Digital Music To Go - Yahoo Unlimited

Yahoo has officially launched it's subscription music service Yahoo! Music Unlimited. I have been running it in Beta mode for the last couple of months and it certainly offers a lot of bang for the buck. You can sign up for 12 months of service for $59.98 (about 5 bucks a month) or you can pay monthly for $6.99. These prices may not last forever but for now they are the best in the business (and this price includes the subscription to go service......Sorry, no iPods).

The interface is easy to use and the song selection is deep and varied. Plus, Yahoo includes 150+ quality radio stations with the service that are commercial free. Yahoo will also keep track of your music tastes and recommend music and design a station for you based upon those tastes. There is a unique rating system built into the interface that lets you rate songs, albums, and artists on a scale of 1-4 stars. Yahoo keeps track of your ratings and designs the interface around those ratings. When you sign in, it will recommend new songs and artists based upon the ratings that you enter. The more songs you rate, the more accurate Yahoo can be when it suggests songs.

Like Napster and Rhapsody, Yahoo Unlimited provides you with a good system for organizing your music, and it lets you play your own CD's and mp3's through the interface as well. Songs can either be downloaded to your harddrive or bookmarked for easy streaming later. Downloaded songs can then be transferred to your mp3 player by dragging and dropping. Transfer times are about on par with the other services, I think Napster To Go is the fastest because it offers a one step process for transferring music to your mp3 player. One nice feature of the downloads is that Yahoo encodes them at a rate of 192-kbps, compared to most services that offer 128-kbps, so you get a little bit better quality.

Other nice features in Yahoo include the ability to rip and burn CD's, and a feature that automatically designs a playlist for you based upon a particular artist. For example, if you click the create a playlist button next to U2, it will create an entire playlist for you based upon music similar to U2 that you can save and listen to again later.

My only complaint so far is that it the interface could be a little faster, but I'm sure that they will continue to work on increasing speed (the current version is already faster than the original). If your looking for subscription music at a great value, you can't beat Yahoo Unlimited. You can sign up for a 7 day free trial to give it a spin.

Links:
CNET Article

Apple's Special Announcement - New iPod Phone?

Rumors have been circulating for the past week about a big announcement that Apple plans to make next week. First, it was thought that Apple would be announcing the video iPod, but now rumors are shifting towards a new iPod cell phone. The announcement is scheduled for September 7th.

I'm not so hot on the idea of an iPod phone, or mp3 phones in general. I use my player frequently, and I don't like the idea of songs being interupted by phone calls. Plus, I like to hook my Creative Zen Micro up to my stereo as well. It seems like a big hassel to unhook your mp3 phone from your stereo to answer a phone call. It may work for some people, but I'm prepared to keep my phone and my mp3 player separate.

Digital Music To Go - Creative Zen Micro

The Creative Zen Micro has been on the market for a number of months, but it is still one of the top mp3 players available in the market place (it's also my own personal favorite player). It comes in 9 different colors and its compatable with all of the subscription music-to-go services.

One of the best aspects of the Zen Micro is its excellent interface. You can customize the layout of your menu (which includes a cool blue glowing backlight) to list only the features that you use most regularly. The menu is navigated by touch sensitive buttons that take some getting used to, but once you become comfortable with them they are actually quite nice. Unlike the ipod, which allows you to scroll through songs in a circular motion, the Zen Micro requires you to use an up and down scrolling motion.

This player is packed with features, including a decent voice recorder for note taking and an FM radio receiver that works well when signals are strong. You can even record songs that play over the radio. The unit also syncs with Microsoft Outlook, giving you access to your contacts and calendar appointments (although the calendar is read-only). I find the contact list to be very useful because I usually always have my player with me.

Battery life for the Zen Micro is rated at 12 hours, and I have found that to be pretty accurate in my experiences. One nice feature is the removable Li-ion battery that can be replaced easily in the future. The battery is re-chargable and the unit emits a cool blue pulse when its plugged in.

Currently, the Zen Micro comes in 4GB, 5GB, and 6GB models and is reasonable priced.
The 5GB model currently retails at $199 and comes with pretty good headphones, removable battery, a belt clip, mini-USB cord, and a stand.

I would recommend this model to anyone interested in music-to-go. I have tried it out will all three services and I haven't had any problems.

Digital Music To Go - Rhapsody 3.0 Basics

This is the first in a 3 part series that covers what I call the "big three" digital music services. I have tried each service first hand for an extended period of time and each of them has their unique benefits.

The best part about all of these services is that you get access to over 1,000,000 songs for a low monthly fee. For a former CD junkie like myself, this has saved me a ton of money. I used to spend $10 bucks a CD and I would by 15-20 CD's a month. Now I spend less than $10 bucks a month for all of the music I want.

Rhapsody has been around for a while and it recently underwent a major facelift. The most significant change is the addition of the Rhapsody to Go feature. This feature allows you to download a songs from Rhapsody without buying them and transfer them to your mp3 player. You can transfer as many songs as you like as long as you pay the monthly subscription fee, currently $14.99 a month. The songs will play on your mp3 player as long as you continue to subscribe. You will have to plug your player in each month to renew the music licenses or else your songs will stop working.

Unfortunately, not all mp3 players are compatible with this service, so make sure that you check with Rhapsody before you sign up. Currently, the compatible players include the Creative Zen Micro, the IRiver H10, and the Dell DJ.

If you are not interested in taking songs to go, you can always just listen to the songs directly on your computer. Rhapsody has an excellent interface that is easy to use. Songs and artists are organized by category and you can save your favorite songs and artists so that you can access them easily in the future. Rhapsody even allows you to catalog your own mp3 collection and burn CD's.

Out of all of the services, Rhapsody is the quickest to respond in terms of playing music. Just click on a song, and almost instantly it begins playing on your computer. The quality is great and if you can either plug your computer into your home stereo system or hook up a pair of quality pc speakers. Then listen to any song that you want or create your own playlists that match your mood.

Rhapsody also includes a great selection of internet radio stations that come with the Rhapsody unlimited subscription. These stations will automatically pick songs for you based upon the theme of the station. The cool part is, if you don't like the song playing on the station, you can instantly skip to the next song. Plus, there are no commercials. You can also develop a custom station that is based upon your music tastes.

Currently, Rhapsody is offering a free version that includes 25 free radio stations and 25 free song plays a month. If you want to sign up for the full version, there is a 14 day free trial during which you can listen to and transfer all of the music you want.

Digital Music To Go

It's a great service and if you buy a lot of CD's it should save you a lot of money. My favorite aspect of Rhapsody is being able to listen and try out new music that I wouldn't normally buy. I've found a lot of great new artists this way and I never would have discovored some of them. We'll discuss Rhapsody a lot more in the future but for now this should get you started.