Hear That
Online digital music services are now available that can deliver music straight to the desktop at reasonable prices. Unfortunately, most of the services still fall short in a few areas.
iTunes, a service provided by Apple, is currently the front runner in the digital music race. iTunes carries over 1.5 million songs, while all of the other services carry just over one million tracks each. In addition, iTunes integrates wonderfully with iPod MP3 players, but support for other players is nonexistent. The iTunes service also lacks any subscription pricing, choosing instead to sell songs on a per-track or per-album basis. Most songs available through iTunes can be purchased for $0.99 each, although some songs can only be had by purchasing an entire album. Album prices are generally fairly reasonable for the number of songs that are included, although it probably makes more economic sense to just buy the songs that are really wanted. The iTunes search interface is quick and reliable, providing a plethora of options. It was quite easy to locate what was being searched for. As with most Apple products, the interface design is stellar. Any tracks purchased through iTunes can be played back on the computer, recorded to CD's, or transferred to an iPod for listening.
Yahoo is entering the digital music arena with their offering, Yahoo Music Unlimited. A subscription is not required to access the service, and without one, songs can be downloaded for $0.99 each, and can be burned to CD's or transferred to a select list of compatible MP3 players, that does not include the iPod, largely due to Apple restrictions. Yahoo music is really set apart from iTunes with their subscription service. For $4.99/month when purchasing a year of service upfront ($6.99 monthly otherwise) their entire library of over a million songs can be accessed and played as many times as desired, or transferred to compatible portable audio players at no additional cost. This service would really shine for someone that regularly works at a computer for a large portion of the day, or who owns a compliant device. If the subscription lapses though, a user can no longer access the song files. However, the full songs can be purchased at a discounted rate of $0.79 each, and these files can be burned to CD's and never expire. The Yahoo interface is very similar to the iTunes interface, but it doesn't seem to have the pizazz of the iTunes interface. The Yahoo search mechanism also feels fairly kludgey, especially considering that Yahoo is a search based company. The Yahoo search is unable to detect minor errors in spelling, and it is necessary to specify if the search is an artist, song title, album, or a member. While iTunes really nails this, Yahoo falls short on search, but the subscription model, and the price, really make up for that minor problem.
Napster, once renowned for their innovative file sharing software, now operate a digital music store. Napster Light features $0.99 downloading of individual tracks, with album sales as well, in much the manner that is offered through Yahoo and iTunes. The portable audio player support for Napster is fairly complete, but does not include the iPod. Napster offers two subscription services, Napster Unlimited ($9.95/month), and Napster to Go ($14.95/month). The unlimited service allows Napster Unlimited music playback on the computer, and the Napster to Go package allows any of the unlimited files to be transferred to a supported MP3 player. Both subscription plans lower the per track rate to $0.80 for tracks that can be burned to CD's and that do not expire. Napster's interface is different than that of the iTunes software, but it is quite user friendly. The search functionality is also somewhat kludgey compared to the iTunes service, much the same as the Yahoo search. Napster integrates the Billboard charts going back through the late 1950's. This feature was quite useful in finding new music to listen to, and Napster appears to be the only service that makes use of such a comprehensive chart system, although they all maintain top lists in some form or another. Yahoo Music Unlimited seems to do everything Napster does, equally as well, and sometimes better, excluding the Billboard Charts, for significantly less money.
Rhapsody is another service similar to Napster and Yahoo Music. Rhapsody is priced the same as Napster, with the exception of prepaying for a years worth of service ahead of time, which drops the Unlimited monthly rate to $8.33 from $9.99. Tracks can be purchased for $0.99 as well. While Rhapsody has a decent interface and a search that is somewhat better then either Napster or Yahoo Music, it doesn't offer anything terribly compelling to make it more attractive than Yahoo Music's low prices.
Digital Rights Management technology, or DRM, is used to protect all of the songs on these services. Because of this, users of the Apple iPod are seemingly locked into the iTunes service, while users of other MP3 players are locked out of the iTunes service. Yahoo Music, Napster, and Rhapsody are all working toward enabling more players to work with their service, but prior to purchase any service or a new MP3 player, it is vital to determine which digital music services that it works with.
All of the services seem to offer very similar song catalogs. If a particular artist wasn't available on one service, it was usually not available on any. Apple does have an advantage as far as number of songs, but it was difficult to find any real world place where the raw numbers really gave iTunes an advantage. iTunes did usually have more versions of some songs than the others did. It was not unusual to find seven or eight versions of a song on iTunes while the other services only featured two or three. While iTunes featured the best search functionality, all of the services lacked the ability to search a lyrics database to locate songs. Many artists are not available on any digital music service at this time, and may not be for some time. Quite a few songs are also mysteriously absent as well. Newer songs, albums, and artists were almost always available, the deficiencies seemed to appear predominantly with music over five years old.
Digital music services are a pleasant way of purchasing music, but with incomplete catalogs, and portable player incompatibilities, there is still a lot of room for improvement. Both Yahoo Music and iTunes provide a mixture of fair prices and friendly interfaces that should be kind to anyone. Every service offers free trials, so be sure to try before you buy to find the service that works best for your needs.
August 27, 2005 10:54 PM posted by J. Michael Cunningham
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