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Friday, January 19, 2001; Page E14

FRISKIT PLAYER, Friskit

What: Song-finding tool.
Details: This is a very cool, very simple program. Type in a musician's name, click the "Go" button, and in seconds you'll hear a randomly selected song by that artist playing on your PC. Like Napster, Friskit can quickly unearth a wide variety of music. But since it tunes into streamed music instead of downloading entire MP3s, you hear the songs immediately -- although you can also skip ahead and back in songs, as with a traditional CD. Friskit runs inside your browser and launches automatically, so long as you have RealNetworks' RealPlayer on board. It works by indexing the vast number of streamed songs on the Net, linking to the Web site where each is hosted and giving you a chance to buy the CD containing it. You can also seek new music by browsing through 50 genres and 70-odd mixes -- "Best of the '70s," "Tropical Vacation," "Heartache Hotel" and so on. I even found a pile of great live cuts from musicians whose entire catalogues already sit in my CD rack. The results sound pretty good even on a 56-kbps modem connections, although some of the cuts are just brief samples (you can set Friskit to play only complete songs) and volume can vary between songs. Bottom line: Why can't my radio work like this?

-- Daniel Greenberg

Win 95 or newer/Win NT 4 or newer; free at http://www.friskit.com (preview versions available for Mac, Unix and Linux)