I’ve always considered the Grooveshark web app’s UI to be quite amazing, so I was wary when I was granted preview access to the service’s new look, which the startup is presenting publicly for the first time today (at 12 AM EST). Fortunately, they somehow managed to make it even more awesome than it already was, and the makeover was more than a new lick of paint as it also included a number of performance tweaks to make it run smoother.
In case you’re not familiar with Grooveshark: it’s a great web-based music search, play and management tool that’s been around since April last year. You can use the app to instantly look for, share and listen to music, and there’s the quintessential social component that allows you to interact with people from its community and discover new music from others’ choices.
With the new look, Grooveshark’s design is now more desktop client-like (think Spotify, Deezer or Imeem), which in my opinion is a good thing. The overall design and the new navigation bar on the side make for a much smoother user experience, and you can switch themes to make the app fit your mood or resize the menus to fit your screen.
But the back-end tweaks that have increased the speed of the application are what’s making me seriously considering switching to Grooveshark for most of my online music needs. Playback between tunes is now seamless, with no more lag in between tracks when you’ve added multiple ones to a playlist. Switching between menu items and tabs is as fast as I consider possible inside a browser. In short: great new design combined with an excellent user experience.
Grooveshark is still struggling to get all major music industry players involved for the ‘legalization’ of its vast content library, which is in large part put together by avid users uploading music files straight from their hard drives. So far, the only one it has signed up is EMI and that was after the company sued Grooveshark over copyright infringement.
I think it’s fantastic. I’ve been using Grooveshark since your article on the best music apps, and it can’t get any better now.
I admit, I was late to this party. Great site. I no longer need to fire up my external drive and iTunes. Great for discovering new and popular music – I tend to live in the past musically.
I can’t seem to be able to create an account. I kept clicking sign up but didn’t work. I’m using Chrome.
I tune in to my Grooveshark whenever I want to listen to music at my PC. I don’t have any need to keep MP3 files on my hard drive.
Grooveshark truly is a fantastic service.
One thing I’ve wondered is why they don’t use any caching so that if I put a song on repeat, it will play again without loading. Other than that, the service is excellent.
Caching = added. Plus a ‘new way to load pages’.
Robin, can please you email me the VIP login? andrew.mager@gmail.com
I want to try it out.
VIP can be purchased for only $3/month. It also removes the ads from the interface.
Man this is cool. I really wish these services would start allowing for more mood playlists like pandora though, and or cadence app where they use BPM data to allow for playing all slow songs.. or fast songs. Just playing by genre or artist is getting old.
http://www.cadenceapp.com if you haven’t seen that.
very groovy i’m a big grooveshark fan
Breaking news, techcrunch writer admits to using services for copyright infringement.
I only play the EMI-licensed music
I must disagree with you on the amazing UI. I find it sleek, but there are some quite poor choices here and there. The playlist is ridiculous; why show covers rather than actual artists and titles (as seeqpod did)? Playlist saving is also annoying; the confirmation dialog and renaming just wastes time.
I don’t get this. How is this site legal? How is this site running and not being taken down?
Just did a little research, surprise surprise, it’s sketchy as hell if not downright illegal:
http://answers....08142827AAHjoIW
Your ‘research’ is referencing a 2-year old post on Yahoo Answers containing a cut-and-paste of an obsolete EULA?
Hey!
He just learn how to use the interwebs.
Leave him alone!
As Jimmy said, that’s two years old. If you haven’t noticed, Grooveshark has radically changed their design for music delivery. They used to be a Skype like peer to peer network that facilitated easy purchasing of songs you liked, and they would keep a percentage of what you paid to run their service.
Now, they appear to be serving all the songs from their own servers, and paying for each song ( http://bit.ly/hVjsG ), supporting themselves off of ads and VIP.
Not to mention, basing stuff like that off EULAs is silly. iTunes’ EULA, for example, says you can’t use it to make nuclear weapons. Do you really think you’ll be doing that?
You don’t have to look to a EULA to find out that they dont pay for 90% of the songs they serve. Rather, copyright holders are required to go them and individually request each DMCA violating copy is removed. Alternatively, they could try to work out some kind of licensing agreement.
