I subscribed to and installed Yahoo! Music Unlimited, the
new and shockingly inexpensive streaming/To Go
service, this morning soon after it was launched. The final stage of installation requires an automatic system reboot.
My test machine came back up with a blank desktop and missing taskbar. I managed to invoke System Restore in Windows XP
and recover normal operation by setting the restore point two days in the past. I skipped two days because I was not
(and am not) certain what caused this. The Yahoo! installation seems like the obvious culprit, but that could be the
result of flukey timing. during those two days I also freshly installed the latest version of Google Desktop in order
to document the indexing process for a book.
I am preparing a safeguarded testing environment to try the Yahoo! service installation again, and hope to be running
it by the end of today. In the meantime, a few observations that I gleaned while I could:
The social networking aspects of the service are intense. Yahoo! Messenger is deeply involved, and a new version of
Messenger is installed with the pack. A desktop media client, Yahoo! Music Engine, is also installed. Music sharing is
implemented with a P2P streaming feature that, by reading the specs, seems to resemble Mercora.
Subscribers can directly access and stream each other's downloaded collections. (It is possible to opt out.)
Subscribers can identify each other by Yahoo! screen name and IP address. Users automatically reveal their online
status, unless that feature is opted out.
Usage data is compiled aggressively and unapologetically. Subscribers must acquire a Yahoo! ID or use a preexisting
one. Subscribers *must* pay via Yahoo! Wallet. (!) If you own a Yahoo! ID and have ever opened a Wallet account, you
must go through that account to subscribe. Wish to use a different credit card? You must edit the Wallet, add or revise
the card, and proceed from there.
Many have wondered how Yahoo! will make money at the service's low price point. Perhaps making money on the music
isn't the point. With Yahoo!'s immense user base, and the bold harvesting of user information built into the service,
it seems that Yahoo!'s dominant model here is to claim ownership of the user and expand the user base of Yahoo!'s
payment, shopping, and IM services.
Yahoo! Music Unlimited: Preliminary Report
Reader Comments
(Page 1)2. Yahoo! Music does not check with Napster. It does not care where you downloaded those songs. Yahoo! Music uses Microsoft's DRM technology (as does Napster) and that is how Yahoo! Music can play those songs. Yahoo! Music will be able to play any Microsoft DRM'ed song.
Posted at 5:45AM on Dec 19th 2005 by DS
3. Yahoo! Music does not check with Napster. It does not care where you downloaded those songs. Yahoo! Music uses Microsoft's DRM technology (as does Napster) and that is how Yahoo! Music can play those songs. Yahoo! Music will be able to play any Microsoft DRM'ed song.
Posted at 5:45AM on Dec 19th 2005 by DS
4. So this is a huge blow to napster...I'll just take my napster downloaded library and go play my songs on Yahoo's software.
Posted at 5:45AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Chris Sharp
6. So the microsoft DRM service checks my napster subscription to see that it is in good standing before it allows Yahoo to play the song?
Posted at 5:45AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Chris Sharp
7. I had no problems installing the Yahoo! Music Engine. I am very impressed by the integration with Yahoo! Messenger and Lauchcast Radio. This beats Napster and the others in the subscription-based music service genre.
Posted at 5:45AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Scott-O-Rama
8. The advertising of the Yahoo service at "as low
as 4.99 a month" is really not proper.
The real price is $59.99 RIGHT NOW, NOT 4.99/m
because you are not allowed to pay 4.99/m. -
you have to pay all now to get this price.
(or else it 6.99/m)
If you have to PAY more than 4.99/m, then
it COSTS more than 4.99/m - period.
Posted at 5:45AM on Dec 19th 2005 by dennis
9. My quick thoughts.
- It feels unfinished and certainly no where near as mature or configurable as, say, winamp
- Nowhere in the install did I get to choose if I got YM! Now I've got Yahoo! icons on the desktop, in the quickstart tray and running on startup. I'm all for easy installs but *I don't like* install programs loading other stuff I didn't ask for.
- The music sub system may be cheaper but it suffers from all the same problems as all the other music sub systems. I'm nto buying music, I'm renting it. And music is to important to me to run the risk of losing it when the sub fails or my machine fails or the service changes all its T&Cs or in Napster's case it goes out of business.
- All the world has an iPod, not a "plays for sure" (sic) WMA machine. And my Creative Zen Xtra is not that old but doesn' DRMed WMA.
- It's not clear what codec is used for MP3 ripping. I take it it's not LAME which is the only one worth using.
So after that brief look, it's all been removed from my machine. Somebody wake me up in 5 years when there's a download service that sells non-DRM MP3s in 192Kb VBR for $0.10 per track. Till then I'm not interested and will stick to my favourite Russian download site.
