Seesu, Last.fm, VKontakte, Soundcloud Mashup

Seesu is a small software that combines the vast Last.fm music library and database with mp3 libraries on VKontakte and Soundcloud. At its core, Seesu is a music player with integrated mp3 download capabilities. It is available as a widget for the Opera web browser and Apple dashboard, as well as an extension and app for Chrome. A Firefox extension must have existed at one point or the other, as it is still linked on the project homepage. The Mozilla page however returns a page not found error.

The functionality of all different ports is similar, I’m using the Opera widget to explain the program’s functionality.

When you start Seesu you see the following screen pop up.

You get a search form on top that you can use to find bands, artists or songs. Below that are recommendations and loved tracks which only display contents if you link your Last.fm account to Seesu.

This is followed by a section that highlights what other Seesu users are currently listening to, country specific playlists and tags.

Depending on your selection you are either taken directly to the music player where you can play the selected song, an artists or band overview page where all albums and songs are listed on, or a category or group page listing multiple bands and artists.

Here you stumble upon the integration of Vkontakte for the first time, as the program recommends to log in to vk.com or vkontakte.ru to find better music files.

The vast music library of Vkontakte is used in searches after the login. While it is recommended it is not necessary to login at all. You can use the core program features as an anonymous user, or guest as well. You may however notice that several of the songs are cut at the 30 second mark. If you link the accounts, you are more likely to find the full songs.

The music player automatically loads the next song in line. One advantage over Last.fm’s radio feature is that you can play all songs of an individual artist.

Mp3 downloads are only available if the full song is being played in the player. All download links point to Soundcloud for guest users. If you log into Vkontakte you may get download links from Vkontakte servers as well which increases the number of songs significantly.

The music player displays artist and song information taken from Last.fm and videos which are embedded directly in the interface. The videos use YouTube as the provider.

Videos can often be used to play the full song if only the first 30 seconds are offered in the music player. Both the music player and video player stop playing if you click play anywhere on that page.

Individual song pages display tags, similar artists and albums

Seesu combines a powerful music player with mp3 downloads and music discovery options. The optional integration of VKontakte improves the availability of music significantly, on both the playing and downloading side. Program Downloads are offered on the developer website.

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Author: Martin Brinkmann, Tuesday May 10, 2011 -
Tags:last.fm, Seesu, soundcloud, vkontakte