PlayerPal: Remote Control of Your Music

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.playerpal.com/default.aspx' target='_blank'>http://www.playerpal.com/default.aspx</a><br /><br /></div><i>"PlayerPal Industries has released Version 3.5 of PlayerPal. PlayerPal is a Windows Service that provides a web interface for browsing, searching and controlling Windows Media Player from any networked PC or device with a web browser. PlayerPal research labs utilised the skills of a flock of former <a href="http://www.google.com/technology/pigeonrank.html">Google pigeons</a> to create the new PlayerPal RANDOMIZER button. When lacking musical inspiration, press this button to generate a selection of random tracks or albums to play. Genuine randomness is achieved by using the pigeon pecking seed algorithm. The pigeons joined PlayerPal in 2004 after being excluded from the pre-IPO Google stock options. Version 3.5 also includes a new music library browser that works alongside the existing free text music search. Using this, you can browse and sort your entire music library by artist, genre, year and album art. You can then select music to replace, or add to, your current playlist. As an example you can add all the music from an entire year, or drill down to a specific album or track from that year."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/browsebyart.gif" /><br /><br />Looks pretty cool, though nothing too earth-shattering. Having the ability to drill down by metadata such as year is a neat feature. My one concern is the price - I gulped when I saw that the author was pricing it in pounds sterling. £19.95 is a whopping $41.31 CAD, and $35.90 USD. That's a lot of money to ask for a one-trick pony like this. I'm sure people in the UK loving having such a strong currency, but for the rest of us, it's a bit harsh to buy in that currency. ;-)

[Ben [PlayerPal]]

[The following is a repost from here (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=378448&amp;sid=c91c395f00e8fb5ca54417a0d84d9abe)]

Thanks for posting about PlayerPal. I appreciate the constructive criticism about the price, even though it wont help sales! I agonised over it for sometime as I work full time on PlayerPal. Unfortunately, as Joel says (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html) "The biggest mistake software companies make is charging too little ... and they have to go out of business. An even bigger mistake ... is charging too much, so they don't get enough customers, and they have to go out of business."

Anyway, don't get me wrong, I'm not asking you to break out the violins. People will only buy PlayerPal it if they feel it is worth the money. I think it is, as do my customers but I am working hard to keep improving it to offer more and more value. This will include iTunes support, (including streaming to the Airport Express) skins for more devices (e.g. Nokia 770 etc) and a bunch of spanking new features that I can't mention now that will make your music experience even better.

I also hope that the old adage "you get what you pay for" holds true with PlayerPal. For example, before shipping, PlayerPal is tested on Virtual Machines running multiple browser variants and 4 operating systems. It is automatically regression tested and manually checked for defects so when you get it, it works. I know this is important as I have customers who have previously bought other products that do similar things and they have switched to PlayerPal for reasons such as XYZ product was "bulky and unstable" or "randomly crashed". Obviously, unless you try PlayerPal and the competition, you wont know this.

It is also the only app of its type that runs as a service so you can use it when logged off. Great for a headless media server or commercial applications such as phone system or lobby music control (http://www.playerpal.com/PermaLink,guid,a5d87faa-a924-4fa8-a0a5-a54dac5fbee6.aspx).

One thing I will do ASAP is put a fixed US, Canadian and Australian dollar price in. That should at least make it more transparent and protect you guys from the vagaries of the exchange rates. As for the strong pound, that doesn't help me compete at all :(

I'll also let you know when the next version comes out so you can bash me again :) Don't forget it only costs the equivalent of 10 small (tall in Starbucks speak) lattes. Just give up coffee over Christmas!

Cheers,

Ben

PlayerPal (www.playerpal.com) - Where do you want to control your music (www.playerpal.com) - www.playerpal.com