Songbirdversion 0.1 is finally out, an open-source music player built on Mozilla's XULRunner platform. It's like a browser and iTunes mushed together, but better. Why better? Because Songbird connects to almost any video or audio content on the web. The idea is opposite iTunes, where you buy songs from a centralized, DRM'ed source. Instead, given the platform, developers of any stripe can plug in to Songbird, and promote themselves. The guy spearheading Songbird is none other than Rob Lord, who once honed his chops on a project known as Winamp.


I like the idea of turning the content back over to the producers, instead of marketers. Songbird, as Rob says over in his interview on BoingBoing, isn't a "walled garden online service," which he compares to the old days of AOL and Prodigy. True, but one thing about a walled garden: those tending the garden can make sure everything is working for the user. The key here will be the experience, as the average user will typically choose the path of least resistance. Since we got the tip the story has been dugg, which means the site is down, save a tiny download link. Go to Google cache of the Songbird site.