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Music Media Businesses

Yahoo Plans Its Own Music Player, Download Service 140

Posted by timothy from the despite-its-face dept.
iPod writes "Since late last year, Yahoo has been developing its own music player software, which will be underpinned by a subscription and download service provided by MusicNet, sources familiar with the plan said. Yahoo is developing its own music player software, backed by MusicNet-provided downloads and subscriptions, that it plans to run alongside the recently purchased Musicmatch."
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Yahoo Plans Its Own Music Player, Download Service More

Yahoo Plans Its Own Music Player, Download Service

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  • Seems like only yesterday that Yahoo bought Broadcast.com [com.com] for $5.4 billion and said they'd "provide a selection of programming including business events, full-length CDs, and audio books." We all knew Yahoo was going to kill off the conventional media companies like ABC, NBC, and CBS - just a matter of time.

    Now Apple and the recording companies under the same pressure. Wow, that's gotta be scary. I sure wouldn't want to be in Steve Jobs' shoes knowing that the same minds behind the Yahoo/Broadcast.com integration are now coming after my customers. I don't know how I'd sleep at night.
    • Same way he deals with everything else: RDF [wikipedia.org].

    • Re:Wow, just like they manhandled the TV networks! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by here4fun ( 813136 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @06:53AM (#10317361) Homepage Journal
      Seems like only yesterday that Yahoo bought Broadcast.com for $5.4 billion

      I wonder what broadcast.com is worth today. But I am happy that Mark Cuban got the money to but the Dallas Mav's, he is probably the most entertaining owner in the NBA.

      We all knew Yahoo was going to kill off the conventional media companies like ABC, NBC, and CBS - just a matter of time.

      Just like MSN was going to kill CNN and Fox News.

      I sure wouldn't want to be in Steve Jobs' shoes knowing that the same minds behind the Yahoo/Broadcast.com integration are now coming after my customers.

      I bet if Mark Cuban was still involved, they would have the best service on the web. That is because the #1 thing that guides Cuban's buisness decisions is he wants the customer to be happy. Everything he touches turns to gold. He should be a case study in buisness schools. Amazing how some people can bring wild sucess and others can't do anything better than sue (SCO) or intimidate (RIAA).

    • Re:Wow, just like they manhandled the TV networks! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by caddisfly ( 722422 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @07:14AM (#10317443)
      ...maybe it is the morning, but I thought this should have been moderated as "funny" or at least sarcastic. ;-)

      ...downloads are becoming more and more of a commodity item.

      Does this favor those that give "value add" - like Apple, who develops products along the entire vertical chain (below music creation point, anyway) and can distinguish themselves in the market any where along the chain *OR* will the monopoly presence of MS and the use of the WMA format by the commodity providers make that uniqueness/differentiation hard to maintain/defend?

      ...time will tell. Right now, ipod is cool and has established name/concept recognition that no one else can touch. It is still the crown jewels and no one else will ever produce an "ipod" except Apple. I would imagine a large percentage of the consumer market couldn't name another music player other than ipod. It is kinda like Kleenex and Sheetrock.

      And we already know that Apple produces better software

      ....we will see if this matters.

      • Steve Jobs figured that the best computer was invisible (look at the iMac G5, look at the iPod) while being very visible as it own thing.

        Think of everything they've done to push the envellope. Everything used to be sexy hardware. And damn good hardware at that. (SCSI, USB, FireWire, WiFi, BlueTooth, MC680x0->PPC601 without a hitch.) But they also made damn good software too. (OS 1..6, 7..9 & OS X)

        There has always been a synergy between hardware and software. But I think that this will become more p
        • Steve Jobs vision of a wired house compared to Billy Gates???

          Steve's house, everything connected with either hidden wires, or wirelessly. Your computers are nothing more than screens that you an acess anywhere. Computers are used to make life easy, with everything just working.

          Billy's house, the house tracks and watches over you. Big bulky boxes, tiny screens. everything connected with either hidden wires or wirelessly, but there will still be plenty of cords. You can watch a tv show while you downlo

    • Re:Wow, just like they manhandled the TV networks! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by chrysrobyn ( 106763 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @07:25AM (#10317503)
      I sure wouldn't want to be in Steve Jobs' shoes knowing that the same minds behind the Yahoo/Broadcast.com integration are now coming after my customers.

      Remember when Yahoo was a search engine? And one day they started using other search engines under contract because Yahoo couldn't keep up any more? Yahoo does a good job rebranding other people's work (news.yahoo.com...) and presenting it in an integrated location. iTunes Music Store will continue to fluorish. They're popular right now and they know it. If iTMS wanes in the slightest, I bet they start licensing all over. They already have a referral program.

