black backdrop that somehow looks subversive.
They are both media players offering a host of extra functionality. iTunes looks somewhat neater and if you like your media files easy to get--with one-stop shopping--may be the preferred of the two.
Songbird lets one tinker more and there is a lot of interactivity with the Web. Plus, it's platform-agnostic and runs on Windows, Linux and Mac. Yes, iTunes has the iTunes Store and there are those popular podcasts—a word that has become a part of the daily vernacular. Songbird offers SkreemR--a search that lets you find more mainstream music, and there are two additional searches that focus on a lot of new, indie music. Songbird even lets you link up to "music blogs," blogs that feature music, tour dates and a plethora of information about your favorite musicians.
Songbird has a host of downloadable extensions, among them are some that interact with Wikipedia (open up the Wiki entry for the artist's track you are playing) and those that provide interoperability with iTunes. Other add-ons include mashTape, which allows you to mix and mash up a variety of Web sources for your library collection. There are also developers' tools; APIs for both desktop and Web.
It's apparent that Songbird flies higher in status than just as a media player. It's an application quilt that patches in media, Web sites, and streams it all into one Web 2.0-style solution. Plus, you can change the look of Songbird using the Feathers add-ons--which are skins for birds, get it?
Even with all these features and customization capabilities, Songbird running on XP SP3 as compared to iTunes running on a comparably spec'd Mac seemed to run a bit slower. Some users may not be comfortable plugging in their credit-card info to purchase tracks into the multiple online music stores that Songbird uses. Also, there remains the issue of burning CDs in Songbird, a functionality still not available (buzz is that may come with a future 1.0 release).