Sonific SongSpot
I am pleased to introduce our latest sidebar widget and posting accessory, the Sonific SongSpot. It’s a beautiful music player backed by quality songs. There were over 47,000 of them the last time I counted. You can search the library, browse by genre or just randomly click around until you find the perfect atmosphere for your blog. Here’s an interesting one:
[sonific 6cfbf14342420c034e0ed2922758a3f9415e1732]
To post this, I went to the Sonific website and customized a new songspot. They provided a string of letters and numbers that I copied and pasted into this post, like so:
[sonific 6cfbf14342420c034e0ed2922758a3f9415e1732]
You can use that little code in a post, page or text widget. (Don’t copy and paste from here though. There’s a trick hidden in there to keep it from being transformed into the SongSpot!)
There is also a handy SongSpot widget where you can simply paste the code and give the widget a title.
It’s time to make some noise.
- December 11, 2006
- Widgets, WordPress.com
WordPress.com News 
SWEET! This is such a cool edition to wordpress. I can’t wait to fiddle around with this. Thanks, Andy.
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Nice idea!
I’ll try right now.
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Hi everyone, this is Gerd Leonhard, CEO of http://www.sonific.com. I hope you like our SongSpot widgets, and our music – look forward to seeing lots of music out there on your blogs. Check out http://www.sonificmusic.com for more examples on what people do with SongSpots, and in particular with wordpress via this link http://del.icio.us/Sonific/wordpress. If you need any help email me at gerd@sonific.com! Cheers, Gerd
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Wow… it’s outstanding!!!!
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Wow, I have been wishing for this at back of my mind. Now its here. Thanks guys!
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How! That´s sounds (yep. really… “sounds”) good.
I will give it a try!
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Hum… It doesn´t seem to fit on my sidebar… Anyway, I will keep it.
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OMG, that’s so cool 😀 And what a loevly song you chose there 😛
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thanks. but i for one am still waiting for something like: http://www.radioblogclub.com/ 😀
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WOW I’m excited! Thank you, Andy. I need some noise in my blog. Peace.
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That is so cool! I’ve registered and will try the service sometime soon.
It’d be even better if we could upload our own songs like with radioblog.
ZZTop rocks! 🙂
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Great Widget!
Thanks!
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This is pretty cool, thanks! I’m setting one up for my blog right now.
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Ooh 😉 Thank You!
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Oh, thats cool.
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Cool feature, but not so good on results. I searched for a few big-name artists and came up with nothing. No way to add our own music?
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please. for the love of god. disable autoplay.
otherwise you’re no better than myspace.
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Been looking for a way to put original music on my blog.Guess I will keep looking but this is cool for those who do not create their own.:)
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It’s now on my blog. I wish the player can be centered when you placed it at the sidebar. Although I can’t find the songs I want in the searcher, overall it’s a very handy and great addition. Thanks again.
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Wohooo, Radio Wunala is in the air 🙂
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Just what I was looking for.
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Its cool but personally, i would prefer a music widget where you can put multiple songs it, not just one. or yeah, someone’s idea of like a radio blog.
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You guys rule \m/ . A perfect addition to my heavy metal blog. Thanks a lot.
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sweet that all me right there…
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this is so great, thanks to everyone at wordpress! your service gets better and better every single day 🙂
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Love it, it means that I can let people become acquainted with “Echo & The Bunnymen”, seen them twice and they are one brill act live 😀
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Great idea, needs better bands though.
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It sounds great!
But… maybe we could have a customization for narrow sidebars?
Anyway, let’s browse the music library!!! Thanks!
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That’s awesome. Will take a look and add it once I’ve fiddled and tweaked it. Congrats on a fantastic addition to the WordPress.com platform.
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WordPress is the future..really..
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Thanks everyone! We will be adding a TON of new tracks very soon, including the BareNaked Ladies and more… stay tuned, and keep me posted on what we can do to make this even better. Gerd Leonhard, CEO http://www.sonific.com http://www.sonificblog.com
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Well… I should have searched before posting my previous comment…
It _is_ customizable! Thanks again!!!
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This could be fun. Just depends on what songs are available to use with which posts.
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Hi Andy,
What a surprise, and a very nice one at that! SongSpot is easy to set up (used the horizontal, x-tra small), looks quite nice in the sidebar, and I found some soothing, unobtrusive ambient background music. Named it “Reflections.” People can take a listen here:
http://disembedded.wordpress.com
Thanks very, very much Andy!
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Wow! This is amazing, more reasons to love wordpress, I’m gonna check this new widget right now!.
Thanks!
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Design is fine and elegant, but if you’re fond of minimalism, it can become a bit intrusive. Radioblog is far more difficult to make it work (on blogger, no idea how it could be inserted on wordpress.com)since you need php, but design is really really cool.
