Bill,
I spent 1/2 hour poking around the RealJukebox site. Here's what I found:
1.) You have to buy their "Real Player" for $30.
2.) Every page reminds you that you haven't yet bought the real player.
3.) There are approx. 70 software titles you can buy, and 8 HW items. All of them geared to support. (anyone? anyone?) Real Player.
4.) All purchases are made with a major credit card on-line, or with 800#
5.) Their news site gives you a dozen squinky headlines to story links. I tried the search function and it took forever to tell me "No results found." I didn't stay long to quiz it.
6.) The Sports listing for Internet radio featured mostly the Seattle Twins audio broadcast. didn't see the Pacers/Knicks game listed... Didn't stay long.
7.) One bright spot... There is a link to a site called "EVERY CD." I looked up Bob James, and it returned an almost full list. I clicked on the "H" album, one of his fantastic early albums, which is out of production, and it told me I could buy the album for $8.65. which is outstanding, if you can even find it! I'll go back later and call their 800 number, to see if I can get it. It did, however list the music download option as "Lo-Fi" because I hadn't yet, (anyone?) purchased the RealPlayer yet.
In sum, and IMHO, this is a proprietary PC music player software company, with a great CD link, and some very clunky, limited human interest sites. But, (and this is a very big butt) they are on-line and generating revenue.
Cheers,
Wooly |
