Socialising seems to be the big buzz word amongst the new Web 2.0 communities, with hundreds of millions signing up to Myspace, Facebook, Friendstar, Bebo, Orkut and more. I'm sure I have missed out dozens more, but I hope you get the picture. New on the horizon is Socialising with music, which seems to be a bi product of social networking, something Myspace has had on their site for quite a while now, something which in turn has turned me off the Myspace network itself. Annoying auto playing profile pages sound familiar? I thought so.
Now ignoring all the social networks let's move onto the bastard child in it's entirety. There are a few that have come to bloom, Mystrands, Last.fm and Social·fm, of which the latter I will be/have devoting my time to.
What is Social·fm? What does it do? Well quoting their actual website,Social·fm enables social music discovery and recommendations through connections with your friends, family and Social·fm users with similar musical preferences. We are building innovative products and services that leverage Internet broadcasting, social networks and user-contributed content to enable you to enjoy your favourite media any time, anywhere.
A similar statement objective to the other two mentioned. What I'm interested is to what makes it different or better if it can be proved it is to it's competitors...
Social·fm comes in two varieties which both work together, you have the Social·fm Desktop and also a Mobile client, which is compatible with Symbian S60, UIQ and Windows Mobile devices.
Starting with the Desktop application let's see how each works with the other;
Desktop
The desktop application runs on Windows XP and Vista (sorry no Mac love here), it is also nice to know that it doesn't come with any adware and spyware and is easy to uninstall. Great!
The desktop application gives you access to four main features:
Looking pretty promising!
After downloading the EXE file (1.91Mb) and installing you are prompted with your login details, which you should have if you registered at the site, if not you can do so now. Running the application first time will prompt you to search for your music library, for those who don't have an organised library can prompted for this option or you can cancel to show the application, folders where your music is stored. I cancelled both options just to familiarise myself with the interface and settings (something I always do when installing new applications on my sensitive and fragile Windows XP setup).
I was brought to the main "HOME" screen, which is an auto refreshing screen which displays random playlists created by other users, with album art included and a familiar iTunes-esque looking scrolling.
The desktop application window has four main elements; the left hand navigation menu which is used to navigate through the main features which include;
Now that's a lot of My's! Adjacent to that is the main screen which displays content depending on where you have navigated to. Directly above this is a search bar which also has three quick access buttons; Feedback, My Favourites and My Profile. Far top is your now playing and playback control bar which controls what you are listening to, volume, general navigation on browsing the Social.FM site and main navigation bar for the desktop application itself, where you can tweak and change the settings of the application itself.
After familiarising myself with the desktop application I decided to import my library, this can be done by navigating to "My Library" on the left and clicking on the music note button which in turn gives you the options to "add a file" "add a folder" "manage folders" or "search Computer for music." If you have all your music in one folder, you can opt to add that folder at which point it will scan that folder and add all the contents into your Library. Depending on the size of your library it may take some while, (15-20 mins for my 15000+ mp3s, a good time to go and make a nice cup of tea). Take note that your Library will be available to your friends!
Using the desktop client you can listen to random playlists, search for songs in your friends Libraries or just listen to your own Library, which will broadcast it to your friends who might also like to listen.
I think that covers the Desktop application. Moving onto the Mobile Client...
Mobile
The Mobile client is a very interesting concept is unique and very significant in today's age of music on the go, something I am a very big fan of.
The client itself is available on the big three Smartphone platforms, UIQ, S60 and WM respectively. The mobile client claims to Turn your phone into an iPod with Social·fm Mobile
a very bold statement to say the least!
Downloading and installing the Mobile client will give you access to four main features:
Looks very promising indeed!
Downloading the client is pretty easy and also gives you the option to either register if you haven't or use your existing login details, which I presume helps make you're mobile experience easier? One thing I did notice whilst downloading the mobile client is that certain Brands where highlighted in a different colour to the others and it seemed to be the big brands. Whether this is to make them easier to find on the drop down list or not I can't confirm, but I will give them the benefit of doubt.
Filling in the required fields takes you to the download screen, where you can opt to download the client to your PC and transfer to your handset or have an SMS link sent to download direct to handset, either will suffice.
After downloading and installing the application at initial start up you get the option to define the settings for which outwards connection it should use to stream music and general net access by the application.
Initially the application brings you to this "activation code" screen, which reminds you that you have a trial access to the service (did you read the terms and conditions and small print?) and a round loading animation hoop thing which just looks strange, surely a loading bar at the bottom would be easier on the eyes? This screen always pops up every time the application is started, surely the first time is enough? Also there is no option of changing this code or editing it in any way, which is even strangier for it to show this! After the application does whatever it does behind the scenes with the activation screen you are brought to the main screen.
The main screen has a list of options from which you can navigate through from the top down using the navigation pad (take note Left and right to navigate back and forward, up and down to increase or decrease volume level, volume can not be adjusted using the dedicated volume keys on the side of your handset! WTF!!??) "Music Stations" gives you access to the 100,000 digital radio stations mentioned in the features list, "create your own station" is quite misleading as it doesn't "create" your own station, rather does a search and brings up anything matching that criteria, hardly creating your own station! "Library" which connects to your desktop client and gives you access to your Library on your mobile, sounds great? Well it is, pretty fantastic actually. What amazed me it works seamlessly and it also gives you a prompt on your desktop via a little pop-up window telling you what you are listening to and also what your friends are listening to from your Library. "Friends" is the same as your Library except it's your friends library. "Podcasts" and "Favourites" are pretty much self explanatory so I won't bother going into to covering them.
What is great about the mobile client is the fact you have your entire music collection with you without actually physically having it with you! Not only this but you also get access to your friends music collections, the 100,000 digital radio stations and podcasts! What more can you ask for? Well there are some teething problems which may dampen your experience slightly and one key aspect which will make you hold on to that iPod of yours;
Obviously as this is streaming music rather than playing direct to from your handset it will and does suffer from buffering issues. Running on a HSDPA connection it still needs to buffer and constantly disturbs the users listening experience. Also there are times when the client simply does not respond, what or why cannot be explained as there no options to check connection status.
The main concern is when there is no signal or coverage, which an iPod or any other Personal Music Player would not have problems with, so in effect it doesn't and will not replace your iPod. But what it does give you is an option to have an alternative to your iPod when your are bored of listening to your own collection or if you want to just try something random or see what new music your friends may have added to their collection.
To conclude, what Social.FM does is give you an option, an option to choose and also to discover new music and stay in touch with your friends all by playing some songs.
There are a few options I would like to see implemented and some improved which could turn this application from being pretty good to pretty fantastic:
Improvements and Impelements Wishlist:
Social.FM is a great platform and a great concept, but as it's still in BETA stage I can live with the fact there is room for improvement, for the moment Social.FM and the S60 Music player is a great combination for me. When there is poor/no signal I can switch to my Nokia N95's Music player and when I want to listen to some random stuff I can just use the search function on Social.FM or listen to the wide variety of digital stations on offer. Having used it for a few days I have come across many songs I don't have in my collection or forgot about and some newly discovered gems!
Showing posts with label Music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Music. Show all posts
Written on 13-Dec-2007 by Adonis
Socialising with Music with Social·fm
Filed Under:
Applications,
Music,
Reviews
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