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Yahoo Downgrades MusicMatch Jukebox
BanjoBob writes "MusicMatch Jukebox has been a bundle of great MP3 and music management applications in one package. Apparently, it is the end of life for this wonderful MP3 player, ripper, catalog, CD player, Internet radio player, purchase outlet, Auto DJ, Super Tagger, and music database. There was nothing not to like about the product. There is nothing to like about the new downgrade, Yahoo! Music Jukebox. MusicMatch users have been getting notices to 'upgrade'; those who have taken the bait are not pleased. The Yahoo! Music Jukebox feedback forum doesn't have much nice to say about the product. Lots of features have gone away and the 'free upgrade' costs about $20."
They ruined their TV listings this year too:r ashed-by-users/
http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/12/03/yahoo-gets-t
Yahoo has succeeded in ruining a nice piece of software. I also found it interesting how they cut out people with lifetime upgrade subscriptions. I sent an email a while back and they told be what i needed to do to use my key (sorry for the bloated post but if it helps just one person...). Please be advised that Yahoo! Music Jukebox Plus does not use a key, so your Musicmatch Plus key will not work in Yahoo! Music Jukebox Plus. However, if you have a Musicmatch Jukebox Plus key, it will be converted to Yahoo! Music Jukebox Plus at no cost to you when you complete the migration from Musicmatch to Yahoo! Music. You'll be able to log in to Yahoo! Music Jukebox Plus with your Yahoo! ID anywhere, and have access to your Plus features. A tool to automatically convert your Musicmatch subscription to Yahoo! is now available. The Migration Assistant is built into the latest release of the Yahoo! Music Jukebox. Follow the directions below to download the Jukebox, and the Migration Assistant will walk you through this process step-by-step. 1. Download and install the new Yahoo! Music Jukebox here: http://music.yahoo.com/jukebox/mm/ymj/?OEM=29 2. When you start the Jukebox, the Migration Assistant should appear. Follow the instructions on each page (a link to the FAQ is available from most pages). 3. If you have a Musicmatch On Demand subscription, you will be able to migrate it to a Yahoo! Music Unlimited subscription. If you have a Musicmatch Jukebox Plus key, you'll migrate that as well. 4. If you have unspent Musicmatch Music Store Gift Certificates or Allowances, you'll be able to convert them to Yahoo! Music Unlimited Gift Certificates 5. If you wish to transfer your music library, you will be offered this option Please refer to the Frequently Asked Questions for more information: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/music/jukebox/upd ate/update02.html
Who says ripping is illegal? Courts ruled that copying a legally-purchased CD to cassette tape for personal use was legal and I hold that ripping a song from CD to my PC is no different -- like copying for the purposes of using a different player, it's protected under fair use. At least that is until you have to put some green marker on it to defeat the 'copy protection' anyway...
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Tags that are changed when MMJB is playing a song are not updated in the MP3 files themselves. The Library is updated, but not the files.
Versions before 9.0 had multiple libraries which I used extensively. MMJB 10.0 only has 1 library.
MMJB used to have skins that were well documented & easily changeable. No longer.
MMJB used to be a fairly lightweight audio player. MMJB has multiple background processes that must run on system startup.
These daemon processes are the cause on 90% of MMJB's crashes.
These daemon processes do not die easily causing slow reboots (you usually have to kill the processes off when after 30 seconds of inactivity windows notes that they didn't die when asked "nicely").
These daemon processes prevent external volumes like USB disks & keys from unmounting cleanly, so you have to kill them off by hand.
The one task that the deamon processes are supposed to be useful for from a users point of view (noticing that I renamed/moved files in my MP3 collection using the windows explorer so that MMJB will update the library) does not work reliably. I still have to go in & fix the library by hand.
The Jukebox + features like super tagging that I bought so that I could easily relabel my collection have stopped working because yahoo has turned off the web servers that they rely on.
I have a "lifetime" MMJB+ license without any of the DRM'ed "On Demand" features. I tried the Yahoo client and agree with BanjoBob that for me at least, is worse than MMJB.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
I recently experienced the Musicmatch downgrade. As a result, I went out and collected Windows-based MP3 players. Here are my conclusions: 1. Musicmatch v10. - didn't work well with large MP3 libraries. The librarian program (MIM.EXE) had a nasty habit of hanging the whole system. Has my personal favorite music browsing interface, a tree with Artist/Album/Songs 2. iTunes v7.2 - only interface to the iTunes store, which is the best MP3 storefront I have found. Has a nasty habit of using 100% of system resources whenever it wants to. I dislike the browser interface. DRM'd to the max. I only use this to manage my iPod and buy music. 3. WinAmp v5.35 - heavily customizable, but I could never figure out how to implement my favored music browsing interface. Too damn many Windows. 4. MediaMonkey v2.5.5 - my new favorite player. Gives me the Music Explorer Tree. Fast. Let's me play music and playlists from my iPod, which even iTunes won't let me do. Reasonable ripping. 5. Windows Media Player v11 - Slick looking user interface. Lousy music browser. Also DRM'd to the max. A Microsoft product - need I say more? 6. Yahoo MusicMatch - Don't know the version because it pissed me off so much I deleted it from my computer. This player has the music player trifecta - DRM'd, slow, lousy interface. Oh yes, and it deluges you with annoying adds. Avoid this player like the plague. Bottomline - if they had just FIXED MusicMatch v10, I think it would have been the best of the lot. Instead, Yahoo replaced it with some crap they scraped off the sidewalk. I'm trapped with iTunes to manage my iPod, although I suspect that if I screw around with MediaMonkey it will do that, too. Use WinAmp if you like blinking lights and pretty pictures. Otherwise, MediaMonkey is the best of the lot.
Yahoo shopping: Good comparison site with lots of smaller stores. Use in conjunction with Amazon.
My.Yahoo: As far as bandwidth-sucking front pages go, this one is pretty configurable.
Calendar.yahoo.com: A pretty good online calendaring app with outlook and palm sync, but a huge bonus is the phone-screen support.
Yahoo Games: A solid little group of online games, better because yahoo provides non-english versions for your friends overseas.
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Thanks for noticing. As a former MM employee I can only thank Yahoo! for doing nothing for MM since the acquisition. I cannot recommend that anybody reading this allow Yahoo! to purchase your company. You may walk away rich, but the company you kept will become bankrupt.
MMJB was a product of devotion and effort among it's employees. The product wasn't perfect, but that wasn't because everyone didn't want it to be, more because we needed to get it out the door to satisfy some requirement or another. At the time of the purchase, everyone was looking forward to the resources that Yahoo! could bring to the table. What we discovered afterwards was mismanagement, corruption, and incompetence among those running the show. The news that they are discontinuing MMJB is no real surprise to me, as everyone realizes that YMJ is in no condition to be considered an upgrade path, and the afore mentioned incompetence would lead to a decision like this.
This may be the final nail in the coffin, but trust me folks, this was a long time coming. I would encourage a user revolt, but I don't think anyone would care enough to notice.