SongTwit Gives Users Another Service for Swapping Songs on Twitter
Over the past week or so, we've encountered several sites that offer file-sharing services via Twitter. Though some of our commenters are dubious about the userfulness, legality, and peer-to-peer nature of the services, we generally like the idea of using Twitter to send documents, presentations, and...
Oh, let's be honest. Each for our own reasons, we want to send one another songs online, usually as illegally downloaded and shared MP3s; and Twitter seems like a more interesting way of doing that than email. We've discovered a new site that lets us send songs as MP3s on our hard drives, as MP3s hosted on a website, or even as YouTube videos or imeem audio clips plucked from the app's library. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you SongTwit!
The site, which is still in its infancy, gives users a three-step process for sending music via Twitter. First, the user finds the song. As aforementioned, the song could be on a website, on a user's hard drive, or in the SongTwit library, which seems to consist of third party-hosted audio clips (this seems fine for web-based sharing, but we wonder how well it will work for various mobile devices):
If the user is working from the SongTwit library, he is presented with a range of selections and is able to preview the song/video before it goes out as a tweet:
The user then provides his Twitter username and password and a message of 115 characters or fewer. The tweet is sent (publicly or as a reply; the creators are still working on DMs); and the world rejoices.
When other users click the SongTwit link, they are redirected to a SongTwit page with a little custom player (video for YouTube clips is minimized) and the original sender's message:
There are a few flaws of the service, aside from the DM-less-ness. No downloads from these pages are yet available, and they're still working on the broken pause button on the media players.
Still, the search function really does help save time that would likely have been spent trolling YouTube for clips of that one Venga Boys song from 1999. And that's what the Internet is for, no?
We'd love to see musicians using Twitter more for blatant self-promotion, and this would be an excellent way to send fans demos or previews of new songs. The download function would be an excellent addition to the service for this use case alone. Then again, without the download function, that's one more piece of content the musician doesn't have to completely give away for nothing while not denying the fans who really just want to listen.
Facebook
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteWeb posts
I think these services won't last too long. They're just illegal.
Actually, that's not completely true.
For example, consider the use case I presented with regard to musicians. I actually tested the service by sending a tweet with a demo I wrote and recorded last year. It'd be AWESOME (and completely legal) for musicians to publicize their work this way.
As for the illegality of it, I shied away from talking about this in the text of the article, but SongTwit's library draws entirely on other services, as far as we could see. So, if a video is shared on YouTube, whether legally or illegally, it's hardly SongTwit's problem. And some of the videos shared on YouTube are completely legal. Artists and record labels have their official channels for a reason: Listening to free music online is necessary for users, period.
We're no longer at a point where consumers will buy an album, sight unseen and tracks unheard.
Sure, SongTwit could be used for illegal file-sharing, as I facetiously pointed out in my introductory paragraphs. However, the files can't be downloaded, so it's not true file-sharing. In fact, it's the most beneficial kind, from a commercial recording artist's POV: Let people listen without downloading, and let them decide whether it's worth what iTunes or CD Baby is charging.
In conclusion, SongTwit in itself is doing nothing illegal, and I don't think it's technically facilitating illegal file-sharing.
It's the same as BLIP.FM, except Blip works isolated from Twitter too... If you have accounts both on Twitter and Blip, any music (and now Youtube videos too) you blip will also be tweeted.
This is very good especially to those music lovers who are also twitting.
What I hate about SongTwit is that it automatically makes you follow @sngtwt on Twitter.
Posted by: loucypher.tumblr.com
|
May 31, 2009 6:57 PM
This would be yet another great tool for people to publicize their music.
Good post very interesting. I think all the music lover's will like this.
"...SongTwit's library draws entirely on other services, as far as we could see." Yup, search for "metallica". They've been scoured from the legal services.
"So, if a video is shared on YouTube, whether legally or illegally, it's hardly SongTwit's problem." Heh, tell that to The Pirate Bay. ;) I agree with you in theory, and I think unless they get massive traffic and start making lots of money, they won't be much of a target.