The recent announcement by Drop.io that it will soon cease operations has been a bit of bad news for some music podcasters. These show producers, many of whom are members of the Association of Music Podcasting, use the service to allow independent musicians to submit their songs.
The
Drop.io interface makes it simple for music bloggers/podcast producers to integrate a widget on their show pages. This widget serves as an upload port for the musicians. In the case of my own show,
Audio Gumshoe, the widget is accompanied by a submission form. This allows artists to submit details about their craft, provide web links, and even agree to terms of submission. The Drop.io component allows me to preview the music and choose whether or not I would download it to save for upcoming shows.
According to the Drop.io blog we have until December 15 to move files out of our accounts. Many music podcasters have already looked for alternatives, including Soundcloud and Dropbox. However, I haven't found either of these services to offer the same ease of use and simple interface for the musicians. They may provide me with a place to receive tunes for review and possible inclusion in the show, but they don't offer much in simplicity for the person doing the submission. I love Dropbox for personal and business use, but I don't want artists to have to open yet another account simply to upload a few songs for my show.
Even Mashable reported that Drop.io offers:
"...file hosting and sharing service of considerable renown in Web world, particularly among those who espouse the need to keep things simple."
Why the closure? Drop.io reports:
Today, we’re proud to announce that we’ve struck a deal with Facebook. What this means is that Facebook has bought most of drop.io’s technology and assets, and Sam Lessin is moving to Facebook.
In the coming weeks, we’ll be winding down the drop.io service. As of this week, people will no longer be able to create new free drops, but you’ll be able to download content from existing drops until Dec. 15. Paid user accounts will still be available through Dec. 15 and paid users will be able to continue using the service normally. After Dec. 15, paid accounts will be discontinued as well.
Though I use Facebook, I'm becoming quite annoyed by the many acquisitions that it has made. These often [read: usually] cease the existence of other services that I use. The technology is then used in ways that I would never find myself participating at my Facebook account.
Perhaps I'll return to using the cforms plugin for Wordpress that I had used in the past. I found it to be buggy and unreliable, but at least it was simple for the artists. Perhaps there have been improvements made since I used it last that will show it to be a good alternative.
Be sure to visit my show at
AudioGumshoe.com. Visit the
Association of Music Podcasting at
musicpodcasting.org.
