Looking For Digital Content? MP3s & More Are Yours With Scouter! October 16th, 2000 Scouter b1 (Public Beta) Gerrit Goossen First there was the Napster network, which Mac users can access via Macster. But it can only offer MP3 files. Then came the Gnutella network, which Mac users can access via FURI. It is on the other end of the spectrum, being able to share any type of file. So how about a system where you can focus on digital content, but access more than just MP3 files? This is exactly what Scouter offers, via the Scour exchange. The Scour exchange really consists of two parts. Until the good folks at Scour come up with a Mac client, you'll need to access them separately. The first part is the ability to search for and access approved content via the Scour web site. They have sorted the available content into Music, Film/Video and Radio. Specifically, you can access content such as music videos, movie trailers, online broadcasting stations, and more. Search for and Locate Audio, Video and Image Files The second part of the exchange involves a client that uses the Scour Transfer Protocol. This protocol is available via an Open Development Program, which encourages others to write compatible clients. Scouter, of course, is one of these clients. There are two major windows, Search and File Transfer. When searching, your results will vary based on the type of information you are searching for. For example, if you search for audio information, the results will report the server's speed, the bit rate of the clip, and the frequency, among other information. A double-click on the item will start the download, and you can monitor the progress via the File Transfer window. As with some other unofficial clients, Scouter only offers the ability to search for and retrieve data, but not to share it. We're sure this feature will be offered in either an official client release, or an updated version of Scouter. Whatever happens, you can experience some of the benefits of this network now. For locating digital media on the Internet, the Scour web site and Scouter make some great tools to add to your collection. Have any other Mac OS Internet Gadgets that you think other Observers would like to know about? Write John via e-mail, so he can review it, or share it with the rest of us in the Mac Gadget Forum.