      • I could be wrong, but I remeber when Yahoo was an index and manual rating system. It had what we would now call search engine features, but those were mostly made relevent by Alta Vista, which is why Yahoo! had to buy a search engine.

        When it was clear that Yahoo searches were not the thing, Yahoo! reinvented itself as a portal, something that was just becoming the big thing to do. As a portal, a one stop shop, it does a pretty good job. Also as a portal it has to have lots of stuff, some of which it mi

        • I could be wrong, but I remeber when Yahoo was an index and manual rating system. It had what we would now call search engine features, but those were mostly made relevent by Alta Vista, which is why Yahoo! had to buy a search engine.

          Here is a history [akamarketing.com] of Yahoo. As I recall it was meant to be the "Yellow Pages" for the internet since there wasn't a basic directory at the time it came out. I used to set it as my browser home page.

          I used it to browse categorised lists of similar websites rather than for

      • Remember when Yahoo was a search engine?

        You mean back when Netscape was the dominant browser?

    • In other news... (Score:5, Funny)

      by sgant ( 178166 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @07:26AM (#10317509) Homepage Journal
      Slashdot plans it's own music download service.

      Gentoo plans it's own music download service.

      The producers of "That 70's Show" plans it's own music download service.

      Rheem - makers of fine water heaters and air conditioners, plans it's own music download service.

      My cousin, brother, both sisters, guy down the street, Old Man Jenkins at the haunted amusement park....all are planning their own music download service.
      • Slashtunes - Where the music has karma

        Gentunes - Download only the bytes you want

        The 70's Music - Enough Disco for 3 life times

        Rheemusic - All the hottest and coolest music thats fit to air

      • Old Man Jenkins (Score:5, Funny)

        by sczimme ( 603413 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @07:41AM (#10317576)

        My cousin, brother, both sisters, guy down the street, Old Man Jenkins at the haunted amusement park....all are planning their own music download service.

        I think Old Man Jenkins had the best plan. He would have succeeded, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids.
        • I've used O.M. Jenkins as a pen name, company name (O.M. Jenkins, LLC) and server name at omjenkins.com for quite a while. Almost no one gets the joke.
      • And all thanks to http://www.loudeye.com/ [loudeye.com], the music service BEHIND the music service. :)
        • You must not have ever gotten a quote from Loudeye on what they want to be the backend for a music service...

          Loudeye fills some definite needs within the industry, but being a fulfillment partner for a company with a non multi-million dollar budget is not one of them.

      • Gentoo plans it's own music download service.

        The only problem with this is that you notify the server what song you want played by what instruments, then the song is specially recorded and engineered to your specifications. Only after this goes on for a week or so can you actually download the tune to listen to it.
      • Every organization attempts to expand until it has an online music service. Those organizations which cannot so expand are members of the RIAA.
    • Why is the modded 'Informative'? Surely it is supposed to be sarcastic. Was it because it contained a link?

  • Subscription.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @06:42AM (#10317321)
    Oh goody. A subscription service.
    Those are always so successful.

    • I subscribe to Rhapsody (Score:5, Informative)

      by turnstyle ( 588788 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @07:05AM (#10317406) Homepage
      I subscribe to Rhapsody [listen.com] and I really like it. For $9.95/month I can stream on-demand as much as I like.

      Yes, their collection is incomplete, but there's still a huge selection of good stuff.

      Not everybody is suited for the streaming approach -- some really prefer to burn CDs for the car, etc -- but for those that are suited for streaming, it's pretty neat.

  • Peer Pressure (Score:4, Funny)

    by iamdrscience ( 541136 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @06:42AM (#10317325) Homepage
    Why would they do this you ask? Well... all the cool companies are doing it, right?

    I'm waiting for Sun Microsystem's music download service myself.

    • Re:Peer Pressure (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Well yes look at them all now Apple and ipod/itunes, microsoft, real, napster, yahoo, the amiga revived as an mp3 player, bbc with the bbc micro brand revived for music sales and telstra in australia too.

      Sooner or later Sun or Cray or Unisys are going to have to join in

      I bet SCOs music service sucks. Download their music and they sue you.

    • Re:Peer Pressure (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @06:54AM (#10317363)
      I'm waiting for SCOs. Only $699 a download. Free court appearance with every ten songs. Etc etc.

