Yahoo Audio Search Beta

Okay, don't know if you've noticed, but Yahoo has been quite the busy little bee this week. It's becoming difficult to keep up with...can't..take...the...pressure....I'm...only...one...person.....

Now that my little psychotic episode is over (for now...bwah hah hah), let's talk about Yahoo Audio Search, now in beta. 'Tis a nice little search tool, and it claims to find "any audio file on the Web", including music files, interviews, speeches, newscasts, podcasts, sound effects, stand up comedy, etc. Here's what you can do with it:

• Obviously, most people would probably use this to find music. I typed in David Wilcox, one of my all time favorite folksy singers, and got a ton of results back. You can listen to music samples, podcasts, or search for other audio options all from one search result.
• If you would like, you can customize your audio search preferences so you can "quickly access songs already available from your existing audio service provider." What this means is if you would like songs to come back that you can download via iTunes, you can.
• You can also save your audio searches by clicking on the Save to My Web button on the top of the search results. What this means is you tag your results so you can easily find them later (just like bookmarks, but with names instead of a hierarchy of folders).
• If you would like your audio content to be included, you can submit your media RSS feed.

All in all, a comprehensive service. Here's a few of the search results I came up with:

• Al Franken podcasts
• Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, including a 15 minute sample from the Boston Pops Orchestra.
• Yahoo Audio search has a few syntax tricks. I searched for "sesame street" and got "sesame street gangsters"; which, unless Bert and Ernie have delved into the underworld, is not what I want. So I tried this:

  sesame street - gangsters

  and got what I wanted, including Do de Rubber Duck.
• An eclectic collection of search engine podcasts; I just typed in the query "search engine" and got a ton of stuff back.

Yahoo Audio Search has advanced search options; just click on the "Advanced Search Options" text link once you get to the search results page. That's enough for now, but I can recommend with confidence this easy to use audio search tool.

Related: Search for more audio and video files on the Web, or find podcasts with Podscope.