Express your Facebook status through song with MoodMusic

TNW Quick Hit

MoodMusic (free) is an iPhone app allowing for Facebook status updates via song.

Hits: Neat way of conveying one’s status on Facebook.  Option to see other songs users have suggested, in addition to those of your friends is a super way of connecting one to others through music.

Misses: To upload a song it has to be synced from your iTunes library to your iPhone, taking up valuable memory on your device.  Creating one’s “Vibe” (explained below) requires posting songs to Facebook where they are then added to the “Vibe” section.  A user should simply be able to add songs to their “Vibe” without having to post it Facebook.  App can be slow when searching for artists, songs, and albums.

Overall: 3/5

The Details:

The iPhone doubles as an iPod for many, and depending on the size of your iPhone’s memory, 16gb or 32gb, the number of apps, photos and more you have on your device, one can sync and listen to a fair amount music right from your phone.

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If you’re one who has a great deal of apps, photos and other items hogging the capacity of your iPhone, you may opt for cloud-based music services such as Pandora, MOG, or my favorite, Rdio.  Each service offers free samples of their catalog or subscription services for those willing to pay.

MoodMusic is a first-of-its-kind hybrid service, combining streaming music features with your iPhone’s iPod capabilities. The app provides users with the ability to allow upload music from their phone where friends and others using MoodMusic can listen to another user’s songs.

With the MoodMusic iPhone app, one can take listening to music a step further by letting your Facebook friends listen to a shared song as well, in addition to adding information about what you’re doing, how you feel, or other, while listening to the song, with the song becoming your Facebook status and populating in you and your friends’ news feed.

Once you launch the app, MoodMusic asks to connect to your Facebook account and that’s it concerning setup.  It’s straightforward and simple.  You’re now ready to begin listening to the music uploaded by others using the “Global Jukebox,” songs uploaded by other users.

If you have friends using the service, you can see what they’ve uploaded and listen to their collection, or begin adding music yourself.  One of the neat or annoying features, depending on your point of view, of MoodMusic is the “Add Music” option.

To add music you must first add songs to your iPhone for uploading.  As one without any songs on my iPhone to preserve precious free space, I found this feature annoying, having to add songs to my device in order to share them with others.  For those who sync their iTunes library to their iPhone, adding music through the app should be no issue.

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Adding music requires searching for an artist, song, or album, a process I found extremely slow.  Once the app’s provided you with the desired search result, select the item, add your “Vibe” (a status, feeling, or other text), upload the song from your iPhone’s library and if you so choose, share the song with a friend, or leave the “Recommend” section’s default selection of “Everyone” and sharing the song will become your Facebook status.

The result of sharing a song with an individual is below.  MoodMusic displays that I’ve recommended a song to an individual, provides the song and artist information, and allows Facebook users to listen to the song right from within Facebook.

In the app, the uploaded song(s) can be found in the “Global Jukebox” section, with the option to buy the song on iTunes, play it on your iPhone or through Apple TV.

MoodMusic is a great concept, but there are some things I did not particularly like about the app which, with a few tweaks, could make it more useful for myself and other users who do not store a tremendous amount of music on their phone.

The first concerns adding music.  Searching for an artist, song or album was painfully slow, resulting in making uploads of one’s music take an extremely long time.

The second negative issue regarding MoodMusic has to do with the “Vibe” section.  One’s only options are sharing songs with a single friend, or with everyone.  To make MoodMusic better, there should be options to select several friends, or none at all, updating your “Vibe” section without updating your Facebook status.

Finally, one should have the option to search for music in the “Global Jukebox” section.  There’s no method to do so at present and it’s absence is glaring.

MoodMusic is a neat idea, but is an app with slowness issues at present and, if you like sharing your music collection with others, requires one to add songs to your iPhone and therefore subtract from your device’s available memory.

That said, if you want a free method of listening to music uploaded by others on your iPhone, and even want to upload and share songs with others on Facebook, MoodMusic is an app you’ll want to give strong consideration to trying.