    • Re:Peer Pressure (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Grant29 ( 701796 ) *
      Exactly. Quoting my previous comment [slashdot.org]:

      Must everybody in the world have thier own broswer these days? We are already plagued by interoperability in browsers, Operating Systems, Instant messengers, etc... I know it's always good to have a choice, but not when it's this complicated. I support multiple choices, but I'd like them all to at least work, as well as work together. It seems like these days everybody wants to be a search engine, everybody wants to offer a music download service. Now is everyone g
    • it is surprising, though heartening, to see that yahoo still plans to carry on with their own media player and store even after purchasing Music Match last week. it seemed that the purchase would have made their own software efforts redundant, and they would be scrapped. yahoo has really been one of the "do no evil" companies (well, mostly. there were a few hiccups), and they tend to do a good job of integrating all the basic services. a player by yahoo may jumpstart start the stagnating media player fi

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @06:43AM (#10317328)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • It's like how some people have speculated Google will be, thanks to Froogle, Gmail, Gbrowser and co.

      "Hey Sergey can you look at - "
      "Schmidt, for Gmail, do you - "
      "Just a moment, for Froogle, these - "
      "About the browser privacy policy, how ambigu - "
      "Can I get some damn coff - "

      The whole firm immobilized.

      I wonder how Yahoo! has managed all these years to still provide such a quality set of services despite its obvious lack of concerted focus.

    • Re:spinning.. (Score:3, Funny)

      by Empiric ( 675968 )
      So, theoretically, the industry could evolve to "Amagoo", which could function both as a company name -and- an appropriate description?

  • I must ask.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nuclear305 ( 674185 ) * on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @06:45AM (#10317337)
    "Yahoo Plans Its Own Music Player, Download Service"

    Maybe this is because I'm only halfway through my morning coffee...but...why?

    It seems at this point these companies are merely flooding a drowning market that is online music stores. Seems like a new one pops up weekly among the big companies.

    • Re:I must ask.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by here4fun ( 813136 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @06:59AM (#10317385) Homepage Journal
      they will probably leverage all the people who have yahoo accounts. people trust yahoo, and use it everyday for email, fantasy sports, movie info, etc. the amount of free advertising they would get would be huge. unlike if i started getmusicfromme.com, nobody would know about it and nobody would think it would be a universal format. i bet yahoo is banking on people using them because they are so well known.
      • I agree with you. When I first looked at this I thought, yeesh, do they honestly think they're going to get me to replace iTunes?

        On consideration, no, I doubt it. I think this reality is somewhat opaque to the average slashdotter, but there are a whole lot of people out there who do not recognize their computer as an appliance for playing music, or at best know they can stick a CD in the tray and WMP will play it more or less like a CD player. I think this kind of thing is an attempt to get a piece of t

    • Maybe this is because I'm only halfway through my morning coffee...but...why?

      It seems at this point these companies are merely flooding a drowning market that is online music stores. Seems like a new one pops up weekly among the big companies.

      It's a damn good question, and it's good to see some IT guys asking it. Not asking it led to the last big IT bubble, and the last big IT crash.

      These morons will soon work out that unless that have something to differentiate them, they're going to drown in the MS/A

    • why?

      Portal. IM. Searching. Now, music. They're just jumping on the bandwagon, albeit 2 years too late. They had a good idea once, and they let that walk away from them. Or, in more official terms, they IPOed.

      Hmm, so let's see, who else has just recently IPOed...Ah yes, Google! webmail, browser....Hmm.
    • Yahoo! is playing RIAA's game. They want to own the distribution channels, that's where the control is. Every utility company that sells electricity/natural gas, telecommunications, and TV entertainment knows this.

  • Should be good... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by here4fun ( 813136 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @06:47AM (#10317339) Homepage Journal
    Yahoo plans to beef up its IM service with more-interactive music features that enable people to listen to one another's playlists, according to sources familiar with the initiative.

    So how is this different than if I share my songs?

    The Musicmatch acquisition brought Yahoo the third-largest audience for online music, according to Internet research firm ComScore Media Metrix. As of August, Yahoo's Launch ranked top with 14 million unique users, followed by AOL Music at 13 million and Musicmatch at 5.8 million. MSN Music came in fourth with 4.3 million, Napster owner Roxio had 2.1 million unique users, and RealNetworks' Listen accounted for 1.8 million.

    I don't own any drm music. If I want mp3's, I rip them from my own CD's and trade with friends (since we paid for the CD, we can make copies and give them out for free to anyone we want, regardless of what the RIAA says). Those pay services all have their own DRM (I am guessing from what I have been reading), so it is like owning a cripled peice of software. I don't get why people buy something that will only work on X's player.

