iTUNES Competition: Real
Tinker,
<< Take all the dispare MP3 player companies, they would each need to form a coalition and jointly invest their money into a competing service so as to provide an equal store front for the MP3 format. >>
Why?
Today iTunes probably sells more tracks than all the other Microsoft enabled stores combined - kudos to Apple for a great proprietary closed end-to-end offer and marketing job - but most of these other 'legal' stores have an "equal store front" (a million+ tracks at 99¢ or less) and recently the subscription model has been added to several. Loudeye and Melodeo, conveniently located near Redmond, and several others, package white label stores for the likes of Walmart, Cingular, or whomever.
There is no lack of store fronts for playforsure (or more confined) MP3 devices, and the number will simply increase. The cellular operators will really kick it up in the coming year when OMA DRM 2.0 is implemented.
The MP3 player manufacturers now have no shortage of distribution outlets for soft media, and while DRM has a way to go it's now in suitable form to enable mass market.
<< This said, I don't know what the economics of say Rhapsody are but I know they don't offer the same product as iTunes. >>
In what respect does Real not offer the same product as iTunes?
So far as I can see, in several respects it one-ups iTunes, and if the interface of its media player doesn't yet stack up against iTunes it comes darned close. A real good first effort that is sure to only get better, particularly as compatible devices for Rhapsody To Go increases.
I've been using MusicMatch Jukebox Plus, (my gold standard) generally considered to be the most robust audio manager (not necessarily the most intuitive) for years, to rip, burn, label, and manage my CD collection and I use the industry standard WMP 10 for other media.
I have, however, been using Real's free 'Rhapsody 25' service and the free 'Listen Rhapsody' player for about a week. It appears to be a fine product with a very good and highly intuitive interface, although I don't think it's completely stable yet as I've had to uninstall/reinstall twice after experiencing GPFs on a very well maintained XP Pro system. It permits previewing 25 complete tracks per month - not just 30 second previews - from their 1 million+ library and has 25 free radio stations to build a list of quite good commercial free 'my stations.' I generally have 'Smooth Jazz' or 'New Age' playing softly in the background in my office. I have pretty good aftermarket speakers, but I'm seriously thinking of kicking them up a notch. I've built a few playlists, but haven't ripped or burned yet so haven't evaluated that capability.
Give it a spin.
rhapsody.com
Best,
- Eric - |
