Wer gerne Webradio hört, sollte sich unbedingt mal die Oberfläche von Musicovery ansehen. Dieser auf Flash basierende Webradio-Player ist sehr intuitiv bedienbar und hat etwas einzigartiges: Interaktivität mit Related Songs – oder wie man es auch immer bezeichnen mag. Einerseits kann man auf seine persönliche Stimmung hin die Songs aus der Kombination der vier Felder Energetic, Positive, Calm oder Dark auswählen, andererseits je nach Tanzstil mit mehr oder weniger Tempo bzw. Tanzbewegungen. Das ganze wird noch über einen Zeitregler von damals bis heute reguliert und man findet seinen Musikstil. Cool!

Klar, man kann dort auch sofort etwas kaufen oder den Premiumdienst mit höherer Qualität der Songs buchen, aber die Umsetzung ist schon phänomenal. Web 2.0 sehe ich dabei jedoch nicht, weil auf den ersten Blick keine Communitylösung mit implementiert ist – wer weiß, was sich hinter dem Premiumangebot so alles versteckt…

Detaillierte Informationen finden sich bei Masternewmedia mit ein wenig mehr Hintergrund über die Entwicklungszeit der neuen Webapplikation, in der auch einige Nachteile nebst den überwiegenden Vorteilen aufgelistet werden:

• There is no better way to define the style and tempo of music you want to listen to and to start listening to it instantaneously.
• Cost is so negligible that it does not represent anymore a significant barrier to entry for new customers that have a positive user experience.
• Payment formats make it further easy to sign-up rapidly in a number of different ways (web, phone, SMS).
• Accessibility and ease of use are among the best among tools in this category.
• Find your music without knowing the names of the bands, authors or songs you may want to listen to. Just set your preferences and let Musicovery do the rest for you.
• With the micro interface Musicovery is sporting, the jump to effective mobile access via PDAs and smartphones is something power users on the go will find a no-brainer.
• Quality of Hi-Fi paid service is good, but if you are listening through your laptop speakers or some other low-cost audio device the lo-fi free version of Musicovery could be already more than enough for you.

Cons:

• There is no „pause“ button to stop temporarily the music.
• As a new user when you click to Login you are offered to purchase an access code, but no information is provided as to „what“ this access code provides and for how long.
• No Musicovery in-line help. There is no way to find out what the „Discovery“ setting exactly does or the exact terms of the paid option.
• Even after having made a payment, you do not know exactly what the terms of the contract are and what you have paid for. An email confirmation notifies you of the successfully completed transaction but does not inform you about what access rights you have bought into and what you can do with the music you can now listen to.
• The access code you receive back is good and valid only for 30 days after the purchase.
• The Login button only allows you to pay for Musicovery service and to access the Hi-Fi stream. There is no username or password allowing you to access your specific account and to save settings or other preferences for future use.
• Each time you return to Musicovery all your settings need to be reconfigured. There is no way to save one of your „presets“ or music style configuration. Next time you go to Musicovery you will need to reset all your favourite genres and tempo.
• Musicovery defaults to a French language interface everytime you use it. You need to manually switch it to English each time you want to use it.
• It is not easy to exclude / uncheck a specific music genre if that is the very music genre you are playing at that moment. To unselect music genres that will not be easily turned off you need to temporarily select another music genre.
• Music trails are not infinite. They are made up of a specified number of songs. Once they have all been played the music stops and you need to make a new selection to start it again. A Musicovery music trail can have typically about 20 songs.
• The breadth of the Musicovery music collection has still lots of margin for improvement. I have tested Musicovery for over 10 hours with different music genre combinations and way too many times I have seen the same authors and songs come up.
• Music tracks cannot be bookmarked, nor there is any link to license / purchase / download any music track you may particularly like.

Letztendlich ist es immer eine Frage des Geschmacks und der Usability, was man bevorzugt – im iTunes Music Store findet sich höchstwahrscheinlich sowieso wieder jeder Track gegen Bares, wobei dann die nette „related“ oder „mood“ Aktion fehlt. Schaun wir mal, was daraus wächst – das ganze ist ja schließlich schon seit ein paar Monaten online. [via Ibo]