GrooveShark alpha
GrooveShark is a web application intended to create a new business model for music, being legal and yet using all the things that make p2p networks a success (including getting music for free). As they say in their blog,
Grooveshark is a web-based application for sharing music within a community of music lovers. We distribute DRM-free MP3s across a mostly p2p network.Adding to that, it also has a lot of social features, that you're used to see in other services like Last.fm.
In the 26th of March they started their limited alpha release (click there to request an account), and yesterday I got an invite to be part of it. The thing with it is that GooveShark isn't 100% web, and it has a lot of stuff (including registering) that can only be done with their desktop application. At least for now that application has only a Windows and a Mac OS version, so I wasn't able to try it. I tried to run in on top of wine, but I couldn't (something to do with the instalation of the JRE). Well, that at least tells me that the application is written in Java, so I guess it will be easy to do a Linux version, and I surely hope they do it. I wrote them an email asking about it but had no reply until now. Well, I guess that I'll have to wait until they wake up ;-) As soon as I have a reply about it I'll write it here.
Until then... Mashable also got an invite, and they covered GooveShark in their blog. So, if you're interested, take a look at it here.
Hey Marcos!
ReplyDeleteRefresh your inbox; you should have an email from me in there now. :-)
Anyway, thanks for the review! And as I said in the email, the Linux version is very much underway--we have a few important issues to clear up and then it should be good to go.
Also, we're definitely aware of the stigma of downloadable apps associated with web applications, and it's an unfortunate issue to have to work around when building a p2p network. Our basic stance on it is this: we use the downloadable application to do only the things that *can't* be done on the web side.
When it comes down to it, that includes mainly library monitoring and file transfers. Other than that, just about everything (including registration) is done on the web-side. While we're private, though, registration is turned off either way.
We're working on trying to make sure that the downloadable app is as unobtrusive as possible, and we try to keep the majority of user interaction on the website. Just like Bittorrent has .torrent files to launch their app and Limewire has... well, their entire application... we have to work around the limitations of what the web-based code can handle.
Thanks again... see you on Grooveshark!
Hi there,
ReplyDeleteYes, I've read your reply and replied to it :-)
Regarding the client, if it really has to be off-the-web (and yes, I believe it is), then you could build it as a browser plugin instead (or in parallel with) the standalone client.
Good call... that was our original plan, but we opted for a standalone app (for the time being, at least) so we wouldn't be dependent on each individual browser's integration standards.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure one day we'll be putting together browser plugins as another step toward being as web-based as possible for a p2p network. I'll definitely keep you posted. :-)