SONGBIRD, Mozilla’s entry into the digital music player arena, finally hit it’s version 1.0 release recently and those of us who’ve used the program before were anxious to see what improvements the new release added. For my part, I was happy to find the application was a little less clunky and cumbersome than previous versions.


For those that haven’t used Songbird, it has two main selling points. One is that it’s by Mozilla, everybody’s favourite open-source app company. And the other is the unique integration of a web-browser inside the player.

Now, having a web-browser inside your music player offers one obvious benefit; having complete control over and access to your music collection while you surf the Web. But some clever coding in the out-of-the-box Songbird package makes far better use of the possibilities, making it easy for even the most musically-challenged Top 40 listener to become a music ninja in no time.

Find New Stuff:

Songbird comes with three pre-packaged tricks that make it absurdly easy to expand your music collection with minimal effort and maximum exposure.

Firstly there’s the SHOUTcast Internet radio server. Produced by Nullsoft (the people who whipped the llama’s ass with Winamp). The SHOUTcast package in Songbird includes hundreds of streaming stations organised conveniently into genre categories. If you can’t find at least one station you like in the list, you need to get your hearing checked (my personal favourite is idobe Radio).

Secondly is the Skreemr MP3 search plug-in. Just as Mozilla’s Firefox has a search-box in the control bar, so does it’s sibling, Songbird. Instead of searching Google, however, Songbird’s search default is Skreemr, a site that finds and aggregates MP3 files based on search criteria. Go to the Skreemr site in Firefox and you can find and listen to music files from just about any artist you care to type in. Perform the same search using the Songbird search-box, however, and something amazing happens; within seconds of your search results being returned, Songbird compiles them into a playlist and offers you a handy ‘Download’ button beside each track, letting you add them instantly to your permanent music collection.

Both of these are handy features in their own right, but it’s the integration between them that makes the real magic happen. Most of the stations you can tune into through SHOUTcast broadcast the track name and artist to the ‘Now Playing’ window in Songbird and the Skreemr plug-in lets you perform a search using the track that is currently playing as search criteria. So, if you’re tuned into a SHOUTCAST station and you hear a track you like, you can simply click in the Skreemr search-box and have more songs by the same artist served up on a digital, DRM-free platter. Awesome, no?

Become a Guru:

OK, so you’re using the Songbird features above and finding new favourite artists left and right, what now? Well, with the addition of a few simple add-ons (a la Firefox…this IS Mozilla, after all) you can learn all there is to know about your new fave bands with a single click.

The add-ons repositories for Songbird offer plug-ins for two great music info sources; Wikipedia and AMG’s AllMusic (which has been my go-to site for some time). Install either of these add-ons (or, like me, both, just to be sure) and you can easily open new panes in the player showing all the facts and figures available for the current artist or song. Study up while you’re download MP3s through Skreemr and amaze your friends with, not only the breadth of your musical knowledge, but also it’s depth.

If you want to take learning about your favourite bands even further, however, Songbird offers another unique service with it’s ‘Concerts’ feature. With a single click Songbird will search through your music collection and let you know if any of the artists in it are touring your part of the world in the near future. If none of your faves are scheduled to hit your town, however, you needn’t close the tab empty-handed, as Songbird also offers you the option to see details of any concerts happening in your neck of the woods, regardless of whether the act is in your music collection or not. So now there’s no excuse, beside poverty, for missing that next Pink Spiders gig.

Tell the World:

Of course, you can’t get the props you deserve as a music ninja unless you show your new-found knowledge off a little. This is where another Songbird add-on steps up to help you out. LiveTweeter, as the name suggests, lets you Tweet the details of your current track directly from Songbird (it also has track support for a few of the major IM clients). Options in the Preferences section let you store your Twitter login details, choose whether each song played is automatically Tweeted (to really annoy your followers) and personalise your Tweets with an appended message (something like; “Listening to:”).

The one drawback I’ve found with LiveTweeter is that, if you’re listening to a SHOUTcast station, a Tweet sent from LiveTweeter will only pick up the station’s details, not the current track, even if the station itself is sending track info to Songbird. But, then again, against all of the other awesomeness that the Songbird lays at your feet, I think I can overlook this minor failing.

So that’s it, three easy steps to use Songbird to expand your musical knowledge and become a real music ninja. Seriously,  it couldn’t be any easier. So get out there and get amongst it.