Yahoo Introduces Competitor for iTunes

LadyDeath writes "After a year in development, Yahoo has launched its competitor to Apple's iTunes and Napster To Go, a subscription and download music service priced at only $4.99 per month. Tracks are offered in 192Kbps WMA, and can be transferred to portable devices. Perhaps most interesting to the Slashdot crowd is that the Yahoo! Music Engine is built on an open platform that facilitates plug-ins - both DLL and Web based. Podcasting and video playback plug-ins are already available." Update: 05/11 13:06 GMT by T : ian c rogers, formerly of Nullsoft, just led the build of the media player, and writes with information about "the the plugin architecture it supports as well as some of the 20 plugins that are already available for it. I've posted my thoughts on why someone should or shouldn't use the Yahoo! Music Engine on my blog."

Comments

DRM

[MrJules]

...devices supporting Microsoft's Janus digital rights management technology. jon.... Jon?

Hey George!

[camperslo]

Forget that WMD thing we never found across the planet, there's WMA right here and WMV around the corner.

haha

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried it out, the DRM is an annoying voice at the beginning of each song that goes "Yahooooooooo-oooooo!". Noone will copy that!

Re:haha

[ceeam]

They don't offer anything besides country?

Re:haha

[tdemark]

Sure... they also offer Western.

Re:Bandwagon, much?

[BabyDave]

The! People! Who! Love! Exclamation! Marks!

(with apologies to The Register for nicking their standard Yahoo! joke)

Re:Thanks, but no thanks

[lisaparratt]

And all I want is global domination over men, to live in a palace surrounded by a sea of sapphires, and eat chocolate all day long without getting fat.

About as likely to happen, too, unfortunately :(

Re:Bandwagon, much?

[samael]

You're right! The market already has two players in it! It's saturated! Once consumers choose one technology they never change their minds! Nobody else can break in now - they're doomed to failure!

Re:Oh good, yet another

[natrius]

But, given how much market share the iPod (in all its incarnations) currently has, the prospect of being a Windows user with just a WMA player seems unlikely.

Right. I don't think the business model is very sound because the iPod is fairly entrenched. It's still a pretty attractive service if you don't have an iPod.

I can't think of any WMA players that would let me do that, or at least none that would let me do that easily.

Maybe not Firewire, but all the hard disk WMA players can do the same thing. I don't know about the battery life.

Re:Call me crazy, but...

[mobby_6kl]

Which music player has 70-80% market share?

Re:Bandwagon, much?

[Tim Browse]

I wish someone would steal The Register's Yahoo! joke - and I mean the proper sense of the word steal, i.e. not copyright infringement, but taking it away from them so they can no longer use it.

Re:Thanks, but no thanks

[As Seen On TV]

And while we're wishing, I'd like a pony.

Re:Oh good, yet another

[Anonymous Coward]

When you want to play it on a DRM-based device, you must first connect to a key server.

So besides limiting the user on his computer, they can also get data on exactly how and when you use their products? You usually get a shiny Google Toolbar or a pack of smileys for giving away information like that.

Re:Call me crazy, but...

[kyojin the clown]

mmm. because apple just dont care about control.

oh. wait a minute. you're a fucking idiot.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1774025,00.as p

http://www.mac360.com/index.php/mac360/more/apple_ lawsuit_dangerous_for_free_speech_or_pr_hype/

http://news.com.com/Apple+lawsuit+A+case+of+sour+g rapes/2010-1047_3-5611497.html?tag=nefd.ac

http://news.com.com/Apple+sues+over+loose+Tiger/21 00-1047_3-5500034.html

Re:Oh good, yet another

[reconflux]

wow. how original. please teach me your ways.