Its only a matter of time before an industry trade group like the RIAA sues them and wins. Napster tried to use similar legal arguments and was ultimately defeated. You can’t develop a service that ostensibly facilitates the delivery of copyright infringing material even if some of that material is noninfringing.
Another reason to guess they will go under: they’re basically run by a bunch of FSU students.
Although I have no great love for either, the students are from the University of Florida, not FSU. The fact that they developed something that is as slick as it is is a testament to their ingenuity versus anything else. As Napster also proved, the ability to develop things doesn’t always prove to be profitable in the long run. Since the main issue is to find a way to get the money to the copyright holders, the RIAA will end up being the idiots they are and try to squash something rather than work with Grooveshark and the copyright owners to create something that will work for all.
Looks nice, but nothing can beat TubeRadio.fm
Grooveshark is not legal and they will not survive. They paid so much to EMI and the other labels want the same = instant death.
Hopefully you’re wrong. The labels are bound to wake up sooner or later and realize that they’re better off getting paid a reasonable rate by services like Grooveshark than getting squat from torrent downloads…
http://bit.ly/9T34P
Robin, imeem isn’t a desktop client — we’re browser-based.
Yeah, so are Grooveshark and Deezer – I said desktop client-like
all awesome… if they just would reopen access from Italy !!!!!!!! grrrrrrrrrrrr been asking everywhere, but not even a single answer sayin “no, we don’t care!!”
nextmusic.it has been discontinued!! remove the redirect and allow italians to access grooveshark again!!!!!!!!!
please
Grooveshark is amazing! I’ve been a VIP member since they offered the option as I stream music all day everyday at work. So much better than Pandora.
http://www.russ...lo-grooveshark/
I hope they can find a way to make this company survive as this is truly a great app. Reminds me of the good ole days of Napster.
Tip: Use something like Fluid to really turn it into a desktop app.
And still slooooow…..
I love it…just heard about it now, listened to a few songs and its just awesome…kudos to them.
best free music service I’ve ever used…telling all.
http://www.grooveshark.com
The interface and function of grooveshark is the best among all such websites. And I believe they are going to survive this war because EMI,as the toughest cruncher on startups,begins to do business with them by selling the copyright at a startup bearable price.
Is this redesign for the paid version (VIP) or for the free version?
The VIPs have been using the new interface for some time now. This update brings it to everyone.
it used to be VIP but its just launched as the default version. next up for VIP users is a sneak peak at the desktop app.
i think ip’s get in only boooo
Been using Grooveshark daily for a year and love it. Been beta testing MOG’s new All Access Pass for a week and I haven’t been back to Grooveshark yet.
I’d tried Grooveshark before, and thought the UI was lacking- pretty, but not convenient to use (like too many web 2.0 sites). However, I just tried the new UI and it is absolutely fantastic. Everything you need is right on the surface, intuitively place and responsive. This is what a UI should be.
Grooveshark is now my official web music service. I really hope they become fully legit. They deserve it.
Amazed with this musix player. Grooveshark rox!
Is there a mob app/mob version for this player?
finally you can edit your library, seamless playlist editing…and customizable themes…lots of new improvements
Grooveshark kicks too much ass. Good for them.
This article fails to mention what Grooveshark was before April of last year, and where they stole their huge music library from. http://gd4.us/dl
They now have a desktop AIR app. Its just for VIP but they are really making it a great service!
Music collection seems to be heavily reduced…I have many songs in playlist, which when searched again are not there..am I missing something?
Thanks for all the kind words guys! We really appreciate it.
@cr Users have the option to upload music. It doesn’t “steal” it–it’s still on your hard drive after you upload it. Sorry there was confusion!
Jack, you’ll notice I used past tense.
The music library was collected through underhanded methods. #justsaying.
Used to love grooveshark, but the new foramt is just plain shite! Songs regularly skip and need lots of loading time (never used to happen before) and what happened to the song info option.
Thumbs down guys!
Grooveshark is heading the way of last.fm…just plain commercial
Thanks dude for the suggestion by naming the shortcommings, but every new product is doomed to have some bugs at first, and it is the fans of grooveshark like you make us to know what can be improved and what is the best to do. We have been improving and we are going to build the best site because we have so many great users like you.