Foxytunes Planet (Beta)

I like Foxytunes. It is basically a little universal player shell - it embeds controls for one of virtually any media player client of your choice (Winamp, WMP, iTunes, Rhapsody, Yahoo Music Engine, etc.) into your browser. It started off as a pure Firefox extension (hence the name), but the have recently introduced a version for IE too.

It's nice in that it gives you quick access to your controls from the application most people have open all day... their browser. The Foxytunes guys then started pulling together some cool mashups based on what you are listening too (one click to Lyrics Search, Amazon, and others).

Well, yesterday I got invited into the beta for Foxytunes Planet - which basically pulls all of this information into a single destination - and positions itself as a music search platform.

You search for an artist, and you get a page that surfaces:

• Photos from Flickr


• Videos from YouTube


• Artist Radio from Pandora


• Similar Artist and Fan Radio from Last.fm


• Related Artist info from Last.fm


• MP3s as aggregated by The Hype Machine


• Albums from Amazon


• Search Results from Google


• Catalog on Rhapsody.com

Optionally, you can add other widgets to each Artist page including

• iTunes Links


• Yahoo Image & Music Links


• eMusic Links

So, while you are listening to a song, you click the "Planet" icon in the Foxytunes browser tool bar and it will spawn a window with all of this info about the artist you are listening to.

In that way, it is similar to Sleevenotez, but unlike that application - it doesn't suffer the lag time introduced by waiting on a data roundtrip to/from Last.fm's servers. Give it a shot and let me know what you guys think.

Note to Foxytunes guys: Any way to create an AIM plug-in and provide the controls in my instant messaging client? Unlike my browser, my Buddy List is one of my few applications that are actually maximized all day long.