    • Re:Should be good... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by sploo22 ( 748838 )
      I rip them from my own CD's and trade with friends (since we paid for the CD, we can make copies and give them out for free to anyone we want, regardless of what the RIAA says)

      No, that's what says. As much as you might hate it and not wish to believe it, it's true. Copyright does exist, and just saying "well it's only for a few friends" does not excuse you from complying with it. You have NO LEGAL RIGHT to copy those copyrighted CD's unless they say you can.

      There are limited exceptions for educational f

      • Re:Should be good... (Score:3, Informative)

        by sploo22 ( 748838 )
        D'oh... please ignore the previous post.

        I rip them from my own CD's and trade with friends (since we paid for the CD, we can make copies and give them out for free to anyone we want, regardless of what the RIAA says)

        No, that's what Federal law [cornell.edu] says. As much as you might hate it and not wish to believe it, it's true. Copyright does exist, and just saying "well it's only for a few friends" does not excuse you from complying with it. You have NO LEGAL RIGHT to copy those copyrighted CD's unless they say yo

      • Re:Should be good... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by here4fun ( 813136 )
        No, that's what says. As much as you might hate it and not wish to believe it, it's true. Copyright does exist, and just saying "well it's only for a few friends" does not excuse you from complying with it. You have NO LEGAL RIGHT to copy those copyrighted CD's unless they say you can. There are limited exceptions for educational fair use, but those don't exactly apply here.

        I have every legal right to do anything I want with what I own. If I buy a CD, I can copy it as many times as I want, give out those

        • Sorry about that, I goofed up on the link the first time.

          Since you seem so convinced that you have all these legal rights, perhaps you could show me the law that entitles you to them? Oh wait, I can see it now...

          "This copyright law may hereby ignored by anyone who doesn't like it."

          Somehow, I don't think so.

        • Re:Should be good... (Score:5, Informative)

          by zaxios ( 776027 ) <zaxios@gmail.com> on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @07:38AM (#10317560) Journal
          It is no different than when people used to make copies of tapes back in the 80's and early 90's. Explain to me how it was different back then from today? Not only would people copy tapes for friends, but they would copy music off the radio.

          This is too stupid for words. It happens/happened != proof that it is legal. If the fact that people do something precludes it from being illegal, no one could ever do anything illegal. Whether or not copying copyrighted material in this way is legal or illegal is complicated, but the ignorance of your comment isn't.

          I knew of stations in the 80's that played music without a DJ talking during the start of the song so people could make copies. And you are going to tell me that today I can't copy what I OWN???

          I'm really sick of hearing this. Remarkable as it no doubt is, after spending $15 on a CD, you have not purchased the copyright of an album. You have also not purchased a license that allows you to endlessly copy and redistribute. These are the rights of the copyright holder and those who the copyright holder licenses these rights to. To lapse into familiar words, all you own is an instance of the music. You own the physical disk. You do NOT own the music: the song is owned by a publishing company (e.g. Northern Songs) and the recording is owned by the record company (e.g. EMI).
        • I have every legal right to do anything I want with what I own.

          Gee officer, I'm awful sorry I shot the guy, but heck, I own the gun, I got a right to do what I want with it and ... hey ... wait .. what are you doing with those handcuffs.

          If I buy a CD, I can copy it as many times as I want, give out those copies to anyone. It is no different than when people used to make copies of tapes back in the 80's and early 90's. Explain to me how it was different back then from today?

          Um, because people didn't g

      • Copyright does exist, and just saying "well it's only for a few friends" does not excuse you from complying with it. You have NO LEGAL RIGHT to copy those copyrighted CD's unless they say you can.

        Well, copyright controlls just a small fraction of what you can do with those CD's. It's supposed to regulate mass production and distribution, not private copying. The DMCA might have fucked this up a bit for "protected" CD's in the US and some of the EU countries (for those who implemented EUCD without exemtion
    • Why? because people don't really care about the product. They don't even understand the meaning of DRM. All they care about is the Yahoo brand name. That's it.

    • Unique Players & DRM (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ImaLamer ( 260199 ) <john.lamar@g m a i l . com> on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @07:24AM (#10317495) Homepage Journal
      You've got a good point.

      Imagine you are sitting there craving some Jazz. You fire up iTunes play some Armstrong, but suddenly you want Ella Fitzgerald. Problem is Ella is only selling her music through Yahoo! because that is the deal Yahoo! made with the record companies. Now you've got to fire up Yahoo!'s player.

      After a few songs you realize that it isn't Jazz you were interested in, it was Punk Rock all along. Of course you've got to fire up Real Player because you've purchased it through them. After a few Racid songs you want to listen to some Motörhead... back to iTunes. Wait! After firing up iTunes you realize that it was Yahoo! that sold you the Motörhead tracks.

