Grooveshark.com

The availability of music on the Web has completely changed the way we share, explore, and purchase it. Many file-sharing sites have emerged that allow users to illegally download music. However, a new site called Grooveshark.com emerged in 2006 and is attempting to create a legitimate online music streaming-site. Sam Tarantino, Founder and CEO of Grooveshark.com, began developing the site to improve the legal accessibility of music and to engage users in what some would call a “social networking site for music.” In a YouTube interview, Tarantino explains the basic functionality, objectives, and future goals of Grooveshark.

Purpose

Grooveshark is an online music database that enables users to purchase, download, share, and listen to music—relying on users themselves to upload and share their own music, much like Wikipedia relies on its users to add and edit information. Grooveshark VIP offers a membership for $3 a month, which removes advertisements and has other bonus features.

Getting Started

Creating an account is free and easy. Go directly to Grooveshark.com and click “Sign Up.” Then follow the directions by providing first and last name, user name, password, and email address. After logging in, the initial homepage offers some simple icons to get users started (see above).

User-Friendly Features

Clicking autoplay automatically recommends songs that are similar to your initial selection upon entering the site. Users can click on the album work of a song to rate it: a sad face to reject the song, a smiley face to keep it, or a heart icon to add the songs to favorites. After stopping autoplay, users can save that queue sequence as a playlist.

The queue (é) is a feature that stores songs in the order they were added and plays them in sequence. Users can also click and drag a playlist into the queue to listen to music non-stop.

Much like an online iPod, users can also customize their own widget and post it on any external website that provides permission. By clicking the middle “embed” button (é) located to the right of the queue, users can transfer songs and playlists to their widget.

Social networking capabilities enable one to connect with other users by searching for others that are Similar to Me, People Who Love Me and People I Love. All users can share music and playlists with each other via Grooveshark, Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, and email.

Grooveshark offers a “Peer-to-Peer” (P2P) payment plan. If a user decides to pay for a song and download it, the price is divided and distributed so that profits not only go to the record label and Grooveshark, but also to the user. On a blog review of Grooveshark, Chris Morrison explains, “Of the 99 cent charge, 70 cents goes to the record label, 25 cents to me as a credit toward future music purchases, and the remaining 4 cents to Grooveshark” (Morrison).

Trouble Shooting

Although Grooveshark has begun tapping into the idea of legal music sharing, the interface design of the site itself is confusing:

1. Numerous clicks are required to access songs, artists, and playlists. As shown on the right, there are several pages of options that appear before the desired media becomes available.

2. Searching songs can produce an immense amount of related and semi-related results. Furthermore, some have different spellings and capitalization characters depending on how different users upload each song.

3. It is difficult to figure out how to delete playlists and songs from playlists.

4. There is no way to fast-forward through songs using a free account.

5. The autoplay feature recommended many songs that I had no interest in and the queue feature took a considerable amount of effort to figure out.

6. While using autoplay, I did encounter several bad quality files.

The Red Flag

Although Grooveshark offers users a legal way to listen to music, there is concern over the site turning illegal music into profit. Since it does not monitor uploaded content, files that were downloaded illegally from one source can then be uploaded as legitimate files and turned over for revenue on Grooveshark.

The Competition

Pandora is an online music recommendation site that allows users to create their own music stations and listen to others’ stations as well. After a particular song is entered, the site recommends similar music; however, it does not offer on-demand artists. Pandora, unlike Grooveshark, limits the amount of free listening to 40 hours per month and also limits the amount of times a user can skip a song to 12 every 24 hours. However, Pandora is accessible via smart phones.

Imeem is another popular site that links users together through “meems,” or groups of users that have similar interests. There are various types of media available: video, music, photos, and blog posts. The site also has a rating and flagging system for the media that is uploaded to keep low quality files at a minimum.

The Nitty Gritty

Despite the shortcomings of Grooveshark, it does offer a “no strings attached” experience to account holders—free, on-demand music. Although there is controversy over its legitimacy, the site remains available.

Scale: 1-5

Rating: 4

Reviewed by Jeremiah Zitzloff

Works Cited

Morrison, Chris. "Grooveshark Offers P2P Music Downloads--But is it Legal?" Rev. of Grooveshark.com. Web log post. VentureBeat. 5 Dec. 2007. 6 Oct. 2009