Hot on the heels of the Last.Fm announcement that you can stream any song up to three times for free, Yahoo rumors are brewing again. According to two record company executives wishing to remain anonymous, Yahoo is in talks with major record labels about offering DRM-free (unprotected) MP3s either for sale or for free supported by ads. Either way, Yahoo wants to launch the new service this year sometime.
This news could be even more interesting when juxtaposed with what Yahoo Music’s VP of Product Development Ian Rogers hinted at a couple weeks ago. Namely, big news revolving around dramatic changes in Yahoo’s music model. He said, “We’re in the process of redefining what Yahoo! Music is, and making it the Music destination in Yahoo!’s successful image.”
I’ve always been one to root for the underdog. In this case, I picked Musicmatch five years ago and even skipped out on the iPod craze by using another brand of digital music player. But for all my time spent with Musicmatch, I was somewhat disconnected from that group of friends big into using iTunes. So I decided to give iTunes a test run, and now I don’t think I can go back. Here’s why: