Is it kosher to allow anyone to embed full-length song streams into their site? That is, the full-length song streams of major label artists, independent artists, and any other artist for that matter? We've heard that labels have been hesitant to hand out this right—for obvious reasons—though Grooveshark is marching forward with this very cool feature. The build-out looks early stage, though definitely functional.
So how does it work? Well, almost exactly like a YouTube embed, that's how. Except Grooveshark enables embeds of entire playlists—even those created by others in the massive Grooveshark community. Like this:
There are also lots of customization tools, though we found it difficult to successfully manipulate and save customized playlists. Some of these bugs are probably being worked on right now.
Regardless, all of this puts Grooveshark at a serious advantage over rivals like Spotify and Rdio. For example, Spotify requires playlist recipients to access shared playlists within the Spotify application—that is, where available. Rdio even has an incredible in-app Twitter-sharing feature, though songs can only be accessed by fellow subscribers.
And, on our end, we've been trying to create a 'playable chart' using the backend of MediaNet Digital, but couldn't get more than 30-second clips. They just didn't have the licenses.
So how does it work? Well, almost exactly like a YouTube embed, that's how. Except Grooveshark enables embeds of entire playlists—even those created by others in the massive Grooveshark community. Like this:
There are also lots of customization tools, though we found it difficult to successfully manipulate and save customized playlists. Some of these bugs are probably being worked on right now.
Regardless, all of this puts Grooveshark at a serious advantage over rivals like Spotify and Rdio. For example, Spotify requires playlist recipients to access shared playlists within the Spotify application—that is, where available. Rdio even has an incredible in-app Twitter-sharing feature, though songs can only be accessed by fellow subscribers.
And, on our end, we've been trying to create a 'playable chart' using the backend of MediaNet Digital, but couldn't get more than 30-second clips. They just didn't have the licenses.
