Apple’s iTunes, thanks largely to the runaway success of their ubiquitous iPod portable MP3 player, is the undisputed heavyweight champion of legal music downloads, crushing all comers with a staggering 70 to 80 percent share of the globe’s biggest markets. But challengers are spoiling for a fight, led by Yahoo!, Amazon and an open source engine built from the Firefox browser.
BetaNews reports that Yahoo! has rolled out the first update of its Music Engine (YME) since its initial release last year, focusing on features that ape many of iTunes’ components: shareable public playlists, recommendations based on prior music downloads, and the ability to stream music through the living room stereo (using third-party devices compatible with Windows Media Connect). So…what’s the difference again? YME supports a number of portable devices – unfortunately none of these is the iPod – and it’s integrated with the subscription-based Yahoo! Music Unlimited service, which allows endless downloads for about 10 bucks a month.
Moving down the foodchain a tad, a small company called Pioneers of the Inevitable launched an open source music player called Songbird last week, whose popularity temporaily crashed the start-up’s website. While it hopes to support a muliplicity of download services, devices and digital formats, Songbird can’t play any file protected by digital rights management software (which means no iTunes or Yahoo). We like the idea, but they might want to do something about their cartoon mascot, which resembles a bulbous flatulent canary that got dunked in an ash can.
Further competition for iTunes seems a ways off; Financial Times says that Amazon is also working to open a digital music store in an attempt to break the iTunes stranglehold, possibly as early as the second quarter of the year. The move away from physical media comes as little surprise for Amazon, as they’ve lately been discussing a downloadable movie service. The story also treats Google as a surefire future competitor in the music download game, reporting the search giant’s official denials with a ‘sure-you-won’t-wink-wink’ tone; the current situation with Google being what it is, we could probably predict their entry into the carwash business without making anyone blink.
Lastly, audiophiles who prefer satellite radio to downloading have ResourceShelf to thank for bringing a couple of searchable databases to our attention. XMfan.com and Siriusbackstage.com each offer real time updates
of songs airing on their respective satellite services; tunes can be cross-referenced by artist, channel and time aired. Siriusbackstage even links to relevant pages from the All Music Guide, the internet’s preeminent music info clearinghouse and unofficial bible for music nerds everywhere…if you’ll just excuse us for a bit, we’ve, uh, just got to check something out real quick.