Posted at 5:45AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Julian Bond
10. What format and bitrate are these Yahoo music files in?
Posted at 5:45AM on Dec 19th 2005 by DKDiveDude
12. Signed up for Yahoo Unlimited last night. Process was painless.
Was about to sign up for Rhapsody to Go, but deferred this when I heard the Yahoo news...but a cursory glance last night seemed to show better choice from Rhapsody. And a lot of Yahoo albums seemed to only have a couple of tracks available to listen or download.
I know that Yahoo Unlimited has a vast available playlist, but it remains to be seen which service has availability of songs people really want to hear.
Posted at 5:45AM on Dec 19th 2005 by The Phantom
13. I tried every subscription services there is. Napster, Rhapsody, Musicmatch, and now Yahoo! Unlimited. My favorite so far is Rhapsody. Yahoo is cool, but it's really annoying that there's really no quick way to add music to the now playing list and I didn't find any way to add an album to now playing. The interface is kinda slow and there's really not alot to do on the homepage, kinda bare. But it's still in beta, so hopefully it'll get better in no time.
Posted at 5:45AM on Dec 19th 2005 by mikedt
14. Chris, I think you're right. I use a media player with no built-in subscription stuff, but it still checks with Windows to make sure the Napster DRM'd tracks I want to play are licensed, and then they play. I assume YME does the same thing.
After two days of fooling around with Yahoo's subscription service, I'm ready to kick Napster to the curb. I like Yahoo's interface much more. I like that Yahoo puts tracks where I want them, names the files how I want them named, and lets me change tags easily. Napster did none of that and it drove me crazy. Transferring to my zen micro is much easier (though DRM'd tracks are still slow as mud). Also, it looks like there are going to be lots of third-party plug-ins available, which is very cool. Bit rate: Yahoo's 192kB are better than Napster's 128kB tracks.
I would have switched over to Yahoo based on features alone, but Yahoo's price of $7/month is the nail in Napster's coffin for me. $.79/track and cheap album prices (I know, not as cheap as russian sites) are a bonus too.
There are a few quirks, but nothing major, and hopefully when they release a non-beta version they will mostly be fixed.
Posted at 5:45AM on Dec 19th 2005 by carl
15. I used to have Napster and Rhapsody, but once I tried out Yahoo Music Unlimited I canceled my Napster subscription within about 15 minutes. You can do everything that's in Napster, and it has the cool features like the album covers, recommendations bases on ratings (like Netflix), radio bases on your tastes and the rad messanger & community features. I was going to get rid of Rhapsody too, but when I called to cancel they told me Rhapsody lets you download music to the hard drive now (when did this happen?) and gave me a month free so I kept it. Rhapsody also still seems to have the best selection of any of them.
Posted at 5:45AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Joshua
16. I have Rhapsody and fell in love with it one weekend after I connected it to my stereo receiver via my home network. I really enjoy the new feature that allows you to download for playing off-line. It's great when I'm on the road. I don't even think about where it's stored anymore. I just click play and it plays. I tried Yahoo but the interface isn’t as nice (not sure why) as Reals and it doesn’t look like they allow downloading to the hard drive – a real plus. I think I’ll hang on to what I have until someone comes up with a button that I can click (on Rhapsody for example) that pushes my play list to my cell phone.
Posted at 5:45AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Robert Henderson
17. Don’t rule out Yahoo until the fat lady sings. There was a public demonstration at the spring CTIA show of a Yahoo! enabled mobile phone for sharing play lists over…their IM wireless SMS gateway.
Posted at 5:45AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Michael
18. I'd like to give the Yahoo service a whirl -- I currently use Launchcast and really love it. One question, though: What's the real difference between the streaming option in the Music Unlimited and that in Launchcast? I enjoy being able to rate music and skip songs.
Posted at 5:45AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Brian
19. I am not too certain, but I believe Launchcast is like a radio. Although you get to rate and skip your music, launchcast still decides what's going on next. Yahoo Unlimited allows you to choose your own songs. You make a playlist of what you want to hear outta the 1 million songs they have available. I also believe that Yahoo Unlimited also gives you access to launchcast.
Posted at 5:45AM on Dec 19th 2005 by mikedt
20. I am having an awful time with Yahoo- I am getting an error message that it won't let me sign in. They have no tech support and when I send in the form in feedback it took 6 days for a response that didn't help a bit. They need to offer support with this type of service. I still can't sign in. I was told by the billing rep to wait until my free trial was up and then call back. Big help!
Posted at 5:45AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Shannon
1. Hi,
Sorry to hear about your problems installing Yahoo Music. I installed it today without a problem. I currently subscribe to napster and use it to listen to music at work mostly. I thought yahoo would be a good alternative especially since it is quite a bit cheaper.
While configuring yahoo music, it asked me if I would like to import my music into the Yahoo Music Engine. I pointed it at my napster directory not expecting it to work. To my surprise, the Yahoo music engine is able to play wma (DRM) files that I have download from napster. How is it that I can play these files without it verifying my napster subscription?
Any ideas?
Posted at 5:45AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Chris Sharp