How The Game Is Played

Short Take: Yahoo Music Unlimited

Okay, real short. This service is in beta right now and I really, really like it. I does everything my Real Rhapsody did for 1/3 the price ($5.00 a month if you subscribe for a year.) PLUS it also has a TiVo-like service in the "LAUNCHCast" section that you get with your subscription, too. Its called "MyStation" and it tries to guess selections you'll like based on some initial examples you give it. As it guesses, you rate the slections and it gets better and better at guessing.

It even has an off-line DRM solution so you can download your music and play it offline without paying a per-cut charge (you get it on a "lease" that expires if you don't keep your subscription up.) These cuts can then be downloaded to a portable player and taken with you.

The only downside is that, right now, they only support Microsoft's Janus DRM. WHich means you neeed MSFT software in your portable player and Windows on your desktop.

We should really talk to these guys about making other DRM soultions pluggable as an option.

Posted at 04:55PM May 30, 2005 by gameguy in General  |  Comments[1]