// io.9elements.com weblog
Input and Output of Technology, Design and the wisdom of the streets

You might already know about the notoriously cheesy and badly produced microsoft songsmith ad (also check out the parody). Whatever they intended with that ad, it certainly proves that microsoft marketing totaly fails to catch up to the successful branding strategies of companies like apple or google. In contrast, some of their ads are so bad, that it already has something trashy. (But I doubt that this is the image they want).

Put that aside, songsmith is an interesting piece of software. Sing a melody into a microphone and songsmith will generate a whole song out of it. While one can discuss if this is really a productivity tool, the entertainment value of songsmith is extremely high – comparable to the popular song star or RjDj.

Note that you can also use acapella versions of popular tunes, and therefore create a “songsmithed” version of that track, which is hideous, as the “songsmithed” version puts the original song in whole different (and mostly cheesy) context.

Take a look yourself, and check out the classic version of radioheads “creep”, the oldie version of beastie boys “intergalactic”, police’s “roxanne” ragga edition, or – my favorite – a rave version of oasis “wonderwall”.

Songsmith could easily be a killer application for both iphone and android phones. I couldn’t even imagine the press of Microsoft releasing a successful iphone application, and let’s see if there are some fresh minds left at Microsoft that have at least considered this idea.