kSolo is an online karaoke service that was recently acquired by Fox, along with the previously mentioned memetracker NewRoo. I think it's a smart idea, but a quick glance at the site reveals plenty of easily-fixed problems.
So what's good about it? Well, the basic concept makes sense: social software is all about making media sharable and democratizing the content creation process. By applying human filters to this media, you can discover the best stuff with no centralized editor (see also: memediggers). YouTube's most favorited videos must be a goldmine for talent scouts - the selection includes an urban ninja (future Hollywood stuntman, perhaps?) and the awesome guitarist I pointed to yesterday. The role of Web 2.0 in surfacing talent is a whole post in itself, but here's the short version: the A&R guys need to check out sites like kSolo ASAP.
On the downside, I'm not crazy about the execution. Seriously: this thing only runs on Internet Explorer with Windows - it may be in Beta, but that's still absurd. The sharing features are also poor - who sends audio files by email these days? Why the heck don't they have an embeddable Flash widget like YouTube, Slide and other players that are feeding the MySpace beast? The best I can do is insert this static image:
On a wider point, I'd say that Fox is making smart decisions in this space - more so than Yahoo. It seems to me that the future of media lies with the 13-25 year old MySpace users, rather than the same old group of bloggers. Compare the success of Photobucket, Digg, YouTube and MySpace to geekier plays like Flickr and del.icio.us. Clearly, getting traction with the college kids is a big boost. The problem, of course, is that the biggest demographic is also the hardest to monetize. Luckily, Fox has enough time and money to figure out that little puzzle.