Firstly Skymonkey.org would like to extend it’s thanks to Russell for taking time out to answer a few questions.

In case you haven’t heard of it, Media Monkey is a music player with a difference. Rather than just playing music (which it does really well) Media Monkey is also a platform for organising your music collection. Not only does it support the normal music file types and MP3 players - including iPods and the such, it also has the ability to rip CDs and convert, for example wma files to ogg. But where Media Monkey really excels is it’s powerful ability to re-organise your music collection. It can take information contained within the ID3 tags of the MP3’s, and use it to create a file structure that suits your needs. Media Monkey is free, but if you purchase the Gold Edition for $19.95, you get extra features such as the ability to monitor directories for updates, and on-the-fly format conversion for MP3 players (just in case your whole library is in ogg format, and you need them in mp3 format for your mp3 player.) You also get all future updates for that version. There is also a lifetime license available that means any new versions that come out will automatically be available for you to download and use in full.

The Media Monkey team consists of 5 people. Russell Samuels, Jiri Hajek & 3 other developers.

Paul: How did Media Monkey first come to being?

Rusty: Jiri was working on Songs-DB because he was unsatisfied with the state of Music Management apps at the time. I was looking for a new business opportunity and had similar thoughts about the need for a music manager that would meet the needs of more serious collectors. We hooked up and MM was born, and since then, it’s been a labor of love.

Paul: Have you written Media Monkey’s front-end with a view to entice current Winamp or iTunes users by providing a familiar interface?

Rusty: We’re always influenced by good ideas whatever their source might be. Early versions of MediaMonkey were designed to use Winamp skins as that was a way of quickly getting a skin library for MediaMonkey, so the player ended up looking like Winamp’s. MediaMonkey’s Tree and Tracklist were modeled after Windows Explorer, the main difference being that MM’s tree is used to model attributes other than location. Newer versions of the player are supported by a better skinning engine, that allows for much more creative designs that can be unique, or modeled after iTunes, Windows Media Player, or any other visually pleasing music app.

Paul: Media Monkey seems to share a few similarities with Winamp. For instance, the Visualisations are compatible with Winamp’s, and the Shoutcast support, plus some other details. Is the code base for Media Monkey completely separate from Winamp, or is it based on, or have pieces in common with Winamp?

Rusty: MediaMonkey was designed to be compatible with many of the Winamp 2.x APIs since that allowed its functionality to be extended in the absence of an active developer base. In early versions of MM, there was common code for a couple of freely licensed input/output plugins. Today, MM doesn’t have any common code with Winamp, though it still supports the Winamp 2.x APIs.

Paul: Are there any plans, other than sales, for monetisation? For instance, are you looking to in the future perhaps fund the free version with ads?

Rusty: We’ve thought about having an ad-supported version, but have rejected that as too damaging to our brand–we don’t want to be labeled as adware. We currently derive a small amount of revenue from affiliate sales of music via Amazon, and hope to grow that with the launch of Amazon’s MP3 store.

Paul: Do you feel the community of users are important to the future of Media Monkey’s ongoing development?

Rusty: Without its community, MediaMonkey is nothing. Our community has translated MM into 15 languages, developed countless scripts, created skins and icons, beta tested, provided invaluable feedback, etc. We try to give back to our community by carefully listening to what they’re asking for, and providing in the free version enough that it is useful for most people. I suspect that with time, our community will become even more critical to MM’s success.

Paul: How do you feel the record industry is coping with the change of people buying more and more music online, and where do you think Media Monkey fits into this change?

Rusty: The record industry’s response to the internet as a distribution medium was to tighten control over content with DRM. We’ve never been a fan of DRM–it’s only caused problems for our users, and believe in a future of unencumbered music such as that offered in Amazon’s MP3 store. But, it’ll still be hard to sell tracks for $1 when they can be found via p2p for free–so the industry will have to provide enough value at any particular price point that makes it worth paying for the track instead of getting it via p2p.

In that context, MediaMonkey will have to get better at helping users find the music that they seek and helping users discover music that they might be interested in, given their tastes. If we do this effectively, it will yield affiliate revenues that will help fund the project in the long term.

Paul: Are there any other plans for Media Monkey in the future?

Rusty: World domination?

Once again, our thanks are extended to Russell for his time. If you are interested, Media Monkey can be downloaded from [HERE]