Playable Music Search

[captobvious]

The thread about Pandora reminded me of another music site I recently discovered.

SeeqPod is a "playable search" engine that scours the Web for music in both audio and video formats. Type in an artist or song, and you can play the results immediately. You can add songs to playlists that can be embedded in other web pages or shared via email. There is also a "Discover" button that will recommend other songs based on what you typed in the search box.

[SSJTWIZTA]

i love you

[captobvious]

Originally Posted by SSJTWIZTA

i love you

i love you too

[Craven Morehead]

Feel the love

Really cool

Great find

[biznatch]

Amazing. Thanks^1000

[Push-Pull]

Doesn't seem to play too nicely with FireFox. Can't go to the next page in a search result....

Still, seems very cool. I'll see if I can't get it to work.

[Redlemon]

Originally Posted by Push-Pull

Doesn't seem to play too nicely with FireFox. Can't go to the next page in a search result....

Still, seems very cool. I'll see if I can't get it to work.

WFM on Firefox 2.0.0.8 on Mac OSX 10.4.9. Perhaps it's an extension problem or a missing plugin?

[captobvious]

Originally Posted by Push-Pull

Doesn't seem to play too nicely with FireFox. Can't go to the next page in a search result....

Still, seems very cool. I'll see if I can't get it to work.

Works for me using Firefox 2.0.0.8 and Windows XP. According to the site you just need Flash player and Javascript enabled. Maybe check to see if you're up to date on Flash player and have Javascript enabled?

[Push-Pull]

I'm current on FF, Java, and Flash. Only happens in the results box where there is a large number of results, or a remainder. For example, if there is over 100 hits, for whatever reason, it defaults back to the first page after a second or two. And if there is a last page with only a few results, same thing, it reverts back to the first page.

Still, cool site, I'll be playing with it.

[Redlemon]

Originally Posted by Push-Pull

I'm current on FF, Java, and Flash. Only happens in the results box where there is a large number of results, or a remainder. For example, if there is over 100 hits, for whatever reason, it defaults back to the first page after a second or two. And if there is a last page with only a few results, same thing, it reverts back to the first page.

Still, cool site, I'll be playing with it.

Heh - I'm lucky to get one hit on the searches I put in there. I've never had hundreds.

[Sion]

Now THIS I like...VERY COOL!

[captobvious]

Originally Posted by Redlemon

Heh - I'm lucky to get one hit on the searches I put in there. I've never had hundreds.

Not even one? What kind of stuff are you searching for??

[Redlemon]

Originally Posted by captobvious

Not even one? What kind of stuff are you searching for??

Stuff like "Shoop Shoop Diddy Wop Cumma Cumma Wang Dang" by Monte Video and the Cassettes. It's been in my head for months, and I can't find it anywhere.

[Leto]

but, getting back to the thread...

I love you.

[nlsweden]

wow, coool!!! thanx!

[absorbentishe]

Awesome without a doubt!

[captobvious]

Originally Posted by Leto

but, getting back to the thread...

I love you.

Haha...I love you too, man.

[Jetée]

[Hain]

Originally Posted by Push-Pull

Doesn't seem to play too nicely with FireFox. Can't go to the next page in a search result....

Still, seems very cool. I'll see if I can't get it to work.

I am with you. I am on the FF3 beta and my searches do not work. It works perfectly in the IE emulator. Worse, when I try to access the seeqpod homepage in FF, and then try to play some of the playlists in music, it freaks out and doesn't work.

[Jetée]

It was around a month or two ago that I had issues accessing seeqpod, and it was only about 10 days ago that I decided to see what was up. And now, nearly two weeks later, did I remember that this news might also be relevant to you good folks here, seeing as how the TFP community so absolutley embraced the site's cool functionality to produce songs.

I found this article: SeeqPod CEO: Major Lawsuits Are 'Non-Issue,' Acquisition Imminent | Epicenter and besides being "acquired", it had to file for bankruptcy beforhand

April 27, 2009

Music search engine SeeqPod is on the verge of being acquired by a major new media company, CEO Kasian Franks told wired.com Monday, which he hopes will let his company partner with, rather than battle, the major record labels currently trying to sue it out of existence.

Franks wouldn’t name the White Knight but said the company was large enough to convince the major labels to license rather than crush his search technology — which hosts no infringing files, but lets users play and collect MP3s that are scattered around the internet. SeeqPod is now in “final acquisition talks,” with little more than the transfer of payment needed to finalize the transaction.

Once that happens, he says, the company that’s acquiring SeeqPod will use its technology to search for not only music, but “most other file types” as well — videos, Flash animations, and so on.

Full Article w/o the Site Jump   click to show 

Music search engine SeeqPod is on the verge of being acquired by a major new media company, CEO Kasian Franks told wired.com Monday, which he hopes will let his company partner with, rather than battle, the major record labels currently trying to sue it out of existence.

