Yahoo plans to launch an early version of a new flagship music service this week, in hopes of capturing some of the online music momentum now held by Apple Computer, sources familiar with the plans say.
The service, which sources say is expected to be released Wednesday, is built in large part around a monthly subscription plan similar to those now offered by Napster and RealNetworks, allowing customers to download music onto their portable devices.
But Yahoo also has spent considerable time building links to its other products, such as the company's popular instant messaging application, with the aim of making community and legal music-sharing among subscribers a core part of the service.
Record label executives who have seen the service, which is in part based on wholesaler MusicNet's technology, say the community aspect in particular shows a promising evolution for the online music business.
"They've unpacked the opportunities and social aspects of the peer-to-peer environment, taken the best aspects away from that, and put them back into their environment," said one top record label executive familiar with recent versions of the service, who asked not to be named.
Yahoo and MusicNet each declined to comment on the potential release of the service.
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Unless this is $10 a month and is available worldwide, I ain't interested.
I could justify £5 a month to listen to anything I wanted and not be too distressed that it died when my subscription ended. Unfortunately, when and if it gets to the UK it will be pound for dollar and we'll be paying £15 per month. At least.
When will they realise the magic figure that people will start paying for quality and convenience rather than helping themselves for free? The market share would be enormous, rather than the enormous finger people keep giving back in reply.
Charter Communications offers a music service for $7.99 a month. So $47.99 a month gets me 3Mb cable net, and music downloads I don't get sued for.... nice.
“The martyr sacrifices themselves entirely in vain. Or rather not in vain; for they make the selfish more selfish, the lazy more lazy, the narrow narrower.” - Florence Nightingale
I won't buy ANYTHING unless I can put the music where I want it and listen whenever I want to. If there is any DRM, it doesn't make any sense to buy when I can download free elsewhere.
I just went to the Yahoo site and discovered you have to live in the U.S. to use it right now. But it's not too expensive at $4.99 U.S. per month. I don't know what kind of DRM it has though.
Also, I'd be more receptive to stuff like this if the RIAA hadn't gone and sued their customers.
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