I am actually a huge fan of webjay. Over the last 7 month i have been publishing playlists or Drops for my website using the service and coudn't have gone without it. It is very rough around the edges indeed but that is the beauty of it. I do believe the real win for yahoo is what comes with webjay. Mr. Gonze is leading the charge to stardaize audio/video playlist generation and sharing. Currently there are 5 or 6 that I can count without thinking. (asx, m3u, plu, rim) depending on the player or OS you are using. Gonze has come up with a new format called XSPF and is pushing it as the standard. A point of interest for Yahoo and probably a hint that this was on the way a long time ago is that the Yahoo music engine is the only mainstream player that can play the XSPF playlists without any plugins or hacks. I do believe they are banking on the sharing of playlists as being a very important element to the future of the digital media community. It is just another way they are adding to their social web empire. I think it makes complete sense.
Great post.
raff
Pete Cashmore
· 3 years ago
Raff,
Thanks for the info - it really helped!
TAD
· 3 years ago
I still wanna know if it will play that music without having to buy stuff or not? I'm guessing it's legal, but why?
akaRaff
· 3 years ago
It is not a legality thing. All it does it allow you to create playlists out of mp3's/videos from anywhere on the web. If the music is out there illegally..then the person who makes it visible should probably move it so people can't find it and add it to their playlists. I use it to produce many lists from completely legitamate mp3blogs and indie label sites. Webjay is a tool for sharing and building playlists. It has no idea who owns the music. That is up to the end user.
When you say it's like delicious, that's correct in the sense that it's a link sharing community, but it misses the key point. The insight behind Webjay is that the mainstream browser web is a really good way to do internet media, a way which is often better than filesharing, BitTorrent, or DRM pay per download stores.
So, that's the thing driving all my hackery. Webjay is indeed rough around the edges, as akaraff says, and that's ok because it doesn't get in the way of the main value, which is about all the new stuff you can do with internet media if you stick to the mainstream web.
Pete Cashmore
· 3 years ago
Lucas,
First of all: congrats!
I guess one of the reasons I thought of del.icio.us is that the experience is a bit like stumbling over del.icio.us for the first time - it's obviously a cool power tool for those in the know, but it's hard to comprehend at first.
I'm not sure that I fully understand your philosophy here, but I guess you're trying to take media to the mainstream (open?) browser/web, while traditionally it has been on the Internet in the form of desktop apps and media stores. When this is done with links to news articles (ala digg and del.icio.us), you're fairly safe. But when it moves into rich media (music, photos, video clips), you can sometimes face problems with people posting links to copyrighted material. I'd be interested to know whether this has been a problem for you.
Oh yeah - and congratulations again!
Lucas
· 3 years ago
Thanks, Pete!
About the issues with copyrighted material in music, photos, and videos, my feeling is that there's absolutely no difference between the legal status of a song file and the legal status of a typical web page. This is counter-intuitive for a lot of different reasons, but this is just an issue of expectations -- you aren't going to get free and legal links to huge pop classics, so it seems like free and legal links aren't worth much. That's not so!
Christopher Sisk
· 3 years ago
I'd have to side with Pete on this one.
I just don't get it. I mean, What's it for? Publishing playlists? I can do that already with a simple unordered list. In fact, I do. I often post playlists on my blog. I just don't see the point in this service.
The legality issue is a concern for me.
From their FAQ DO NOT POST LINKS TO UNAUTHORIZED SONGS. This is not a joke, this is not being said with a wink, this is IMPORTANT. If we find one or two unauthorized songs in a public playlist we will delete them; if we find many unauthorized songs we will make the playlist private; if you break the rules repeatedly your account will be locked out.
Yet the very first playlist on the front page is 141 copyrighted Hip Hop songs. All 141 of these can't have been released for free on the internet. As a musician publishing his music online and owner of AudioFeeds.org, I understand the copyright issues all too well. What I see on WebJay is almost 99% illegal. I don't see what Yahoo! is after here. Unless they're just looking for some huge lawsuits. And I'm sure the RIAA will gladly step in there.
Pete Cashmore
· 3 years ago
Mike, that's a great idea, but using the LazyWeb is even better! :)
Thanks for the tip on changing the default media player - I'll do that straight away. I'm sure that will improve the experience a great deal, and maybe I can start to get the hang of it.
Re-reading this post, it does look like I'm not keen on Webjay, but in fact the opposite is true - I think Webjay is a REALLY BIG THING, if only I was smart enough to get to grips with it. Thanks to you guys, I'm starting to understand it better.
Lucas
· 3 years ago
Christopher, when you say that what you see on Webjay is 99% illegal, you're simply wrong. You're thinking that commercial music must be unauthorized, when in fact the labels frequently host it. To know what's the story on any one item, check the host. This is the web, not filesharing, and different ways of doing things apply.
kyle
· 3 years ago
yeh that webjay shit is tight because i can download all kinds of mp3`s and stuff right to my PSP through the internet in fact im on my psp right now! and my question is how long will it last?
All Comments
Great post.
raff
Thanks for the info - it really helped!
Here is my profile if you are interested in seeing how I use it.
http://webjay.org/by/akaraff
Enjoy.
When you say it's like delicious, that's correct in the sense that it's a link sharing community, but it misses the key point. The insight behind Webjay is that the mainstream browser web is a really good way to do internet media, a way which is often better than filesharing, BitTorrent, or DRM pay per download stores.
So, that's the thing driving all my hackery. Webjay is indeed rough around the edges, as akaraff says, and that's ok because it doesn't get in the way of the main value, which is about all the new stuff you can do with internet media if you stick to the mainstream web.
First of all: congrats!
I guess one of the reasons I thought of del.icio.us is that the experience is a bit like stumbling over del.icio.us for the first time - it's obviously a cool power tool for those in the know, but it's hard to comprehend at first.
I'm not sure that I fully understand your philosophy here, but I guess you're trying to take media to the mainstream (open?) browser/web, while traditionally it has been on the Internet in the form of desktop apps and media stores. When this is done with links to news articles (ala digg and del.icio.us), you're fairly safe. But when it moves into rich media (music, photos, video clips), you can sometimes face problems with people posting links to copyrighted material. I'd be interested to know whether this has been a problem for you.
Oh yeah - and congratulations again!
About the issues with copyrighted material in music, photos, and videos, my feeling is that there's absolutely no difference between the legal status of a song file and the legal status of a typical web page. This is counter-intuitive for a lot of different reasons, but this is just an issue of expectations -- you aren't going to get free and legal links to huge pop classics, so it seems like free and legal links aren't worth much. That's not so!
I just don't get it. I mean, What's it for? Publishing playlists? I can do that already with a simple unordered list. In fact, I do. I often post playlists on my blog. I just don't see the point in this service.
The legality issue is a concern for me.
Yet the very first playlist on the front page is 141 copyrighted Hip Hop songs. All 141 of these can't have been released for free on the internet. As a musician publishing his music online and owner of AudioFeeds.org, I understand the copyright issues all too well. What I see on WebJay is almost 99% illegal. I don't see what Yahoo! is after here. Unless they're just looking for some huge lawsuits. And I'm sure the RIAA will gladly step in there.
Thanks for the tip on changing the default media player - I'll do that straight away. I'm sure that will improve the experience a great deal, and maybe I can start to get the hang of it.
Re-reading this post, it does look like I'm not keen on Webjay, but in fact the opposite is true - I think Webjay is a REALLY BIG THING, if only I was smart enough to get to grips with it. Thanks to you guys, I'm starting to understand it better.