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Cool service, I never had the idea of it until now. But they’re kind of short with the list of Classicals so I might skip this one. But thanks for the thought! Cheers!
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So lovely, so lovely. Anything dealing with music I love. I wonder, however, is there away to attach a single song to a particular post so that a different song can play with a different post? Just a thought…
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This seems like a pleasant addition. I’m always one for ambience. I’ll be trying it out for sure ^^
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Great Job
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Thanks a lot buddy… great work.. keep going.
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Excellent! A nice way to round out the sensory experience. I agree with K that it would be nice to be able to center the widget, but overall, very cool.
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All I want is China Red as a theme but thanks anyway !
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FINALLY!!!!
WordPress never fails to impress… Thank you thank you thank you. 🙂
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!!
thanks wp!
this is great, i will set up one in blog~!
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WONDERFUL!
I’m using it for the first time as the backdrop behind a story I tell
http://vibrance.wordpress.com/2006/12/11/a-christmas-word-picture-in-conducting/
Simply Wonderful!
Thank you!!
Phil—
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Great widget! But…there are no songs from any of the artists I like! 😦
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Awesome!
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Ya, if it was centered it would help…but thats a minor gripe. I would LOVE to see some more niche songs…I mean…I only found one, kinda heart breaking.
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Wow!!! Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!!!
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wow! pretty cool!
thanks!
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I’ve installed Sonific on my site and it is beautiful. THANK YOU. I’ve been wanting music on my pages. WordPress–the best.
Joy!
Shirley Buxton
http://www.writenow.wordpress.com
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tres cool!
lemme give it a try 🙂
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totally amazing, thanks for this tool
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Nice. Something on the liens of last.fm!
But hey, I thot Flash things were not allowed in WP sidebar!
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While the Idea is nice, it would have been better if you had opted for an older song providing site, coz unfortunately they dont seem to have many songs. atleast not the 20 names i searched for.
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Thank you
Now just as soon as I figure out how to make it stay inside the side bars I’ll be golden with this.
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my gawd…
i love this widget!
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It’s cool but the people at songspot need to add many more songs in their library.They don’t even have Coldplay there!
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Wow, that is such a cool thing. Well done wordpress.
What are the plans of adding more songs?
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… and they don’t even have Edwin McCain’s I’ll Be!
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I was waiting for this day….
the word press goes – THE MUSICAL
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YOU ROCK 😀
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Yeah it is indeed superb… but like ish points out… I could not find a single song that I looked for by Led Zeppelin, Coldplay, Jethro Tull, James Blunt, Dire Straits etc.
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Very cool!
I have put one in my blog to give it a Christmas-y feel…
Radio.blog.club would be nice as well… :p
We can have a list of songs instead of just the same one repeating..
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Beautiful Idea!!!! Great i will search for some music for my blog.
Thanks!
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COOLNESS! 🙂
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This is Gerd Leonhard, CEO, http://www.sonific.com, with a few comments.
A) The Music on Sonific
Sorry that many known artists and songs are not yet on Sonific – this is solely because we are still in the process of closing more deals with the record companies – we have 50+ already but need many more. Also, we will be adding a ton more songs in January and through-out 2007 – shooting for 1 Million songs by the end of the year-, and as soon as we can get the the licenses from the major record labels that, for now, own most of those tracks (and who always need more time to ‘get it’ than anyone else 🙂 we will have more hit songs and artists (such as the ones mentioned above) as well. Thanks for your support on this. If you really want a certain artist on here, you may want to try and email the record label to hurry up and provide us with the song!
Sonific actually licenses all music so that is a requirement before we can offer it (unlike some other tools that are out there ;); as a result our service is 100% legal and fully authorized by the rightsholders. But we are already heading towards 100.000 songs very soon so there should be something you like somewhere – try the featured artists first (each genre cloud has a list of them when you click on it). Thanks for your patience!
B) Radio functionality / Song Lists
We are currently discussing this feature and how we could offer it to our users… let us know if you really would like to make your own radio stations using our catalog!
C) Sonific Mail
We launched a new function 2 weeks ago: all of our songs can also be emailed to people, using the MAIL button in the search result page. Instead of hitting ‘use’ just hit the mail button and fire off a sonific greeting to someone. Give it a whirl (but note that there is a limit to the # of mails you can send).
