Weekend Website
Way back in September of 2006, we wrote about a site called Blogmusik.net. The service used an iPod-like interface which acted as your own personal jukebox to stream music that you selected over the Internet. It was simple and provided decent music for free. That was the last that we mentioned it though, and to be honest, we had forgotten about it. Fast forward to today when we decided to take a look at a music-streaming service called Deezer. To our surprise, we learned that Deezer was formerly known as Blogmusik.net. Today we’ll be taking a look at Deezer, what it is, and everything that it offers.
What is Deezer
Deezer is based in France and is an on-demand music service. If you’re familiar with IMEEM, in some ways, it is similar to that. Part of the service incorporates music news, and a community of users, and of course listening to music of your choosing. One of the things that users seem to like best is that it’s not limited only to the United States like some music services out there. In all, there are 16 different countries where the service can be used. If you’re wondering if your country is one of them, just go to www.deezer.com and in the top right corner, look for your country’s flag or just look in the screenshot below.
Is it legal?
Before we get into the ins and outs of the service, many of you are probably wondering whether it’s legal or not. From what we understand, it is completely legal. They’re based in France and pay fees to the French equivalent of the RIAA and therefore, according to the French Government, they are complying with copyright laws.
Free Registration
Registration is free and will allow you to add songs to a playlist. You can still listen to music without registering, you just won’t be able to access any other areas of the site. Registration requires only a valid email address and general info like name and country.
Creating a Profile
Deezer is as much about socializing as it is about music. Users can create a profile with photos, preferences as well as musical styles. You can add friends, invite friends by importing your contact list, and search for members. Just like Facebook and MySpace, Deezer provides a spot where a user can update their status like “Ashley is ______.” They include a message center so that other users can easily send you messages.
Searching for Music
Deezer is all about finding music that you like, so searching is important. You can search for music that they might have in their database by entering a tile of a song or the artist. I entered the search term “Lifehouse” and received a big long list of songs from the group. You can also browse their catalog by artist.
Playing Songs
After you’ve searched for a song and you click the play button, it will start playing. The player appears in the upper right corner and that’s where you can pause a song or move on to the next track if you’re playing from a play list. In the player section, you’ll see a place where you can rate a song or download it. Clicking download will bring up your two options to either download from iTunes or Amazon. By clicking the “blog” link you’ll be given the code necessary so that you can embed the player on your blog or personal website.
Radio/SMARTRADIO
Not only can you search for songs and listen to them on-demand, you can also listen to a variety of different radio “stations.” They even have a SMARTRADIO which is tailored to your tastes. If they play a song that you don’t like, you’ll just tell them and then the system will learn and improve.
Other Features
- Add Your MP3s
Under the “My MP3s” section you will be able to add your MP3s. Deezer will allow you to store as many of them as you would like and then they’ll be accessible once you log in. This could serve as a great back-up solution or give you access to your library of music when you’re away from your home computer. - View the Top Artists and Albums
Under the “Top” section you will be able to find the top artists and songs in four different countries including the UK, France, the United States and Germany. For example, I clicked on the United States and found that Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis is one of the current top songs. In The UK it’s Wow by Kylie Minogue. - View Friends’ Playlists
Once you add friends, you’ll be able to view their playlists - Music fades out…
One song will fade out and the next song on the list fades in which makes for nice transitions between songs - Great Flash interface
- View the latest Music related news under the “News” section
Give Deezer a try and let us know what you think. You’ll probably come across a few songs that they won’t have available and at times the load time can be a little on the slow side, but I think you’ll find that it’s a pretty decent service.
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Tags: CyberNotes, General, Music
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I’ve used Deezer for a bit. Finding it a bit of a trial as their front page, beautiful as it is, hasn’t updated in the month that I’ve been using it, their radio stations are execrable and I find things just clunky to use. nOh well
Actually the question of legality is dubious, they signed a deal with SACEM top poay some royalties, and then they were supposed to sign deals with all the record labels by the end of last year. They failed to make the deadline but they’re still negotiating 3 months later. It could suddenly lose many records if they don’t complete the deals they’re working on.
I gather the record companies primary bone of contention is that they’re licensed for France only and they want to block anyone outside of france.
imeem has all the deals but mainly for north america, so if you’re in those regions then imeem is clearly the better option.
Robert:
I live in Panama (Central America), so than means I’ll have to look for greener pastures.
Omar.-
I just found out about Deezer from a forum a couple weeks ago. I have tried it on a few occasions. It seems like a cool service, I was able to find some music I had never heard of from France that was very nice. The radio stations were ok, but nothing special. Overall the sound quality seemed quite good, though sometimes there was an occasional glitch when having too much network traffic, but nothing that would stop me from using it.
As for putting my MP3’s on there; I would be careful of depending it as a backup of your music. Also, what do they get out of the deal of storing your music? Are they trying to get free access to everyone’s collections so they can index them or something similar? Google offers their free 411 service in order to get free access to your voice in order to make a good usable database to use in translating voice to text. I expect they must have some hidden intentions in offering storage for your music. I myself would like to know what those intentions are before uploading my whole collection.
You raise a good question about their intentions of storing music for free. They could have a hidden agenda, or they could be doing so to give users an incentive to use their service over others out there, because Deezer is certainly not the only service of its kind.