      Or... was it Napster? After waiting for that to load, and then searching you find it. Finally Motörhead is coming through the speakers.

      The problem above is caused by a few things. First, you can't buy every type of music in any one store. Some albums, usually soundtracks, don't have all the songs available on your favorite music store. The soundtrack for "A Bronx Tale" is a good example on iTunes. Last I checked, there was only two songs available for purchase because of licensing issues. (Which encouraged me to "steal" the song I wanted instead of buying it) The second problem is that different services offer different prices and have different promotions. What is 99 cents on iTunes may be 88 cents on Rhapsody. It may just make sense to get some songs from iTunes and some from Napster and some from Yahoo! and even some from Wal-Mart. Now, this is usually a good thing, competition and all. But it's making the industry too fragmented.

      If we are going to purchase music there needs to be a way to export/import to other DRM schemes. I'm all for online music stores but it seems that being locked into one choice isn't going to work for most people. These companies need to get together and work on one standard - or risk losing everyone to piracy again.

      Then again, you can just burn the music to a CD and then rip it to mp3 (or ogg et. al.). But that is what got everyone in this mess in the first place, isn't it?
    • If I want mp3's, I rip them from my own CD's and trade with friends (since we paid for the CD, we can make copies and give them out for free to anyone we want, regardless of what the RIAA says).

      No, really, you can't - not legally. You are allowed to format shift (for example, you may rip mp3s from the CD so you can listen to this music on your mp3 player). You are not allowed to make unlimited copies and redistribute them. This is precisely what is prohibited by copyright law.

      Yahoo plans to beef up its
      • I think what you are trying to say is that Yahoo has made a deal with the RIAA for (re)distribution rights.

        It's not copyright that we are talking about, it's distribution. Copyright tells me that I can't take your song, in it's exact form, in any part, and use it commercially. When it comes to giving it away, you are violating the (almost) exclusive distribution rights given to certain parties.

        You can't just start selling music and sending checks to the RIAA. I belive a few P2P networks tried this (Kazaa?

        • It's not copyright that we are talking about, it's distribution. Copyright tells me that I can't take your song, in it's exact form, in any part, and use it commercially.

          (Standard IANAL disclaimer) Copyright tells you that you cannot make copies of copyrighted work, for commercial use or otherwise. In many countries (including the US), fair use lets you format shift and make backups.

          "Unauthorized copying is a violation of copyright laws" because it really isn't. Copying is fine, it's the distribution

      • So is grooming your dog on Sundays (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        "No, really, you can't - not legally."

        Just because they pass stupid laws doesn't mean you have to follow them.

        If my wife wants a copy of a CD to listen to in her car, I don't say "Honey, so sorry, that would violate federal copyright regulation and put a record company exec out of work".

        Think about what you're saying...they sold me the CD. I'm not going to put it on the internet, but I have no moral problem making a copy for a friend, and I certainly am not worried about any legal ramification.

        Seems li
      • If I want mp3's, I rip them from my own CD's and trade with friends (since we paid for the CD, we can make copies and give them out for free to anyone we want, regardless of what the RIAA says).

        No, really, you can't - not legally. You are allowed to format shift (for example, you may rip mp3s from the CD so you can listen to this music on your mp3 player). You are not allowed to make unlimited copies and redistribute them. This is precisely what is prohibited by copyright law.

        Heard of fair use? Do yo
    • "If I want mp3's, I rip them from my own CD's and trade with friends (since we paid for the CD, we can make copies and give them out for free to anyone we want, regardless of what the RIAA says)."

      I despise the RIAA as much as the next person and I copy CDs for friends, but I'm well aware that legally this is not allowed. You have to have rights to distribute that music which buying it from a shop does not give you.

      By all means, copy it for your car or work. But giving copies to friends just because you pa
    • You used to be able to share songs with anyone on the internet using the itunes software.

      Apple put a stop to it, probably because of the "this is no different than p2p", and it took about 2 days before it became listen and copy others music.

      Its hard to sell RIAA music when they don't like what your doing.

  • I bet... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by beef3k ( 551086 )
    ..that like LAUNCHCast they'll make this ASP dependent as well, so that us Linux folk will be essentially locked out. Not that I care.
    • It doesn't work on anything other than IE, with Flash AND WinMediaPlayer [yahoo.com]. It does not work on OS X even with IE.

      This is a shame, as I trust and admire Yahoo as a content provider: while I don't know if I'd subscribe to their service, I'd certainly check it out if it was available for me to do so.

