AOL Beta Round-Up Part 2: A Sneak Peak at AOL Software Currently in Development All the World's a Media Wayne Kawamoto
A Web powerhouse that is perhaps best known for its ubiquitous promotional CDs, America Online is a service provider to millions. But with Google, Yahoo, MSN, and others making online inroads, it's no surprise that AOL continues to improve its tools to stay current and competitive. In this regard, AOL Explorer, AOL Media Player, AOL Toolbar, and AIM Triton Instant Messaging Client — all currently in pre-release beta versions or fresh out of beta release at press time — promise useful new features to both AOL users and non-converts.
While AOL Explorer is an AOL-branded version of Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 that has some excellent navigation and "power browsing" features, if you'd rather stay with Internet Explorer, you can rely on the AOL Toolbar, which adds a menu within IE that allows you to conveniently search the Web and access AOL services.
The AOL Media Player offers a solid program for playing audio and video files, much like Microsoft's Windows Media Player and Real Video's RealPlayer. There are unique features in AOL's release that will appeal to many users. Finally, AIM Triton Instant Messaging Client supports AOL's instant messaging services and offers some definite enhancements.
While the programs are not necessarily best of breed, they're competent and useful. And like those from the other services, many are free (potential pricing was not available at press time). For the most part, your decision to try or ignore these programs will probably depend on how much you rely on
AOL's services.
Last week we covered the new Web browsing tools in AOL's beta arsenal; today we'll take a closer look at the new multimedia and IM releases.
All the World's a Media
While media players tend to look somewhat alike, it's what's under the hood that counts. In this respect, AOL Media Player (AMP) serves as a standalone media application capable of playing your CDs, music files (MP3s, WAVs, etc.), and video files, as well as burning music to CDs. And if you're an existing AOL subscriber, you can also use AMP to play AOL Radio stations (Radio@AOL) and videos (Video@AOL) from AOL.
After installation and upon first use, AMP scans your computer's hard drive to locate media files. AMP works outside of the AOL client, and can be used to play audio and video content on your computer when you are not connected to the Internet.
Like AOL Explorer, the program provides tabs that let you quickly switch between perusing and playing songs on your PC and on AOL Radio, as well as
videos. Powerful search features let you look for songs based on artist's name, song title, and genre. AMP even goes beyond the playlist features typically found in media players by allowing you to easily drag and drop songs and burn them onto CDs.
Even better, there are powerful sorting tools that can automatically create playlists and save them directly to CD. To start, you can rely on generic options to automatically create playlists out of the songs that you've recently played, as well as your highest rated songs and the latest titles that you've added.
But if you're so inclined, the program offers more sophisticated tools that let you create and apply your own rules. This way, the program can create playlists based on the number of times that you've played a song or other criteria, and it will follow your rules for time and repetition.
The interface is attractive, intuitive, and easy to use. The left side of the screen displays song titles while the right side manages the playlists.
Overall, AMP is a worthy entry in the media player arena and its particularly powerful set of playlist tools will make the player especially appealing to media mavens.
