Web Based Rhapsody Targets Linux

Asklepius M.D. writes "According to Marketwatch, RealNetworks is releasing a web based version of Rhapsody called.....Rhapsody.com that will function on other-than-IE browsers including Firefox and Safari. The article quotes Jupimedia analyst Joe Wilcox as saying "...it brings the first real subscription music service to Mac and Linux-based products.""

Comments

Still using DRM'd WMV files though, right?

[Rude Turnip]

It's really nice of them to release a web-based service, but wouldn't the customers still be beholden to WMV files infected with DRM? They'll work fine when I'm using my work PC running Windows XP, but they're utterly useless on my iBook + iPod or my (admittedly little used) Ubuntu installation.

Good news

[bogaboga]

Because services are moving to the Web. They should have done it much earlier.

But the question is: Will Linux users use Real's product? Reviews on Real's products here on slashdot have not been that favuorable in the past.

Re:From Real?

[hug_the_penguin]

Their realplayer for windows is practically spyware. How many legitimate programs can get away with passing advertising messages, embedding adverts, popping up annoying content etc. and not get called adware.

How many companies can do this and then charge for `premium` functionality?

Real's days are at an end. They support very few portable music players, and what happens when noone wants to let real support their player? What happens to all your DRMed music then? And what happens when their ads get more invasive and more annoying?

Not WMV. Whatever it is, not that

[CdBee]

Real use their own DRM scheme on AAC (Advanced Audio Codec)

Its likely - from my guess, not the article - that they'll stream a file to an in-browser player. But then, remember this is all the words of a third-party "analyst" - which often means rumour-monger.

Another horrible execution plan by Real

[Anonymous Coward]

As typical by this poorly organized and completely out-to-lunch company a great idea put together with horrible execution. Obviously companies try to launch products on their first day with a big media blitz. So far so good, they get the front page of Slashdot, many newspapers (http://seattle-pi.com/ articles and widespread coverage on mac news sites (http://www.macnn.com./

So, how about trying it? Well, you can go to the Rhapsody site, http://rhapsody.com/ and try to get to it. Well, NOTHING on the rhapsody.com site says anything about the web features. Nothing in the FAQ and the system requirements say Windows only. If you're going to launch a major new feature don't you think you would update your home page?

If you click to "TRY RHAPSODY" you come to a jump page and if you select either option, one says "Windows required" and the other says "Rhapsody is currently offered only on Windows..." Oh nice.

So, if you're super persistent, then you can go to http://real.com/ . You will notice the web page doesn't even load, and stalls somewhere around 50% loading of the 31 items on the page. Ooops, looks like their servers can't handle the load. Oh , some poor Sys Admin's pager is blowing off the hook right about now I'm sure. Real's CTO Mesrobian is probably trolling down the hallways with a bat clubbing engineers like baby seals and screaming like a banshee.

If you manage to find the small text link at the bottom of the real.com page "Rhapsody Unlimited for Mac" that page also barely loads. And then, there doesn't seem to be any obvious way to the 25 free trial without giving them your credit card number.

Horrible launch, a disgusting display of web marketing. My 15 year old sister could do 50 times better than this and she could create a website that looks more visually appealing than this blue and white patchwork.

Good luck Real, hope your servers recover and hope people come back to try it some other day when they can actually find the software.

Re:Mac? BSD?

[morgan_greywolf]

Last I checked Safari was was not available for linux. Maybe not, but you can get a browser based on Apple's WebCore rendering engine (essentially modifications to KHTML) for Linux called Gtk+ WebCore, which is based on GTK 2.x.

Re:Drm on linux

[Wolfger]

Hence the application "StreamRipper", which records streaming audio to mp3 for later playback. This is nothing more than modern-day "taping songs off the radio", except when I was a kid, I could tape more than 25 songs a month. I'm much more interested in Independant and Creative Commons music these days. The RIAA doesn't want to play nice, so I just won't play with them at all.

Fix for Linux/Firefox v1.5 in the works

[kforeman]

There is currently a known issue restricting the functionality of the Rhapsody Player Engine Plug-in on Linux with version 1.5 of Firefox. Version 1.0.7 should work fine.

This problem was introduced when Firefox v1.5 went gold leaving Real little time to fix the issue prior to beta release. Real is currently investigating a fix and hopes to have a new plug-in available soon.

Kevin