D) As far as using the SongSpots goes, here is the best way to do this:
1) Register / sign-in to Sonific
2) Pick a song you like (use the ‘find songspots’ engine – click on any genre to get a list of recommended tracks)
3)Click on ‘use’
4) Name your songspot (anything goes here), pick ‘wordpress’ from the list, give us the precise URL of your blog (required), click on ‘activate’. On the SongSpot edit menu be sure to pick the VERTICAL PLAYER not the horizontal one, because this will make it fit nicely into most sidebars. Only pick ‘auto-play ON’ if you are 100% sure your site visitors will like that the music starts automatically. And if you do, be sure to place the SongSpot on TOP of the sidebar so people can find it and use the controls right away.
5) On the next page, if you are using wordpress.com, copy the Song UUiD (the link with the #s, on the bottom of the page)
6) Go to your wordpress account page, sign in, and go to ‘presentation’, click on ‘sidebar widgets’, drag Sonific to your widget list, click on the widget tool (after you have dragged it!), this opens the small input window, and add the code where it says UUiD — this will create the SongSpot exactly like you have set it at Sonific.com
*Done*
For the self-hosted wordpress users, please follow the instructions on the ‘activate’ page, or try our help menu here: http://sonific.com/home/supported_sites#id31
Feel free to email us anytime if you have questions, feedback or need support of any kind, at feedback@sonific.com
Cheers! Gerd
PS: also, please consider buying some of our music — that would be helpful, too (click on the SongSpot to get to those pages…)> Thanks
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I have it on my blog! @ ish: yup, only ‘podsafe’ music is available.
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Do you need to be a paid upgraded WordPress member to use it? I registered on Songspot and choice a song, but I couldn’t see where to paste my code.
Very good idea though. 🙂
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i like it!
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This is fabulous! And I’m glad it comes in a small enough size for my current theme. I can’t wait for more songs to be added to their database. I’m so enjoying my browsing time there right now.
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Three cheers for WordPress!! I am already celebrating the launch with my favorite “Move like a Dancer” … By Barry Coates. …
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Cool!!!! but you could add some tunes like : Madonna, Janis Joplin, 80’s music, Blue October, Depeche Mode, Greenday, Our Lady Peace, Rolling Stones, Tea Party, want more ? 😛
I can’t wait to add songs I know well! 😀
Allure (thanks again)
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This widget makes perfect sense if you’re running a music blog. I’m not sure I’ll be using it though, as the selection is questionable, even with a supposed 47,000+ tracks. Sonific will never catch on unless they can cut a deal with some of the major record companies, and from the looks of it, that hasn’t happened yet.
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wow…. it’s cool. thank you…. I love it.
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Please add B.B. King on the list 🙂
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Awesome! Only wish I could find some of my songs on their site..
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Yeah that sounds awesome! Im going to check it out right now. But is there any word on when or how the library will be updated if it doesnt have too many songs?
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A bit MySpace for me, but could have interesting future uses.
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Ohh, thank heaven for flash block. If I wanted to listen to your music, I would borrow your i-pod. I go to your blog to read what you have to say.
Thanks, but uh, no thanks.
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Excellent!!!!
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Any “vertical” player???? It just don’t fit…
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not bad but how about making one for last.fm??? now THAT would be majorly sweet.
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again, great idea. i really want to use it, but they don’t have music from any artist that i recognize…
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I think you need to make this widget smaller (thinner) to fit on more people’s templates. It’s a bit too wide.
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Very cool. Thanks for adding this feature.
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I guess I got to repeat what most people have said. Cool
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This is really great, I’m going to have to try this out. Thanks WordPress folks… first you give me free space, then you give us music, new themes, and cool hats. No wonder I tell everyone to come here.
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Thanks for providing the great widget. I’m impressed with WordPress.com 🙂
However is it possible to make it such that one is able to customize one’s own songs instead of the limited number/type/genre of songs available. For instance, I searched for a few anime songs but it wasn’t available.
Thanks again.
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It’s outstanding! AWESOME!!!
One request though: Gerd Leonhard, would it be possible to create small playlist (5-10 songs) that could be played one after another?
If I’m not wrong now this is not possible and I have manually to change the song in order not to annoy my visitors always with the same song.
I use the vertical widget and it’s great!
Check out my blog 😉
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Can’t wait to try it out!
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Rado
weare thinking about offering the multi-song feature; it is requested fairly often now. Right now you can just paste several songspots in a row (just add more Sonific widgets at WordPress, and then pick a song for each) — just don’t select auto-play if you do…
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OMG … I cant believe this … this rocks on so many levels … Honestly it was a nice try … but the odeo player SUCKED
Great job guys…THis thing gets better every day
…REALLY
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Gerd Leonhard, these are great news!
Keep up the good job and I’m looking forward for the playlist update 🙂
By the way I found some very interesting songs available and I’m sure my visitors will enjoy them as well.
Of course many thanks to WordPress too, for bringing us always the best out of the web!
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