Franks wouldn’t name the White Knight but said the company was large enough to convince the major labels to license rather than crush his search technology — which hosts no infringing files, but lets users play and collect MP3s that are scattered around the internet. SeeqPod is now in “final acquisition talks,” with little more than the transfer of payment needed to finalize the transaction.

Once that happens, he says, the company that’s acquiring SeeqPod will use its technology to search for not only music, but “most other file types” as well — videos, Flash animations, and so on.

“The litigation is a non-issue in respect to people at the top,” said Franks. “I wish we could go to talk to Barry Diller, who is the owner of IAC [which operates Ask, Citysearch, Evite and other properties] — Warner’s on the board there too — and tell him, ‘you know what, we’re going to execute a lateral partnership across Warner Music, Sony and Universal.’

“I’m not in that position right now,” continued Franks. “I’m primarily a technologist, so I don’t have the social capital that it takes to execute on something like that. But our partners do. You know how that works, right? These guys are going to talk to their buddies, and they’ll execute on a partnership that will alleviate the lawsuit.”

He pointed to Apple, Google, Live Nation as other examples of companies large enough — and with the right connections — to convince the labels to drop the suits and license SeeqPod.

“Our partner is in that position,” explained Franks.


Since its launch in 2006, SeeqPod has consistently impressed us with the way it unites music scattered around the internet into one interface, like an iPod whose hard drive is the cloud. Despite hosting no music, SeeqPod has faced heavy legal pressure, first from Warner and then from EMI. Both claim the search engine infringes on their music copyrights. Backed into a corner, the site filed for bankruptcy, began selling its core code for $5,000 a copy, and put itself on the market.

An outage knocked Seeqpod out over the weekend. Because recently new music services seem either to capitulate (Muxtape) or to offer the labels equity in their companies (MySpace) after being sued, there was widespread speculation that the end was nigh for SeeqPod.

Not so, Kasian told us. “The site is down, based on moving some servers here and there, and we have experienced an outage, and that’s based on a database crash.”

While it will save his company, selling it was not Franks’ first choice, and it won’t make him rich: the economy and major label litigation forced his hand in selling now, at a considerable loss to investors, who had pumped an estimated $7 million into the company. It could be a dangerous precedent for other search innovators, who had previously considered themselves protected by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which says search engines can link to whatever they want so long as they remove allegedly infringing links when notified by copyright holders.

“The record industry threats and lawsuits against SeeqPod, Muxtape, MP3Tunes, Veoh, and other hosting and search companies are sending a clear message to entrepreneurs,” Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Freedom Foundation, told wired.com. “If you’re going to build your business around the DMCA safe harbors, you also need a litigation war chest to defend against the record industry lawyers. But if you have been careful about complying with the DMCA safe harbors and can afford the lawyers, the courts are coming out the right way (see UMG v. Veoh).”

If the acquisition is finalized, which Franks says it has to be within the next two months, he will be “kicked out” of the company, but he doesn’t seem to mind. What’s important to him, he says, is seeing SeeqPod’s technology survive. In addition to selling SeeqPod to this mystery company, he says he’ll carry on his work with other companies, including one in which existing SeeqPod staff will support the “hundreds” of companies that already run on SeeqPod’s API, ostensibly for $100K per year and up.

“We’re looking at an ecosystem that’s going to change search,” predicted Franks. “Google is the mainframe of search, while SeeqPod is looking at search — playable search — as a distributed system, or grid, that needs to be supported. Litigation, for us, is just a distraction at this point.”

SeeqPod’s search engine allows people to listen to and share playlists made from the music hiding in plain sight on the internet, but according to Franks, it can be part of a model in which artists and copyright holders are paid.

“Music is like a comet,” he said. “A comet has a tail. If the comet didn’t have a tail, it would be an asteroid. And the only value in an asteroid is its death. When it hits a planet, it actually creates something, and that’s it. A piece of music — the value of a piece of art, or music, or content — has to do with everything that surrounds it.”

By this, he said he was referring to merchandise, show tickets, and whatever other ways artists and copyright holders come up with for monetizing music.

“Artists, throughout history, from the dawn of humanity, have always created new, innovative ways to monetize their art, whether it was with public performances, be it Ovid or Shakespeare, or whether it was published works that were sold,” said Franks. “We need to think in those terms, and I think search engines will play a big role in that.”

[SSJTWIZTA]

just throwing another one into the mix.

mixturtle

[Craven Morehead]

Originally Posted by SSJTWIZTA

just throwing another one into the mix.

mixturtle

Based on the song titles I came up with, I'm guessing this plays the audio of YouTube videos. Maybe?

[Jetée]

I've noticed that quite a few music search engines play upon this new 'animal' theme, including: Grooveshark & Beemp3

[Glory's Sun]

heh thanks I was wondering what was up with seeqpod..

and I like grooveshark the best out of the animal search sites.