      Even if their service turned out not to be for me, I can still apreciate the competition they offer (though, not if they don't compete for Mac users, BSD users, Linux users, etc.).

  • Hmm (Score:3, Insightful)

    by elementus ( 811192 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @06:53AM (#10317360)
    Next thing you know there'll be a new thing around called gusic and google will be right behind the new market. Why can't this companies just stick to what they do best?

    • Re:Hmm (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Rik Sweeney ( 471717 )
      Now I'm just confused, I can see it with most companies, but what's that then when it comes to Microsoft?

  • Episode VI: Return of the .com (Score:3, Insightful)

    by killbill! ( 154539 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @07:01AM (#10317387) Homepage
    Looks like online music downloads are the new gold rush, the new .com: every major player from past revolutions has missed the boat, and wants some slice of the action.

    I'd be lucky if even one of them survives.

    (well, except MS, but it's because they don't care if they lose a couple billions a year, and because 95% of desktops come with WMP installed anyway)
  • the drive toward better, more sensible distribution of digital content is finally catching on in the commercial world. in fact, they've even taken it a step further by coupling simple downloads with a system to seek out new music for you based on your musical preferences, much like a dating service.

    i'm continually astonished by the resiliency of the dating service concept. it works for slashdot, it works for yahoo. as artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated, i think we can expect to see much mor
    • would be nice if all these companies would not try to lock competitors out in the non tech world I don't have to buy a special oven to cook my steak with or be limited to certain stakes on one oven
      • indeed. competitor lockout is probably the key element preventing a harmonious postindustrial economy. all the hurly-burly of trying to beat the other guy is just obscuring what's really important: giving the customer what he wants.

        i envision a future in which services like music match find one's soul-product, much like dating services purport to find soul mates. obviously, music is the natural place to start this sort of thing since most music has considerable soul to begin with.

        in time, companies will r
  • am waiting for gTunes... just Don't be evil !!

  • Bring on the jukebox in the sky ... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Heisenbug ( 122836 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @07:14AM (#10317446)
    I for one am a total convert to the streaming jukebox approach to music. I don't even know how to write about it without coming across like spam -- having instant access to over 40,000 albums for about $25 every three months utterly changed the way I listen to music. (I use Rhapsody, but it looks like the MusicMatch service is roughly identical) Even CDs I own don't get played anymore because it's faster to stream them, and when I want to try a new artist I don't futz around accidentally downloading their most popular track five times -- I just click and their first CD is playing.

    So, there are still problems. You're dependent on your network connection, and on their servers. You only have the songs they've managed to acquire, which for example means almost no Beatles. Rhapsody only runs in Windows -- and how much of your time do you really spend within listening distance of a Windows box connected to broadband?

    Well, tragically, about 90% of it. And don't lie, if you're reading this you probably do too.

    I don't think the jukebox concept is necessarily all there yet for people whose job isn't computers -- but as soon as it reaches the same price via cell phones, the idea of buying CDs is going to be antique. If you haven't tried these things, give them a shot -- for me, at least, this way kicks the ass of both CDs and P2P hands down.

    Oh, and, uh, some spam for you. If you sign up for the FREE TRIAL VERSION for whatever service pleases you, please tell them I sent you. They only clean out my cage and restock the food pellets if I bring in enough referrals every week ...
    • Rhapsody only runs in Windows -- and how much of your time do you really spend within listening distance of a Windows box connected to broadband?

      Yeah, I'm sure my sysadmin would love me using our broadband to stream my own music all friggin day.

      /me turns around to ask him if I can stream music

      He said "When you pay the bill, you can stream all the music you want."

    • A different way to look at this (Score:4, Insightful)

      by FunWithHeadlines ( 644929 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @08:25AM (#10317851) Homepage
      I for one am a total convert to the rental approach to furniture. I don't even know how to write about it without coming across like spam -- having instant access to over 40,000 couches, dining tables, chairs, and beds for much less every month than if I were to buy the furniture outright utterly changed the way I enjoy furniture.

      Oh wait. I have to keep paying forever? Or else they take my furniture away? Oh.

      Now to get back to your point, you do have a good one. The rental model is good for some people under some circumstances. It works for you? Great. But some people prefer the idea of pay once, own it forever. Those tracks you enjoy now, will you want to listen to them twenty years from now? Some of 'em, yeah. Will your rental service still be around twenty years from now? Doubtful. Bye bye tracks.

      • How about: "there are 10 pieces of furniture in my house. They satisfy my entire need for furniture for the next couple of years."

        "There are 10 CDs in my house. They satisfy my entire need for music for the next couple of years."

