2009-07-05, 19:21
How should XBMC GUI (and underlying API/ABI) work with new unconventional music services such as Grooveshark and Spotify?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grooveshark
http://listen.grooveshark.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify
http://www.spotify.com
Unified Online Music Library front-end GUI and Addons API for music services such as Grooveshark and Spotify?
It would be very nice to be able to use Grooveshark or Spotify in XBMC now that they booth have announced their APIs, but even before that could happen I guess we would first have to try to figure out how the end-user would interface with a such service in the XBMC GUI, as right now they would not fit into XBMC's 'classic' way of browsing for music.
For those who are unfamiliar with these IMHO great and almost revolutionary services, Grooveshark and Spotify are two relativly new on-demand music services which are searched based, so there is by default not really any 'classic' interface to simply browse by artist or genre, (although if one has a user-account then one has the possibility to add music artists to "My Music" after you found something that you like, and there is also a "Popular"). So Grooveshark and Spotify works by you searching for the song or artist you want to play, then once you find that you can also continue to browse to similar songs or similar artists, or continue to play other songs and albums by the same artist.
The question is really how to handle such services in XBMC now that they made public APIs available. Should they be be coded nativly into XBMC, be plugins, or script, or should a new addon/plugin API be created for them? ...or could we maybe even reuse the new addon API that Alasdair and Alwin are working on for the unified PVR project and retask that to also work with possible addon plugins for Grooveshark and Spotify? And how should the XBMC interface be made to work with the searched based nature of services like Grooveshark and Spotify?
The possibility for Grooveshark and Spotify as a python plugin or script have is by the way already being discussed here without much progress:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=50972
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=48402
Note! For internal development our developers will of course need full premium accounts to test and develop services like Grooveshark and Spotify.
PS! I personally think that unless the RIAA or MPAA finds a way to outlaw services like Grooveshark and Spotify then these are really the future for on-demand music services, also Netflix and Voddler is coming soon with something similar online services for Movies and TV Shows. In addition, for the purpose of this discussion I think that it is will probably be best to first look at Grooveshark (before Spotify) as an example because unlike Spotify it works all over the world, and one can even try out Grooveshark without logging in or installing a client.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grooveshark
http://listen.grooveshark.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify
http://www.spotify.com
Unified Online Music Library front-end GUI and Addons API for music services such as Grooveshark and Spotify?
It would be very nice to be able to use Grooveshark or Spotify in XBMC now that they booth have announced their APIs, but even before that could happen I guess we would first have to try to figure out how the end-user would interface with a such service in the XBMC GUI, as right now they would not fit into XBMC's 'classic' way of browsing for music.
For those who are unfamiliar with these IMHO great and almost revolutionary services, Grooveshark and Spotify are two relativly new on-demand music services which are searched based, so there is by default not really any 'classic' interface to simply browse by artist or genre, (although if one has a user-account then one has the possibility to add music artists to "My Music" after you found something that you like, and there is also a "Popular"). So Grooveshark and Spotify works by you searching for the song or artist you want to play, then once you find that you can also continue to browse to similar songs or similar artists, or continue to play other songs and albums by the same artist.
The question is really how to handle such services in XBMC now that they made public APIs available. Should they be be coded nativly into XBMC, be plugins, or script, or should a new addon/plugin API be created for them? ...or could we maybe even reuse the new addon API that Alasdair and Alwin are working on for the unified PVR project and retask that to also work with possible addon plugins for Grooveshark and Spotify? And how should the XBMC interface be made to work with the searched based nature of services like Grooveshark and Spotify?
The possibility for Grooveshark and Spotify as a python plugin or script have is by the way already being discussed here without much progress:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=50972
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=48402
Note! For internal development our developers will of course need full premium accounts to test and develop services like Grooveshark and Spotify.
PS! I personally think that unless the RIAA or MPAA finds a way to outlaw services like Grooveshark and Spotify then these are really the future for on-demand music services, also Netflix and Voddler is coming soon with something similar online services for Movies and TV Shows. In addition, for the purpose of this discussion I think that it is will probably be best to first look at Grooveshark (before Spotify) as an example because unlike Spotify it works all over the world, and one can even try out Grooveshark without logging in or installing a client.