Although still only in a preview release, ArtsWom could not wait to test-drive Songbird - the open source project being billed as the Firefox of media players. Considering that the quality of our writing is in direct proportion to the volume of the music we’re listening to, the fate of the entire ArtsWom blog rested in the small, feathery hands of this ambitious, little media player.

For the majority of music fans (who migrated from Microsoft’s offering to iTunes years ago) the layout of Songbird will come as no surprise with the ability to browse your library reassuringly similar to Apple’s flagship jukebox. Songbird can handle pretty much any file type you throw at it and synchs to your iPod without breaking a sweat – even in this early stage of its development. If the more recent iterations of iTunes have been proving a bit too bloated for your liking, Songbird offers a lighter alternative and will prove an effortless switch.
However, where Songbird flies ahead of the flock is in it’s ability to ‘play the web’. With built-in browser capabilities (based on the Firefox web browser platform), Songbird allows you to view the web from the noisy confines of your media player. What’s more, as you browse across music blogs (several of which are handily already included in your bookmarks) Songbird automatically picks out all the media off the page and is ready to play them back to you as easily as if they were saved onto your computer. With a built-in search box already linked to a variety of music and media based online search engines, discovering new music has never been easier. See the screencast guide to all of Songbird’s features here.
Please note that Songbird is currently only available as a pre-release preview and may be a bit buggy, but ArtsWom have been playing with our feathery friend for a couple of days now and have yet to experience any major hiccups. Admittedly, a strange compulsion to listen to the theme tune for ‘The Littlest Hobo’ on repeat all morning may have limited the extent to which we were able to test the software, but we regret nothing.
Does Songbird have the potential to be an iTunes beater? What do you make of the software? Let us know…