Ugh… I’m now of the opinion that Yahoo! Unlimited (Yahoo!’s subscription music service) is not worth the $60/year fee. In fact, I don’t even know if I’d use Yahoo! Unlimited for free.

The latest problem is that I can’t transfer music to any of my portable devices. Yahoo! Unlimited used to work with my Dell Axim, but now all I get is this error message. Fark!

Even that is better than the experience that I got trying to transfer songs to my SMT-5600 Audiovox Smartphone. Yes, this device is on Yahoo!’s “approved” list, but not for my computer system. I never got my Audiovox to work with the service.

Oh, then there are *all* the times that the music client crashes or hangs. That has the added benefit of bring down all of your IE windows. A nice bonus “feature.” And the client is slow, UI confusing, blah, blah, blah.

I’m going to start taking a look at “Rhapsody Unlimited”:1, and see if I can get some of my money back from Yahoo!.

P.S. Mr. Jobs, please come out with a subscription service that I can use with my soon-to-be-purchased Nano.

[1(Rhapsody music services site)]http://www.rhapsody.com/

Today I tried to download a song from my Yahoo! Unlimited subscription service. Unfortunately, the service wouldn’t let me. As a back up, I thought I would try to stream the song so at least I could listen to it. No go.

Giving up on that, I tried to find a link somewhere within the Yahoo! music client to get some help. No go. Then I foolishly wasted some time searching on Yahoo!’s site to try and get some help. No go.

Well, this is one way to save on customer service — simply don’t offer it. It’s one thing to offer free services without customer care, but quite another to offer for-pay services without customer care.

Fortunately for Yahoo!, the problem will fix itself, since you’ll simply end up with no customers to match the non-existent customer care center. But whatever, who needs a brand that users can trust these days anyway?

P.S. I did find the “cancel” button for the entire service. I guess if the problem doesn’t fix itself soon, I’ll just cancel the whole service. Hum… CDs are starting to look better and better.

[1(Large version of image)]/img/yahoo_unlimited_alert_message_large.png

I just stumbled upon a cool feature of “Yahoo! Unlimited”:1 (Yahoo!’s new subscription music service). It’s a feature that creates a playlist of music similar to the artist or song you are browsing — for some reason the feature isn’t available in _album_ view.

For example, if you were browsing the artist page for Rush (for some unknown reason), there is a button called _Create a Playlist of Similar Artists_ as shown below:
!/img/yahoo_music_create_a_playlist.png!

If you push this button, the Yahoo! Music Engine (the Yahoo! Unlimited client application) automagically creates a playlist of songs similar to Rush’s music. Here’s a view of the newly created _Like Rush_ playlist tacked onto the end of my playlists.
!/img/yahoo_music_create_a_playlist_playlists.png!

Browsing the playlist, you can see what kind of songs Yahoo! thinks are similar to Rush. Overall, I’d say that it’s pretty good at picking similar songs for the playlist (at least in this example).
!/img/yahoo_music_create_a_playlist_rush_playlist.png!

I’ll be playing around with this feature more to see how it aids in discovering new music.

P.S. You should probably sign up soon for the full year of Yahoo! Unlimited while it’s still only $60/year. As quoted over on the “O’Reilly Radar”:2, Jerry Yang says that the pricing for Yahoo! Unlimited is an “introductory price.”

[2(O'Reilly Radar post on Apple vs. Yahoo!)]http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/05/tit_for_tat_app.html

[1(Yahoo! Unlimited home page)]http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited/

Ever since the _real_ Napster died a few years ago, I’ve really been turned off on music. The original Napster opened up a whole new way of experiencing music. That is, you could share and listen to *lots* of music. Of course, the _free_ part didn’t hurt either, but this was really secondary to the _diversity_ of the music offered. After Napster died, the thought of purchasing a CD or even an iTunes song was really unappealing. Most of the fun in music, at me at least, was in the discovering of new music.

Napster’s sharing feature was really pretty primitive, but it was effective. I remember that you could click on any Napster user’s name to view a compete list of their catalog of music — at least the list of music that they had in a “share-able” folder. Not everyone shared, but a lot did. I discovered some great, eclectic music this way. In fact, this eclectic mix of music became the only music I listened to.

This is why I am sooo stoked about subscription music services and especially Yahoo! Unlimited (yeah, there are other subscription services, but are they going to be around in five or 10 years?). Subscription services offer the potential for sharing and discovering music — much like the old Napster. Of course, all of these services need to work on expanding their catalogs, offer better ways to share music and support standards (like Yahoo!’s support of the “XSPF”:1 XML playlist open standard).

So, to offer a little sharing to digital music universe, here’s a new album that I’m kind of liking. It’s a bit sappy and poppy, but good background music. I saw Ben Lee several years ago, and can say that he’s got a lot of talent.

“!/img/Album_Art_ben_lee_awake_is_the_new_sleep.jpg!”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00078GIAQ/qid=1116260631

BTW, I *hate* the fact that you can’t just copy a URL from the Yahoo! Music client. It’s a client that sort of looks and works like a browser, but really isn’t. Kind of feels like it was designed by a committee. Therefore, the album art above is linked to Amazon’s site.

Like I said, these subscription services need some work.

[2(Amazon link to Awake Is the New Sleep)]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00078GIAQ/qid=1116261013

[1(XSPF site)]http://www.xspf.org/

On my post “_You have been warned_”:1, loyal reader Twain remarked:

bq.. Dano, you are spot-on. Proprietary means short-lived. Idealists can’t change the world!

Oh wait a sec, should I dust off my DBX-encoded album, LaserDisc, or SACD? To rant a bit on SACD-Sony et all were so concerned about peeps pirating their (admittedly awesome sounding) 5:1 music, they went around digital audio connects and, instead, require 5 analog cables. How friggin’ dorky.

Hahhah, regardless, I *did* have a DBX tape player, Pioneer LD, and my DVD player plays SACD. At least I’ve resisted the urge to go sony/memory stick!

p. Ouch! Twain, I feel your pain. I can’t say I’ve bought as many “dead-end” technologies as you have, but I do have a Mini-Disc player and recorder… ahh, no wait, I just _gave_ them away last year. No Memory Shit here either.

The reason I am so down on iTunes music (not iPods) is that DRM is a trap. You gotta choose your trap wisely (of course, assuming that you believe that DRM will be accepted by the mass public). I figure that Apple’s current approach to digital music is too vertical. That may have worked for “Ford”:2 back in the day, but it hasn’t worked for PCs (yet?) or anything I can think of. So, if you buy into iTunes, you are betting that Apple will continue to have _the most_ compelling digital music experience. _The best_ hardware, _the best_ prices, _the best_ selection, _the best_ sound quality, etc., etc. I just can’t see one company competing against everyone else. Apple’s gonna beat Microsoft + Yahoo! + Samsung + Dell + Nokia + Cellular Carriers… and a bunch of others? Where’s all the iTunes licensing deals??? HP selling iPods… whatever. Motorola iTunes phone? So MIA.

And Twain also points out that “this”:3 is a great link to read about yTunes from one of the developers/co-creators of the service. Check it out.

[3( Ian C Rogers post about yTunes)]http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-FDuiCSg4eqinB8z.GGJ7TmAz?p=89

[2(Ford made the steal that make the Model-T)]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model-T

[1(Zoinger post... iTunes = Betamax or 8-track)]http://www.zoinger.com/words/archives/2005/05/12/what-your-investment-in-itunes-equals/#comments