Audio Search Engines, Audio Directories, Audio Sites

Audio Search Engines

• Yahoo Audio Search: Yahoo's Audio search is fantastic, in my personal opinion. You can search for music, interviews, speeches, newscasts, podcasts, sound effects, and more.
  
  
• BlogDigger: A search engine for both audio and video content that is hosted at other sources.
  
  
• SingingFish: Search for audio files in a variety of formats, including MP3's or by categories (news, sports, entertainment, etc.).
  
  
• Lycos Multimedia Search: Click the radio button for "audio" and go to town. Includes a family friendly filter.
  
  
• AltaVista Audio Search: Allows searches in a variety of audio formats, but I especially like that you can choose how long you want the sample file to be at the "duration" pull-down menu.
  
  
• FindSounds: Searches the Web for sound effects (think screams, hoofbeats, etc.) or musical instrument samples. Make sure to check out the Types page to get a really good idea of what you can find.
  
  
• Podscope: A podcast-specific search engine.
  
  
• ez2Find: Specialized search engine that helps you find bands, artists, MP3's, lyrics, or MIDI files.
  
  
• Blinkx: Blinkx TV is basically a search engine that allows you to search for audio and video clips not only using keywords and phrases, but also content in the actual clips that you're looking for.
  
  
• Loomia: Loomia is a relatively smallish audio and video search engine that focuses mostly on podcasts and videos.

Audio Search Directories

• AudioFind: From the site description: "Searchable MP3 directory with thousands of files. Browse alphabetically by filename, master artist, or date."
  
  
• Open Directory Audio: Points to a wide selection of audio links.
  
  
• Salon.com Audio Directory: Alphabetically organized; all audio features offered at Salon.

Specialized Audio-Specific Sites

• The Quiet American: Take a one-minute vacation right at your desk with these sixty-second audio recordings from all over the world.
  
  
• The Free Information Society: Historical sounds of the twentieth century in audio format.
  
  
• NASA Space Mission Audio: Use the drop down menus to the left of the page to find audio from the NASA space mission flights.
  
  
• The World Wide Web Virtual Library - Audio: Pointers to information on computer-based audio sound and associated software available around the world on the World Wide Web.
  
  
• Internet Archive Audio Archive: A ton of great audio content is available here. Frequently updated.
  
  
• The History Channel - Famous Speeches: Listen to over 500 famous speeches that have made history.
  
  
• SermonAudio: Largest and fastest-growing library of audio sermons on the web with over 90,700 free audio sermons.

Streaming Audio Music Sites

• Pandora: Great application that you can use to create your own music station.
  
  
• Last.fm: Create your own music station and invite others to share - a great social networking site with audio.
  
  
• NPR Concerts: Listen to full concerts by popular bands that originally aired on NPR's Live Concert series.
  
  
• Creative Commons Audio Search: Find audio content distributed through the Creative Commons license.

Audio News

• IT Conversations: Listen to podcasts from technology notables.
  
  
• PBS Podcasts: This is a wonderful resource; you can download these PBS podcasts and listen to them later.
  
  
• BBC Audio A-Z Interviews: Huge database of BBC audio interviews.
  
  
• Streaming News and Info: Gary Price has put together a fantastic list of audio and video sources for news. Very extensive list that covers all the major networks from all around the world.
  
  
• Audio and Video Directory. Excellent collection of news sources.
  
  
• Audio News on the Internet: Lots of news, frequently updated.
  
  
• NPR National Public Radio: Search past news broadcasts as well.
  
  
• MSNBC News: Good source for streaming video.
  
  
• The Feedroom: News from all kinds of sources.
  
  
• CNN Video: CNN's video is always top-notch; you can search past broadcasts, too.

Audio Books

• LearnOutLoud.com: Free audio books, MP3 downloads, podcasts, and DVD videos.
  
  
• Project Gutenberg Audio Books: Find classic books in audio format.
  
  
• Audio Books for Free: Lots of great stories here, all categorized by genre.
  
  
• LibriVox: Free classic audio books; frequently updated.
  
  
• PodioBooks: "Free, serialized audio books - delivered on your schedule."
  
  
• Free Classic Audio Books: A great collection of classic books; I see a lot of my favorites here.