"Mercora is a person-to-person network that enables
you to find, communicate and share interests with friends and family. Mercora
has built a framework for sharing digital content using peer-to-peer
technologies to directly connect you with your friends on the network. You do
all these things through the simple interface of the Mercora applications. (mercora.com)"
Mercora is currently the newest music sharing service to hit the street: a p2p
streaming radio application with many bundled messaging and social networking features. The big draw is that the service has a
"non-interactive" web broadcasting license from the US FCC, allowing you to legally stream
files from your media library to any number of other users!
The catch is the rather miniscule requirement that you
can't stream anything anyone wants when they want it. The website lists their
license's prohibitions.
"You are not allowed to do any of the following
things:
- Publish advance program guides or use other means to
pre-announce when particular sound recordings will be streamed or the
order in which they will be streamed (this is because we are a
non-interactive webcasting service)
- Webcast specific sound recordings within one hour of the
request by a listener or at a time designated by the listener
- Webcast audio content for which you do not have the
legitimate legal rights for use (music you have ripped from CDs that you
own or music you have downloaded from a legitimate online music store like
Apple iTunes is considered legitimate, music downloaded using
file-sharing programs like KaZaA are not legitimate) (mercora.com)"
In this regard, Mercora does not intersect the "illegal" file
trading aspects of a Napster or a Gnutella client at all. It enhances the
benefits that file traders claim made their services legitimate like: sampling
CDs before you buy them, learning about new artists in your favorite genre,
getting more exposure to independent artists than Clear Channel or the
RIAA could ever provide. At the
same time, it decreases the likelihood of illegitimate uses such as downloading
and burning copies of entire CDs to avoid lawsuit-inflated RIAA price fixing
schemes. Then again, if you really need to download a back-up copy of your
scratched Metallica - Master
of Puppets CD, this is not the
service you're looking for. You broadcast either the playlist you're currently
listening to or a random sampling of files from your shared library.
The interface breaks cleanly from what a typical KaZaA or Gnutella user
might be used to, though... at least from their p2p music service. The
application panel looks more like an instant messenger dock
with sections for individual friends and groups, as well as links to the
program's main functions. All of the sub-function windows such as search, chat,
and music playback have very useful shortcuts, making this the most user
friendly music service I've ever tried, regardless of its current beta status.
The group system allows for both BBS-style threaded forums and interactive
chat. Individual users can share profiles, weblog entries, instant messages,
and a gallery of pictures. Security options allow you to limit who has access
to view various pieces of information, including: what stream you’re
currently listening to, your online status, profile, and friends list. *I just found a
"My Listeners" tab! Apparently all my usual message forum basic
smilies work in chat as well. ;)
random
tip: get an mp3 mass id3 tag
editor. the trick is to rename all your song titles that you share to include
the track number (w/ leading '0' if necessary). any free program you can get to
work that out will make it easier to view. /msg
me if you have one you'd recommend.
I found out about Mercora through a Wired.com article entitled:
"Former McAfee CEO Takes on P2P". Apparently, the music service is
headed by Srivats Sampath, former CEO of McAfee.com. Their plan is to not
only offer the connection point for the streaming client/servers, but to also sell downloadable singles, apparently in
WMA format, through an embedded music store service. According to the Wired
article, "Mercora will make money by taking an undisclosed piece of the
revenue from music sold on its service. It also plans to sell market research
to studios about users' listening habits."
Slashdotters, don your tin foil
hats now.
I personally like the concept of everyone DJ'ing their own 24/7 radio
station much better than the current text search scheme requiring you to know
what you want to listen to ahead of time. The "Insert voice from your microphone" button is hillarious!
In theory, you could pre-record your
own talk radio sessions, mix advertising
sound bytes into your playlists, band together to form promotion
groups to get local music on popular streamers' broadcasts, etc. The random
broadcast option seems to be a poor choice unless you're lazy or just filling
airtime. It will be interesting to see how this falls out
legally once it hits the mainstream.
References:
http://www.mercora.com/about.asp
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,60660,00.html
(both: as viewed June 11, 2004 at 12:00 PM CST)
I'm on Mercora as ifatree, same as my
username here. If you start an E2 group, please let me know and I'll add it to
my writeup. =) </shameless plug> * - i'm so cool, I added myself as a
friend of .. .. myself. :P
* - edit: found new functions. :D