Yahoo Music Unlimited (1 Viewer)

[deecue]

After years of trying to maintain and upkeep a music collection, i've come to the point of how much of a pain it can be. I'm pretty much to the point where I just want access to most of all the professionally created music out there without having to own, digitize, and organize it (but still pay for the product i want to use and support). So i started wondering about how great it would be to have my sweet media portal HTPC have access to a tremendous mp3 source that is correctly organized and tagged. And that if the price were right, i'd be willing to pay someone for me to just piggyback off that tremendous source.

In comes Yahoo's new service. For 5 bucks a month, you get unlimited access to a crapload of songs. My problem is that the software doesn't speak to the general entertainment user that just wants to play some music through a stereo (kind of the whole thing we're after with HTPC, right?)..

So branching off the idea of the Yahoo launch plugin for music videos, I began thinking about how wonderful it would be if Media Portal had a simple plugin with just a simple, large font Search Field and Browse Field to access a service such as Yahoo's. (i'm not saying it has to be yahoo's, i just like this general idea of playing cd quality music from almost any artist without me having to work very hard for it). For browsing, it could be by artist, album, genre. It'd be great to have playlists and the likes as well. Sort of a favorites list. Maybe you can ask for suggestions based on the artists that you already listen to.

So yea, as much as this is a feature request (because i would love to see it), i'm also just asking out there: is there anyone else that's on the same boat as I am? Would 5 bucks a month be worth it to you to be able to just forget the idea of keeping and mainting a properly filed and named music collection, when you could just have someone else do it for you? To me it is and I'm wondering if the on-demand world of things is going to bring us closer to these services..

Whats the MP's community thought on all this? Oh yea, and how about that plugin..

thanks all,
dave

http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited

 

[tfro71]

There's a small downside: Service available in the US only.
This is for yahoo thing. You know any services that sell international and are able to communicatie through a programming interface rather then a nive application?

 

[deecue]

yea, i can't seem to find anything.. i know there's rhapsody and napster, but they seem to be US only as well.. napster had an interesting integration with windows MCE, but it really should just be more open then that..

from the yahoo FAQ, there was this:

>>
Is Yahoo! Music Unlimited available outside the U.S.?

No. At present, the service is only available to users within the United States. However, we are working to offer the service in countries outside the U.S. as soon as possible.
>>

so maybe at some point.. i'm trying to find a place to email yahoo about this as well.. just to mention the amount of revenue i think they would get by just offering a more open platform that HTPC software could take advantage of (and hopefully past just MCE)..