        See the difference? Unlike furniture, most CDs are valuable to me only for a short amount of time, then I want a new one. Typically I want access to about 100 at a time, so I can find the one I'm in the mood for. Which 100 that is changes semi-frequently.

        The amount I'll pay to Rh
        • No, if you catch me in a few years I'll say the same thing, but I can see for your purposes Rhapsody is the right idea, and that's cool. See, for me I'm not so interested in sampling all of the current songs. I'm into collecting certain albums from all genres and all times of my life...and then listening to them over and over again. I occasionally get a new album, but it's not my primary use.

          It sounds as if you, on the other hand, do want to sample lots of stuff and not necessarily hang onto it for a l

  • Best place to find music, through your actual people-to-people networking skills. I love using this service to trade music with others that live near me, or through the mail with people a little further away. Check it out!

    Publish your collection! [mediachest.com]
  • The rock solid nature of their instant messaging program gives me total confidence that this will be the greatest music sharing software of all time.
  • It's the only valid response to all this "me-too" opportunism which has all but replaced innovation and quality. All of the big boys, bloated with their money and responsibility towards shareholders, with their rigid corporate mentality... they have no option but to leave their slimy trail behind the likes of Apple and Google.

    Apple has succeeded at its iTunes+iPod combo because of all the things the follow-ups are (most probably) going to lack: high quality hardware and software which does not try to force
  • These individual "music download" announcements coming out of the UK (OD2, Virgin, etc) - and the US (MS, Yahoo, Real, everyone else) are part of a larger campaign by Microsoft to smother Apple. Will any one of these services really knock Apple out of the top spot? Noooooo. Is MS looking long-term at control of the underlying technology? HELL YES. I'm sure MS is doing their utmost to make sure these crappy services proliferate and thrive and kill each other off. Only at the end will MS consume the stronges
    • It's going to be ok man. Have a smoothie and think about happy things.

      We can sit here and play conspiracy theory all day but where will we really get?
      • ... just a concerted effort to flood the market with a particular base technology. Tis happened before, will happen again. MS really doesn't care about dilution of the WMA brand when used by sub-standard services, they just want it EVERYWHERE. This way, the various vendors do M$'s dirty, anticompetitive work for them! Hosts for the WMA virus. Blech.
  • Who'd want to pay for a subscription when there's bit-torrent out there?

    Besides, call me archaic, but I'm still stuck on CD's and what not. MP3's and OGGs are good for previewing an artist, but if I really like their stuff, I'm off to the store to grab me a CD. Which I then promptly make a backup in MP3 or OGG form, but that's beside the point.
  • Great... just what i need... another program fighting to have the file type mp3 associated with it.

    jeez, just leave poor winamp alone!

  • Aggregators (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pr0nbot ( 313417 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @07:33AM (#10317544)
    In all probability there will be an explosion of music download services, followed by consolidation into one or two dominant players. I don't think price differentiation will play a big role in the long term. What will probably make the most difference -- and allow multiple services to exist -- is labels exclusively licensing their tracks to one service or another. Seen another way, this means the most likely service providers in the long run are the (major) labels themselves, because the cost of running a music download site is low (primarily a marketing cost). Indies will probably prefer to continue to license their tracks to third-party stores, although I'd like to see them set up co-operatives.

    We might see aggregators, sites that allow you to transparently purchase from multiple stores. However, this doesn't seem to be very prevalent in other "obvious" areas, e.g. search engines that submit your query to google, jeeves etc and then present a single result? They may exist, but they're not popular.

  • Stinks of Market Speak (Score:3, Funny)

    by Paulrothrock ( 685079 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @07:45AM (#10317596) Homepage Journal
    Overheard in Yahoo's most recent marketing meeting:
    "We need to synergize our core competencies so we should leverage our intellectual property to provide best-of-breed services for this on demand e-economy."

    "Really Jim? What the hell does that mean?"

    "Download services are hothothot. We should start one."

  • I thought no-one could actually make money out of a service like this because of the crippling fees the record companies charge. Even Apple, with a priceless brand and, of course, the iPod.

  • Have these idiots learned NOTHING? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dpilot ( 134227 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @07:53AM (#10317644) Homepage Journal
    Remember the days of...
    CompuServe
    AOL
    GEnie
    Prodigy
    The Source

    They all wanted to *own* the home computer connection market. Together they balkanized it so that it never reached critical mass. Only ONE thing changed this, SMTP and the 'Internet bridge.' I used to be on CompuServe, and remember when we could begin routing email out over the Internet bridge. The other (surviving) providers followed suit, and suddenly anyone could email anyone, and home computer connectivity had its first Killer App.

