Back when music subscription service MOG launched its Google Chrome app, we wished that the web interface would adopt its much slicker player, rather than the pop-out Flash player it featured then. Well, our prayers have been answered.
MOG has rolled out a new player -- still in beta -- in HTML5. And, thank the deities, it's not a pop-out. Although it has a wide selection of music, MOG always lagged when it came to easy usage. There was just so much going on. The new player streamlines the previous version a bit, making it much more intuitive to perform tasks like making playlists.
In the past, you had to create a new playlist and then search for music to add to it via the main site. Then, to listen to the playlist, you clicked "Play," which opened a new window. Now, MOG has gone the iTunes route. Just search for music, and drag and drop what you want into a new playlist.
This new functionality makes it a lot easier to organize your music. In the past, your Queue (any music you've listened to) and your playlist would oftentimes all appear in the pop-out window, making listening a bit frustrating. Now, playlists and Queue are much more distinct.
MOG also now boasts deeper recommendations via an integration with Facebook Connect. When you fire up the new MOG -- if you have Facebook Connect activated -- you'll be presented with recommendations based on bands both you and your friends have liked. Sadly, in my testing I could only see bands inspired by my friends, no personal recs. Bug testing, here we come.
There have been a lot of rumors about Facebook launching a music service in conjunction with pre-existing subscription services. We wonder if this new, more social MOG is indicative of a deeper partnership in the coming months.