I have no idea what’s true and what’s not true, rumor-wise with Yahoo Music Unlimited. All that we know, is that they’re scaling back their music offerings to a certain extent.
All I know is the time-line is like such:
Yahoo purchased MusicMatch, which already had an online store and on-demand service of it’s own.
Yahoo launches Yahoo Music Unlimited & Yahoo Music Jukbox (which has little in common with MusicMatch feature or looks-wise).
Yahoo merges MusicMatch DRM authentication servers into Yahoo Music Unlimited for previous MusicMatch purchases.
Yahoo partners with Zing and Sandisk for the Sansa Connect.
Yahoo partners with Cingular/AT&T for OTA purchasing, but not downloading. (Along with Napster and e-Music)
Yahoo discontinues MusicMatch Jukebox altogether.
Yahoo starts trimming the online service entirely atleast via advertising. (Obviously it’s original functionality at a technical level it still intact)
Yahoo Music Unlimited’s “To-Go” offering still exists, but only advertised for Sansa Connect users.
All over the course of 2 1/2 years… Less I missed something.
I’m sure Sandisk & Zing knows the fate of Yahoo Music Unlimited.
If something happends to YMU, Sandisk only has 2 choices if they want to maintain the Connect’s current functionality.
- Partner with Rhapsody or Napster. (The only other music store with subscription functionality is F.Y.E.)
- Create their own music store. Which I doubt they’ll do.
As I state above, there aren’t that many PlayForSure subscription providers left. YMU, Napster, Rhapsody and F.Y.E are just about it. URGE is merging into Rhapsody.
Napster, atleast as far as I know, has been looking for buyers for quite sometime… I think the perfect buyer for them would be Sony in my opinion. Sony put the Napster logo on their packaging for the new Windows Media DRM enabled Walkmans, so they know each other exists.
As Microsoft is loosing URGE (it’s cornerstone WMP 11 music store) to Real Networks, Microsoft could modify the Zune Marketplace to be a PlayForSure certified service. They will be releasing the Zune 2.0 soon. Microsoft could make the Zune and Zune Marketplace a regular PlayForSure all across the board with new firmware updates and a few backend DRM tweaks. I’m sure they’re considering this and would be surprised if they weren’t. I mean, how are they gonna replace URGE? They’re gonna do something.
Maybe Yahoo Music Unlimited will exist, but if it isn’t bringing in enough revenue to justify itself to the stock holders, it could be gone in an instant, just like any other service.
These cut-backs are for the stock holders, I can assure you of that…
Message Edited by bigcraig01 on 09-30-2007 02:44 PM
