Item 19: Audio/Video - Music and other Audio

This item will introduce you to some of the ways that Web 2.0 technologies are being used in the world of audio.

1. Go check out some different social networking music sites. Look around their home pages and see which one appeals to you.
   
   • last.fm
   • Pandora
   • IMEEM
     
   
   
2. Some of these websites have software that you can be downloaded to a computer, but that is not necessary.
   

Music isn't the only kind of audio that is offered online. There are also a lot of podcasts, speeches, audiobooks, etc. that you can find, and many of them can be downloaded for free. Sites where you can find content of this sort include:

1. Internet Archive - a non-profit organization that is attempting to archive a great deal of digital content and keep it free and open to the public. There are scanned books, concerts, audiobooks, speeches, podcasts, videos, and more.
2. Absolute Sound Effects Archive - for when you're getting creative with your video or podcast, and you need some good sound effects to spruce things up.
3. Gutenberg.org's Audio Book collection - you can find a lot of recorded books, and download them to your computer or music player. Most of the books are classics in the public domain, but they're free, which is a lot cheaper than buying most recorded books new.
4. Mango Languages is a site where you can listen to and also see the corresponding writing of a variety of World languages. Language learning is a whole different type of sound experience, and there are quite a few sites out there that are providing language learning classes both for free and for a fee. Mango is free.

Activities:

1. Look through these sites and try some of them out. Be sure to tag these sites in del.icio.us.
2. Write a blog post about what you've discovered, and what you thought was interesting. More ideas: What appeals to you about these services? What doesn't appeal to you? Is this anything that a library could ever make use of? Is it something you would make use of? Are CDs dead?