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Microsoft Unveils 'Urge' Music Service
CHaN_316 writes "CNNMoney has an article entitled, 'Gates unveils his Urge.' From the piece: 'Bill Gates aims to take over your living room and late Wednesday he unveiled a new music service and new software to do it. Using an appearance with Justin Timberlake, the Microsoft chairman debuted a new music service, Urge, to directly compete with the iTunes music store and interface. Urge launches with over 2 million tracks for purchase or as part of an all-you-can eat subscription, an option the iTunes music store doesn't have. The offering will include exclusive material from MTV.' Begin the living room wars we must." Confirmation of an earlier story on this topic.
"The offering will include exclusive material from MTV, though it will not be compatible with iPods, which are currently the most popular MP3 player."
In my opinoin, that will doom it in the long run. Sure, people will play with it for a while, but those with iPods won't be happy when they can't put the music on the iPod.
Unless someone gets Apple to open up Fairplay to potential licensees, or to include WMA playback on the iPod. I don't see either happening without a court case though.
OK, I read the article. I still don't know what the software being released does. Is it a Web application or a traditional one? What OS's are supported? Does this include a Media player, like iTunes, or is it just the retail store portion? Is this being illegally bundled with Windows or offered separately? They go on to talk about support for TV, without mentioning if that functionality is supported by this new service, and if so what programs will be available. Of course I'll never install this crap anyway, being as it is tied to WMP and I can't think of anything worse for the media industry than to be locked into an MS controlled, proprietary format. Still, I want to know what crap I'll have to deal with when working on PCs. Where's the beef?
Seriously...
iPod is a piece of hardware.
IS Microsoft really, REALLY saying it cannot write a piece of OS software for a hardware product like ipod?
I'm serious, the chip used in most ipods is well known. It can even handle WMA...its just not done via Apple's ipod OS.
As far as "oh that would make them responsible for support" BS! Like they support any piece of hardware windows runs on.
Oh well, I should be happy it didn't happen this time...cause Urge is a horrible name -_-
Subscription-based music is the way to go. This, combined with the Windows "Plays for Sure" initiative will ultimately give MS the upper hand over Apple in the music arena, unless Apple comes out with a subscription option.
I have a subscription to Yahoo Music Unlimited and I've found it is definitely worth the $60/year. Right now I've got 744 songs in my collection, which if purchased at iTunes would cost more than 12 years of subscription fees (assuming the price doesn't go up). I can license 3 computers to access my subscription, so I've got it set up on my home computer, my work computer, and my laptop. The service keeps them in sync so if I add music at home, it gets downloaded at work next time I start the service. Since I download the music to my computer, if the network goes down I can still play music.
If I want to burn CDs I can buy tracks for $0.79. But I haven't needed to do that. I have a Creative Zen Micro to carry around. What's really nice is the Roku SoundBridge is compatible with the service. I've got that hooked into the home theater system (and our wireless network) and I can access my complete music collection (even ripped music) using a remote control.
Ok, I realize this sounds like a commercial for the service. It's not...but I'm very happy with it and think that $60/year is a steal. I used to search the assorted P2P networks but my time has value too and it just wasn't worth it to search for and download music, only to find that I've picked up a bunch of bad tracks (P2P is still great for porn though).
So based on my experience with Yahoo Music Unlimited I think that despite its name Urge will be successful and combined with MS's marketing power may turn out to be an iTunes...well, not killer but maybe wounder.
Historically flat-rate type music services have not let you transfer to mp3 players or burn CD's unless you pay the approx. 99 cents to buy the song fully. They assume once it's off your computer, it's pretty easy to exploit the analog loophole (it's still pretty easy to exploit anyway).
So I'm pretty confident that regardless, you wouldn't be able to transfer to your ipod with the unlimited service anyway.
However, they are lamey McLamersons, because there are programs out there that can do a sort of "high speed dubbing" digitally. They force the native app (say, windows media player) to play at 4x, 8x, whatever and listen right on the sound card (before it's analog). Then encode at the matching speed so the resulting mp3 is correct.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
The urge.com page that is presented that says coming soon or whatever mines ALOT of data about you.
s 9552561766906?%5BAQB%5D&ndh=1&t=5/0/2006%2015%3A49 %3A12%204%200&pageName=urge_splash&g=http%3A//www. urge.com/&r=http%3A//apple.slashdot.org/article.pl %3Fsid%3D06/01/05/1334231%26tid%3D109%26tid%3D95%2 6tid%3D141%26tid%3D3&cc=USD&s=2048x768&c=32&j=1.3& v=Y&k=Y&bw=1016&bh=544&p=PCMan's%20IE%20Tab%20Plug -in%20for%20Mozilla/Firefox%3BPCMan's%20IEView%20P lug-in%20for%20Mozilla/Firefox%3BMozilla%20Default %20Plug-in%3BAdobe%20Acrobat%3BQuickTime%20Plug-in %206.5.1%3BMicrosoft%20Office%202003%3BJava(TM)%20 2%20Platform%20Standard%20Edition%205.0%20Update%2 06%3BShockwave%20Flash%3B&%5BAQE%5D
....