    The Web followed that, and though Microsoft has tried mightily, they haven't quite managed to 0wn it, and it looks like that chance might well be gone. (If only because cellphones are now on steroids, viewing the web.)

    Then, in spite of a set of open protocols describing IRC, we began seeing Instant Message Balkanization. AIM, Yahoo, MSN, etc, etc, and of course none of them talk to each other. (Fortunately, GAIM talks to them all.) The idiots didn't learn!

    Now we're hearing about a bunch of deliberately incompatible music download protocols emerging. For that matter, we've had a bunch of deliberately incompatible filesharing protocols, already. STUPID! STUPID! STUPID!

    At about this point, I'm sick and tired of people telling me how stupid government is, and how the private sector can always do better. The Internet is the best counter-example. A government project put in place a series of non-owned, open protocols and standards, people came, and for the most part, it just works. Business, in its own-the-whole-pie mindset, denies critical mass to Instant Messaging and online music distribution. If the idiots could cooperate, they could all share a HUGE pie, each would have a bigger chunk of that pie than the whole pies they now have, and customers would be MUCH better off.

    That said, I won't argue that government isn't stupid, just that they have no monopoly on stupidity. Sometimes, and the Internet is the poster child for this, government can do things right and business can do things wrong.
    • The Internet is the best counter-example. A government project put in place a series of non-owned, open protocols and standards, pr0n sites appeared , people came, and for the most part, it just works

      • But we have to ask one question, given that pr0n IS the most successful business on the Internet...

        Do pr0n sites use common, free, and accepted protocols, or do they each try and do it their own way, to the exclusion of others? AFAIK, and that isn't very far, they all use http, https, relatively vanilla html, jpg, and the like.

        I think you've helped make my case.
    • You are seeing how the process is supposed to work. Each person/company offering up their view of how to solve the problem. The consumers are offered a great selection of ways to do things, what more can you ask?

      Sure their incompatible, thats the point. Just because someone was first, or is the biggest, or is based on open source, doesn't mean their methods are the best and should not be challenged.

      Just like products on storeshelves, many appear, some make us scratch our heads, and a few stick around.
      • I think the free market can be a useful tool, but I don't worship it. IMHO, the current situation is a 'deep local minima,' meaning that without a big shakeup, it's just not going to get appreciably better. I don't expect these guys to wake up one day and say, "Gee, if we'd just sit down together and hammer out a good common standard, the market growth would be explosive, and everybody would be better off." Early online service providers were in a similar local minima, except that cheap, easy email bridging

  • Yahoo? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Serious? [imdb.com]

  • Jumping on the bandwagon (which will crash) (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Theovon ( 109752 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @08:05AM (#10317746)
    Everybody and his brother is making an MP3 player and music download service. Before long, we'll have 300 of them. After a while, the market will be so over-saturated that most of them will go out of business. Hopefully in the end, we'll have more than just 1 or 2 services left.

  • Well Yahoo, NO (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Ilgaz ( 86384 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @09:27AM (#10318294) Homepage
    I know what they did with launch.com. They killed realplayer support first while I was using windows and Opera and gave only choice: "windows media player" which especially I HATE the sound quality.

    Now they do lame tricks on their video services to make everyone use Internet Explorer while every browser now (including safari) supports liveconnect extensions.

    So, Yahoo as I admire you are FBSD based, you have been asshole to alternative OS/Player users.

    No wonder the "thing" they will offer will be DRM'ed WMA, not interested.
  • So does this mean that to play .YHO or whatever files I'll need to add yet ANOTHER player to my machine to only support that one format?

    I hope it's not true. I already have Quicktime for .MOV and Realplayer for .RM & .RA.

    All of these media companies need to release the source for their proprietary sub-standard audio codecs.

  • Ah subscriptions (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @10:11AM (#10318758) Homepage Journal
    Gotta love having to pay forever to get something.. and never own anything..

    The ultimate dream of big business.. perpetual income.

    • Gotta love having to pay forever to get something.. and never own anything.

      The ultimate dream of big business.. perpetual income.

      Well, it has seemed to work well for cable TV companies.

      You can go buy TV/video programming (DVD,VHS) of most of the shows you want to watch. Play them 'til your heart's content. Have a library of 200 shows. And watch nothing but those shows, until you buy new shows. Like buying music CDs

      Or, you can pay a monthly fee, and have access to 1000s of hours of new video con

  • Lemming Run (Score:2, Funny)

    by BlakeLupa ( 767754 )
    It's strange how large companies can act like small lemmings. Is that a cliff or a large pile of money? Well Steve Job is running towards we'd better run towards it too.

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