X

Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic, or get updates by email if you'd like.

Finaly, finally, a trustworthy seeqpod.com alternative.

If you’ve never used Seeqpod.com, you really missed out. It was an internet search engine that let you put playlists together, listen to music and videos, pulling all its content from 3rd party sites. Apparently, it was cited by some angsty US lawmaker for promoting illegal file distribution, although ther were no links whatsoever to download the content it was pulling. Alas, seeqpod.com is down, and has been as such for several months, leaving my ears hungry.

Until a few days ago. I got an email from a friend telling me to check out Fl4SH.com. I was a bit skeptical, as I get a lot of spam (as you might immagine), but the site is perfectly legitimate, and looked sleek enough to keep me interested.

Fl4sh works similar to Seeqpod; type in an artist, album, or song into the search box, and any song related to your search appears in a search list. Click the song, click play, and it streams directly to your computer (via flash).

One thing I noticed is that often enough, their album artwork never shows up until you play the song. Even then, it only appears in the media player box at the top of the page, not in the search list. Hmm.

Without an account, the site restricts your use to just playing songs, which isn’t such a bad thing, seeing signing up is totally free. An account allows you to create playlists, which come in handy if you use Fl4sh a lot.

Issues?

When I didn’t get a verification email immediately, I just tried to sign in. And it worked. Hmm. Not such a big deal, but I don’t want people making accounts under my name. It DOES nag you to register until you do, however. Sadly, I’ve yet to receive a verification email, dispite various resend requests.

When I contacted the site’s owner, he responded quickly, and was helpful, so I wouldn’t worry too much about technical issues. There are a few bugs to the site, mainly minor flash issues, that can usually be fixed by refreshing the page. One thing that botherd me was the fact that if you go into your user control panel or the ‘Manage Playlists’ page, there’s no obvious way to get back to the music searching page. To do so, either go back to fl4sh.com, or click the logo in the upper-left hand corner.

Conclusion…

In all, I can’t wait to see the site really take off. After seeqod closed, I’ve been looking for a good online music player, with a large enough library to accomodate my expansive musical tastes. Well, ok, maybe thats putting it a little self-righteously, but still, Fl4sh definitely meets my standards, albeit slightly buggily. Check it out… its worth your time.