I'm in Seattle and have received two of the Southern California Amber alerts since 6:00 pm tonight PDT. This is a good way to encourage people to disable the alerts.
Your might be thinking of the Novell NetWare server story. University of North Carolina in 2001. It was physically MIA for 4 years yet kept doing the Energizer Bunny routine.
I was a Novell Reseller at the time and the story made a great sales pitch.
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20010409S0012
While I haven't used Rhapsody's new portable player, I have had experience with Rhapsody and I must say I thoroughly like it. I received a Sonos home audio system as a gift last winter,tried Rhapsody's free 30 day trial and haven't looked back. I can only assume that the portable music players will function in the same manner as Sonos (and I think that's a safe assumption based upon what I've read so far). If so, Rhapsody's subscription model has several benefits over a per track purchase model:
* More affordable -- $120 to $180 a year for virtually all the music you want (that's the equivalent of perhaps 20 CDs from iTunes)
* More affordable -- my time is too valuable to spend it ripping my extensive CD collection into MP3s or a lossless format and organizing it... a couple of clicks and my existing music is "added" to my Rhapsody library as I want to listen to it
* More flexible -- I can add a artist's entire body of work to my Rhapsody library, listen to it several times to decide if I like it and delete it if I don't... and it doesn't cost me anything beyond my basic monthly subscription fee
* Protection from "obsolescence" -- the current sampling rates used by iTunes, Rhapsody and the others aren't exactly CD quality, but they are good enough. If iTunes decides to improve the bit rate in 2 years, you'll likely have to buy the tracks all over again, but with Rhapsody they should just be there automatically
* Buy It, too -- if you want to buy a Rhapsody track and burn your own CD, you can do it just as you would with iTunes... each track is generally only 89 cents.
I realize that the subscription model isn't right for everyone, but I think many of the comments here don't consider the positive factors. I view it similarly to a Sirius or XM monthly subscription. For a very modest price each month, I have access to all the music I could ever want and I certainly do a lot more exploration of new artists than I have ever done before. I also have the option of buying the tracks outright at any time just as with iTunes.
Finally, I've long been a critic of Real's software and their invasive installation tactics. I was therefore genuinely surprised at how clean the Rhapsody install was and the absence of the typical Real antics. Best of all, Rhapsody's integration with Sonos is simply elegant -- no PC involved at all -- direct access to the entire Rhapsody music library. channels and radio stations from the Sonos wireless remote. It has been a true pleasure.
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I'm in Seattle and have received two of the Southern California Amber alerts since 6:00 pm tonight PDT. This is a good way to encourage people to disable the alerts.
Your might be thinking of the Novell NetWare server story. University of North Carolina in 2001. It was physically MIA for 4 years yet kept doing the Energizer Bunny routine. I was a Novell Reseller at the time and the story made a great sales pitch. http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20010409S0012
* More affordable -- $120 to $180 a year for virtually all the music you want (that's the equivalent of perhaps 20 CDs from iTunes)
* More affordable -- my time is too valuable to spend it ripping my extensive CD collection into MP3s or a lossless format and organizing it ... a couple of clicks and my existing music is "added" to my Rhapsody library as I want to listen to it
* More flexible -- I can add a artist's entire body of work to my Rhapsody library, listen to it several times to decide if I like it and delete it if I don't ... and it doesn't cost me anything beyond my basic monthly subscription fee
* Protection from "obsolescence" -- the current sampling rates used by iTunes, Rhapsody and the others aren't exactly CD quality, but they are good enough. If iTunes decides to improve the bit rate in 2 years, you'll likely have to buy the tracks all over again, but with Rhapsody they should just be there automatically
* Buy It, too -- if you want to buy a Rhapsody track and burn your own CD, you can do it just as you would with iTunes ... each track is generally only 89 cents.
I realize that the subscription model isn't right for everyone, but I think many of the comments here don't consider the positive factors. I view it similarly to a Sirius or XM monthly subscription. For a very modest price each month, I have access to all the music I could ever want and I certainly do a lot more exploration of new artists than I have ever done before. I also have the option of buying the tracks outright at any time just as with iTunes.
Finally, I've long been a critic of Real's software and their invasive installation tactics. I was therefore genuinely surprised at how clean the Rhapsody install was and the absence of the typical Real antics. Best of all, Rhapsody's integration with Sonos is simply elegant -- no PC involved at all -- direct access to the entire Rhapsody music library. channels and radio stations from the Sonos wireless remote. It has been a true pleasure.