MP3Tunes and Oboe: A Syncing, Storing, Streaming Dream App

MP3tunes, started by Michael Robertson, formerly the CEO of MP3.com, began as an independent online music shop; it’s now catalogued at over 1,000,000 tracks. It shares some traits with places like AudioLunchbox and Emusic, but it’s got something else up its sleeve that they don’t have: Oboe.

Nope, not the woodwind instrument. Oboe is MP3tunes’ invention for those who’d like not to worry about their collection of songs, however large or small, and be able to access them, add, edit, and remove them if the desire arises, and even sync them with a portable media/music device.

Oboe is dubbed a ‘virtual locker’ for your tunes. There’s the $0.88-per-track store, and project called Sideload, which offers free tunes that you can stream (even without an account, if you can believe that!) and “sideload” into your ‘locker’.

My guess is that Sideload isn’t the most popular item out there on the digital music scene, because the buffer/load time for tracks - even those on Sideload’s front page – is surprisingly quick. And these aren’t samples, my friends. You’ll be enjoying free full-length tracks, similar to what you can get via Pandora, only you get to choose what to listen to from the start, rather than naming an artist and rating songs as you download the stream. Millions of choices aren’t available, but hey, it’s better than nothin’.

The main attraction, however, is, again, Oboe. Oboe is kind of like the iTunes music library for the web. It’s simple, it’s not clunky, and you get to choose how much space you want to reserve for your collection. You can take MP3tunes up on its 1GB-for-free offer, with no hidden fees, pay $20 for the year for 2GB of space, or $40 for unlimited space. There are some specifics to consider before choosing your plan, but you’ll do better to see the options for yourself rather than have me yammer on about the deets.

Some of you might be wondering, “How exactly is this Web 2.0?” Well, if you consider net-based applications that are useful, practical, and progressive part and parcel of gen-two, then I’m thinking this fits quite snugly into that mould. And, hey, DRM-free music. How could you go wrong?