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Yahoo Plans Its Own Music Player, Download Service
iPod writes "Since late last year, Yahoo has been developing its own music player software, which will be underpinned by a subscription and download service provided by MusicNet, sources familiar with the plan said. Yahoo is developing its own music player software, backed by MusicNet-provided downloads and subscriptions, that it plans to run alongside the recently purchased Musicmatch."
Seems like only yesterday that Yahoo bought Broadcast.com for $5.4 billion and said they'd "provide a selection of programming including business events, full-length CDs, and audio books." We all knew Yahoo was going to kill off the conventional media companies like ABC, NBC, and CBS - just a matter of time.
Now Apple and the recording companies under the same pressure. Wow, that's gotta be scary. I sure wouldn't want to be in Steve Jobs' shoes knowing that the same minds behind the Yahoo/Broadcast.com integration are now coming after my customers. I don't know how I'd sleep at night.
What's your damage, Heather?
Oh goody. A subscription service.
Those are always so successful.
Why would they do this you ask? Well... all the cool companies are doing it, right?
I'm waiting for Sun Microsystem's music download service myself.
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"Yahoo Plans Its Own Music Player, Download Service"
Maybe this is because I'm only halfway through my morning coffee...but...why?
It seems at this point these companies are merely flooding a drowning market that is online music stores. Seems like a new one pops up weekly among the big companies.
So how is this different than if I share my songs?
The Musicmatch acquisition brought Yahoo the third-largest audience for online music, according to Internet research firm ComScore Media Metrix. As of August, Yahoo's Launch ranked top with 14 million unique users, followed by AOL Music at 13 million and Musicmatch at 5.8 million. MSN Music came in fourth with 4.3 million, Napster owner Roxio had 2.1 million unique users, and RealNetworks' Listen accounted for 1.8 million.
I don't own any drm music. If I want mp3's, I rip them from my own CD's and trade with friends (since we paid for the CD, we can make copies and give them out for free to anyone we want, regardless of what the RIAA says). Those pay services all have their own DRM (I am guessing from what I have been reading), so it is like owning a cripled peice of software. I don't get why people buy something that will only work on X's player.
Come and say hi. http://forum.penpals.com/index.php
Yes, their collection is incomplete, but there's still a huge selection of good stuff.
Not everybody is suited for the streaming approach -- some really prefer to burn CDs for the car, etc -- but for those that are suited for streaming, it's pretty neat.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
You've got a good point.
Imagine you are sitting there craving some Jazz. You fire up iTunes play some Armstrong, but suddenly you want Ella Fitzgerald. Problem is Ella is only selling her music through Yahoo! because that is the deal Yahoo! made with the record companies. Now you've got to fire up Yahoo!'s player.
After a few songs you realize that it isn't Jazz you were interested in, it was Punk Rock all along. Of course you've got to fire up Real Player because you've purchased it through them. After a few Racid songs you want to listen to some Motörhead... back to iTunes. Wait! After firing up iTunes you realize that it was Yahoo! that sold you the Motörhead tracks.
Or... was it Napster? After waiting for that to load, and then searching you find it. Finally Motörhead is coming through the speakers.
The problem above is caused by a few things. First, you can't buy every type of music in any one store. Some albums, usually soundtracks, don't have all the songs available on your favorite music store. The soundtrack for "A Bronx Tale" is a good example on iTunes. Last I checked, there was only two songs available for purchase because of licensing issues. (Which encouraged me to "steal" the song I wanted instead of buying it) The second problem is that different services offer different prices and have different promotions. What is 99 cents on iTunes may be 88 cents on Rhapsody. It may just make sense to get some songs from iTunes and some from Napster and some from Yahoo! and even some from Wal-Mart. Now, this is usually a good thing, competition and all. But it's making the industry too fragmented.
If we are going to purchase music there needs to be a way to export/import to other DRM schemes. I'm all for online music stores but it seems that being locked into one choice isn't going to work for most people. These companies need to get together and work on one standard - or risk losing everyone to piracy again.
Then again, you can just burn the music to a CD and then rip it to mp3 (or ogg et. al.). But that is what got everyone in this mess in the first place, isn't it?
Get your Unix fortune now!
Slashdot plans it's own music download service.
Gentoo plans it's own music download service.
The producers of "That 70's Show" plans it's own music download service.
Rheem - makers of fine water heaters and air conditioners, plans it's own music download service.
My cousin, brother, both sisters, guy down the street, Old Man Jenkins at the haunted amusement park....all are planning their own music download service.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
My cousin, brother, both sisters, guy down the street, Old Man Jenkins at the haunted amusement park....all are planning their own music download service.
I think Old Man Jenkins had the best plan. He would have succeeded, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Remember the days of...
CompuServe
AOL
GEnie
Prodigy
The Source
They all wanted to *own* the home computer connection market. Together they balkanized it so that it never reached critical mass. Only ONE thing changed this, SMTP and the 'Internet bridge.' I used to be on CompuServe, and remember when we could begin routing email out over the Internet bridge. The other (surviving) providers followed suit, and suddenly anyone could email anyone, and home computer connectivity had its first Killer App.
The Web followed that, and though Microsoft has tried mightily, they haven't quite managed to 0wn it, and it looks like that chance might well be gone. (If only because cellphones are now on steroids, viewing the web.)
Then, in spite of a set of open protocols describing IRC, we began seeing Instant Message Balkanization. AIM, Yahoo, MSN, etc, etc, and of course none of them talk to each other. (Fortunately, GAIM talks to them all.) The idiots didn't learn!
Now we're hearing about a bunch of deliberately incompatible music download protocols emerging. For that matter, we've had a bunch of deliberately incompatible filesharing protocols, already. STUPID! STUPID! STUPID!
At about this point, I'm sick and tired of people telling me how stupid government is, and how the private sector can always do better. The Internet is the best counter-example. A government project put in place a series of non-owned, open protocols and standards, people came, and for the most part, it just works. Business, in its own-the-whole-pie mindset, denies critical mass to Instant Messaging and online music distribution. If the idiots could cooperate, they could all share a HUGE pie, each would have a bigger chunk of that pie than the whole pies they now have, and customers would be MUCH better off.
That said, I won't argue that government isn't stupid, just that they have no monopoly on stupidity. Sometimes, and the Internet is the poster child for this, government can do things right and business can do things wrong.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Well first, being "tethered to your computer" isn't so bad since anyone capable of setting up a stereo system is also capable of hooking their computer up to it and thus listening anywhere in their home. I noticed a music player on my sister's computer the other day and she can barely use the thing (I have to setup her email whenever she moves). It's probably a lot like an advanced stereo itself to her. Despite the recent popularity of hard drive based MP3 players the vast majority of people still don't have them and keep all their music at home, only taking some of it with them on the go (which you can also do for select songs via Real's service if you buy the song for burning).
;p ^^
Second, one of the things Real advertises is that you can use your account from any networked computer be it home, at work (lol, well I suppose some bosses might let you), or say a wireless laptop on a college campus. I also saw something about Rhapsody over mobile phones w/ headphones. If that performs well then the Rhapsody person not only has access to more music than someone with an MP3 player, he only needs his phone to do it and not a separate player.
I imagine there are still things to work out like battery life of a cell phone playing music for hours, but it's certainly not as limited as you say. The Real guy we had for an interview mentioned some good numbers for Rhapsody subscribers so it is getting people. Personally, though, I just use a flash player with some of my own CDs ripped and think you 'battery sucking, hard drive hauling, need access to a billion songs either by buying/stealing/subscribing people' are insane.