Smokey Maverick

I’m aware there are a dozen or so online, on-demand music streaming services offered today (Spotify, Last.fm, Rhapsody, imeem, Pandora, and even a service to pair wine with music!), but I want to pair off middleweights blip.fm vs. Grooveshark.

I’m late to the party with Grooveshark, seeing it advertised on blip.fm of all places, and from Paul Maul raving about it. I’ve been a blip.fm pusher since I was introduced to it via word of mouth from Honest Ape and Sullivan back in February of this year. I’ve played with both services now, and here is what I found:

Simplicity of Use
Grooveshark doesn’t have much of a learning curve, but blip.fm has even less of one. Blip benefits from societies (now viral) obsession with the ‘twitter’ format it leverages, while Grooveshark mimics iTunes format. With both layouts familiar to most of the population, we move onto the features. While blip.fm has a few strange ones that a trip to the FAQ will clear up, Grooveshark has many more features (current and saved playlists, your own music library, favorites, people, smile and frown faces) and all team up to naturally increase a beginner’s confusion to Grooveshark.
Edge: blip.fm

Music Availability
One of the pet peeves of many blip.fm users is the fluxuating availabitity of songs. One day you blip a song, a day later you go back to listen to it, only to find it’s now “Unavailable” and you have to find another version of that song. If blip.fm is looking to become a major player on the crowded streaming music scene, they should be focusing on this issue. On the other hand, I’ve had a very hard time tripping up Grooveshark and not finding a song I’d wanted to play/save. On a few searches, I had to mix up the artist/song name/album name to finally find it, but found it none the less.
Edge: Grooveshark

Sense of Community
Following other blip.fm users (or “DJs”) is very simple and almost a cornerstone function of blip.fm. The use of simple “props” enhances the feeling of community, and sharing other songs and having others validate your already outstanding taste is music is just plain fun. Grooveshark has the capability of following others, and sharing playlists, but the “Find others I might like” function is cumbersome to work and not as intuitive as blip.fm. Grooveshark, by its design, caters more to the individual user than to a music listening community as a whole.
Edge: blip.fm

Discovery of New Music:
You get to enjoy unlimited skippage on Grooveshark (<glare> Pandora </glare>), and there is an interesting feature called Groove Radio, that acts much like Pandora in that it builds off of your preferences and suggests new songs. However, after skipping songs, I noticed Groove Radio started repeating artists after about 6-7 skips! I need more variety than that. Blip.fm is helpful in that you have actual human beings finding new music all the time, and blipping what the hot new tunes are (or should be).
Groove receives high marks for being able to easily upload your own music library, but there remains a few potential legality issues. Blip.fm allows users to upload their bands own music to the site, but it’s done via a much more controlled way, on a “case by case” basis. Blip.fm is a bit cryptic on how it sources more popular music, basically saying its from “the internet” – but at least the user doesn’t have to worry about any legal issues.
Edge: blip.fm

Supporting Platform
Currently, both services are available only on the web. But this section was listed to point out that there are undeveloped areas well worth pursuing, much like Pandora and others have done (which Grooveshark might be on the cusp of…)
Edge: Push

Hands Free Coefficient
Which service can you just open up, hit play, and continue on your merry way? This obviously goes to Grooveshark, as users can create (and even save) their own playlists. Blip.fm relies on the DJ selecting songs to blip, or just opting to listen to your favorite DJ’s stream of songs (which could be easily countered by Groove Radio)
Edge: Grooveshark

SCORECARD
With a score of 3-2, blip.fm takes the undisputed Interactive Internet Streaming Music title! But obviously, both services have their merits and pit falls, and it ultimately (as it always does) comes down to personal preference.

My opinion aside, the stats from the masses on the interweb never really lies, and it appears that Grooveshark (green) has recently overtaken blip.fm (blue), as blip.fm plateaus out:

On one last note, I still have yet to find an interactive music streaming service to beat out Y-Rock or WXPN as my primary listening (granted, hands free) mode. So personally, and for the time being at least, the old, dependable, quality DJ run radio waves (er, streams) still win out when everything is considered.

Tags:   blip.fm · Grooveshark · It's an interactive-music-stream-offNo Comments