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RealNetworks Invests in Legitimizing Free Music
Rollie Hawk writes "Want some free music? Silly question, I know. But how about legally? That's exactly what RealNetworks is offering.
You may remember RealNetworks from about ten years ago when it was one of the leaders in audio streaming technology. After a decade of steaming becoming more widespread in both audience and medium, RealNetworks' RealPlayer has become an embarrassment to even try installing.
This, however, didn't stop them from jumping into the post-Napster song-swapping vacuum with their Rhapsody program. I can't comment on how good Rhapsody is since I've never met anyone who used it. That probably says enough right there.
In an attempt to rev-up their subscription-based music service, they are now resorting to giving away 25 songs each month. According to RealNetworks chairman and chief executive Rob Glaser, "by having a free service that is legal, it flattens the issue of 'Why use an illegal service?'"
Perhaps that logic would hold more weight if the universe of music contained only 25 songs."
You want the whole universe of music to be free? 25 songs is about a free CD every month. That's a good bargain. Do you usually buy more than one CD per month?
Furthermore, you can select 25 songs from 25 different albums if you so wish. This wy you can get onl ythe songs yo ucare about r if you really want to sample albums to see whether you like them or not, then that give you quite a range to select from.
all that assuming that they have an extensive store. Of course it all doesn't matter if they only have 20 albums that interest you
Nice move.
but.. i hope its not slow and bloated still. I bet its still a complete adware-loaded pile of garbage.If you don't care what Real does to your computer (i.e. pop-up messages, registry files, all sorts of advertisements), then go right ahead. I long for the days when Real Player really WAS a free and hassle free download.Its a pain clicking thru the ad-bloated pages for a download of Real player these days.
fifteen jugglers, five believers
Real Player is actually fairly competent on Win32 if you install it in the form of Real Alternative. Its effectively Real Player without the ad/spy/bloat ware and Media Player Classic bundled in a Win32 installer that Your Mumma could install. Very nice.
Just noticed that the same folks are doing something called Quicktime Alternative. Must give that a try too :-)
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Real networks is dead.
Their player is shit,
Their audio compression isnt all that great (and not opensource),
And nobody really cares about them anymore.
Their shitty practices of pushing their shitty player on every desktop and and hiding stupid marketing crap under invisible options in installer didn't win them any friends either.
They should just give up now.
from TFA: "However, neither portable service works with Apple's popular iPod digital music player. And both services require that the portable music player employed have Microsoft Corp.'s Janus digital-rights management system installed. Janus periodically checks to see if a subscription is current. If it's not, the songs are no longer playable.
The iRiver H10 and the Creative Zen Micro are among the players that include Janus."
get a free laptop
Mac version is fine too (am currently using to watch snooker live on BBC).
I think the problem is just that MS treats its users like crap so everyone else just follows their lead. Linux and Mac don't have a large enough user base to play the "fling enough shit... some will stick" game with them, and the Mac/linux users are also more likely to seek out alternatives.
From this more complete AP article:
Users who download RealNetworks' new Rhapsody software will get to select the 25 tracks - it could be 25 different songs played once apiece or the same song played 25 times - from a library of more than 1 million tunes, the company said Tuesday.
Forgive me if I'm not busting down Real's door to get this.
The Farewell Tour II
According to Rhapsody.com's front page, you get "25 full-length songs per month - FREE". Upon further investigation you only get to 25 free song plays. You don't get to keep the songs you play, and playing a song twice counts as two songs.
In other words, it's misleading advertising (oh what's new?) and if Rhapsody thinks this is going to help them compete again iTunes, they're very wrong -- iTunes gives away at least two songs a week that you get to *keep* and play as many times as you want.
I'm Trappped at Berkeley.
Works fine on my macs too. I don't know what version I have, it is a few years old, but new enough to deal with the streaming audio sources I use. I actually click on realplayer even when I have a choice as it works as well or better for NPR shows (the main taudio I stream) than other methods.
The worst part is that although they advertise the price as a monthly fee, you're charged $10/mo for a whole year right from the start. Want to use their service for a month? $120. (actually i seem to remember it being more like $90 or 100, but whatever. a lot.)
I got a free two-week trial... was a mess, and their online unsubscribing option was broken. Had to cancel the credit card payment and send a bunch of e-mails to get my money back after they charged me. All of these things don't really help them against all the other music stores out there... doing things like charging by the year and advertising by the month gives the impression that they really don't care much (aside from how much money they can extract) about their customers.
p.
free music