MP3 Blog-Reading Software program

Peel - Stay in the Loop

I found a Mac only MP3 Blog-reading software program called Peel.

The interface is very, very simple: put in your favorite MP3 blog URls and its iTunes-styled window will automatically list (and download if you so chose) all the available MP3s for each site. I played around with this tonight and was pretty impressed at the simplicity and ease of the program. The fact that you instantly see what new songs have been listed, plus stream a full-length preview (or DL) is very intuitive as are most of the other features (for example, you can easily open any blog into a web browser - though not by clicking on it - and adding or deleting blogs is quite easy too.

The program also doubles as a browser (you just have to tab over) so you can still read liner notes and the like (though I suspect, many will be tempted just to grab the music and run).

However, before ya'll rush out to peep, a few caveats:

1) If songs aren't properly formatted, then they won't list correctly in Peel. (This may not matter to people who listen first, ask questions later).

2) Peel can only work with blogs that host their songs on a direct server. It will not work with blogs that use zshare.net, yousendit.com, rapidshare.com, etc. That's not a shortcoming of the programming - but it does mean that many audioblogs (for example, all album-based blogs) won't work with how Peel is set up.

3) Peel does make it easier for people to strip music from context and personally, I think the context is actually pretty important. Of course, if you're really into a song, it's easy enough to tab over into the browser display and read whatever there is to read. However, if you'd likely go to the blog to see what's up but posts that contain no music - even if it's a major announcement - won't be reflected in Peel's "playlist" listing.

Download:
Peel