For example this is the URL of an image included on the page...
http://viadms.112.2o7.net/b/ss/viadms/1/G.7-PD-R/
Then there is the little javascript that creates this URL
http://www.urge.com/s_code_urge.js
Hear hear. What happened to Microsoft Music?
This service won't go anywhere, and one big reason is that most iPod owners don't buy music through the iTMS anyway. They rip existing CDs or download illegally. The iTMS is just an incentive to keep people using iPods.
Urge won't work with iPods, so it's dead in the water. Windows Media Player is a horrid music jukebox anyway, even despite its new interface rip-offs from iTunes.
"Sufferin' succotash."
By similar logic...
After I've gone to a movie theater and watched a movie I should get a free copy of the DVD.
After I've paid rent on my appartment for a couple of years I should own it.
Well, I usually never post sites in posts, but this service from Pandora is good enough for me, and has some advantages over iTunes as it *teaches* you about music you might like. Dunno why slashdot didn't post news about it, but for those who like music -- check it out.
Um, how? Last I checked, WMDRM10 had not been cracked for nearly a year. And, the last crack that came out didn't let you strip the DRM from any old file, you had to own a license to it first.
The 77's: remind me of The Judybats. However, the production is poor and they sound too sterile. They may be good in concert? Cheeseball lyrics.
Starflyer 59: Reminds me of My Bloody Valentine... sort of "dark". Calling it "Christian" is a bit of a stretch, or maybe it's just subtle. The music is quite dated though - they still sound like an early 90s band. My favorite of the ones you listed, though. (Maybe because the early 90s was when I was in college?)
Michael Knott: I want to say John Mayer, but without the voice. Voice is subjective, but wow, I don't think he has one. He sounds like Dire Straits tried to replace their singer, but tried to do it by picking the Boise karaoke champion. Cheeseball lyrics. Unless I'm mistaking, he also sang for LSU.
Argyle Park: Gwar-ish. Not my thing. Again a stretch on the Christian rock front, since you can't hear the lyrics, and what you can hear sound apocalyptic - no shortage of that kind of thing in the "secular" world of rock.
Circle of Dust: Angry rock, like Metallica. I'm not a fan of this kind of music. Again, it's not very religious, is it?
Scaterd Few: Going back aways, aren't we? I was 10 when they were "popular". To me, they sound like some other 80s bands. I think they were pretty good though.
Lost Dogs: They try for the Elliot Smith sound (though they pre-date Elliot Smith, I think). This was a poor choice to list as a "good" Christian rock band, IMHO, because this is exactly the kind of music that people make fun of when they are dissing Christian rock. The content of the lyrics is so lame! Would it kill them to use poetry and subtlety in their lyrics? Telling stories from the bible sucks.
Poor Old Lu: They are okay, but sound like a lot of the tripe on the radio right now. Very generic, but their lyrics are better than most. They won't leave a mark on the musical world, of that I am certain.
Stavesacre: I throw them into the "inspired by Tool" group of bands that still liter the landscape. Same basic sound, but not groundbreaking like Tool was. Actually, that's not fair - they vary their sound quite a bit, sounding more punky at times. They are also quite subtle with their lyrics compared to most Christian rock. Only the occasional "I've seen the light" lyric slips through.
I think most people are put off by Christian rock because it is in a pigeonhole. A rock singer should be free to sing about anything that they choose. Within the Christian rock community, however, these singers take a lot of heat if they start to seem "to secular". As a result, it seems like the music is often - paradoxically - uninspired. The best groups you listed illustrate this - they often take heat for not being "Christian enough". The best rock rises from angst and protest, not from religious fulfillment and contentment. An inspired happy person usually makes atrocious rock - for them, we have Broadway. Christian show tunes would be fantastic.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Yahoo music is a scam
I got my Yahoo Music subscription at $36 for a year. That's a whole year of listening to quite a few preset and customized radio stations that never have commercials. And I can skip any songs I don't like or don't feel like listening to at the moment. I can even check a little box to remove the songs with explicit lyrics so I can safely listen at work (though, admittedly, this feature needs some tweaking).
I don't call that a scam. I call it pure genius.
"There are more important things than stopping terrorism. Upholding the Constitution is one of them." - Ars Forumer.