Our Vision - Songbird

Current media players such as iTunes, Windows Media Player and Zune are proprietary, single‐vendor, vertically‐integrated silos, excluding any competitive services and devices. If Web browsers had been designed like current media players, Internet Explorer would surf only Microsoft.com and run only on the Xbox.

In contrast, Songbird is a media player that is as open as a Web browser. We’re building the open source, open standards, open Web user‐agent for digital media.

Our vision comes from Tim Berners‐Lee’s original vision of the Web:

“Keeping the medium and the content separate is a good rule in most media. When I turn on the television, I don't expect it to deliberately jump to a particular channel... I expect my television to be an impartial box. I also expect the same neutrality of software…”


We believe that Songbird dramatically lowers the barriers to entry for new services and devices, and will augur a vast, diverse and innovative Media Web. We aspire to make Songbird as ubiquitous as the Web browser, television set, or home stereo.
Songbird Owner’s Manual(PDF)