Songbird is Taking on iTunes

Songbird is taking the Internet by storm. Songbird is an open-source, customizable music player that is currently still in its developmental stages, but was officially released this week.

Songbird is taking the Internet by storm. Songbird is an open-source, customizable music player that is currently still in its developmental stages, but was officially released this week.

The official website describes the new program as “a non-proprietary, cross platform, extensible tool that will help enable new ways to playback, manage, and discover music.”

Songbird founder, Rob Lord, criticized iTunes for being “like Internet Explorer, if Internet Explorer could only browse Microsoft.com.”

So he took the problems he saw with iTunes and made Songbird which will search different music blogs and let you download any songs from those web sites that you like. Also, if the web sites offer free songs, those will be available on Songbird.

Along with being a solid music playback program, Songbird will also sync to your iPod as long as it’s not restricted by Apple’s Fairplay DRM.

In tandem with the music, Songbird also has artist bios, images from Flickr and videos from YouTube that pertain to the particular artist you are browsing.

To begin with Songbird, you can import your music from iTunes or any other music player on your computer to get all your music in one place. Then you customize your program with different add-ons such as synchronizing your iPod, free radio stations from Shoutcast, adding a concert listing from Songkick and plenty others.

Songbird claims to already have 160,000 users each month even before the official release and it has been described as the “Firefox of media players.”