Yahoo Launches Full Featured Music Subscrition Service At A Deep Discount Price

Yahoo! today announced Its new music subscription service, Yahoo!Music Unlimited, providing music fans with music listening and management functionality an introductory price of just $59.88 per year or $6.99 on a monthly basis. This low pricing is only a third of the cost of similar services offered by Napster and Real Networks and should also be causing heart palpitations over at Apple’s iTunes who offer no subscription services and whose iPod is not compatible with Yahoo’s new services. 

The service allows consumers to play tunes from a catalog of more than one million songs, transfer tracks to portable devices, as well as to share and discover music with friends through Yahoo! Messenger.  In addition to allowing fans to browse and listen to friends’ collections of subscription music and playlists via Yahoo! Messenger, the service enables them to build personalized music libraries, transfer tracks to compatible portable devices (most MP3 players but not Apple’s iPod, purchase discounted permanent downloads (at a below industry average of $.79 per track), listen to commercial-free Internet radio stations  (via Yahoo’s premium Launch networks) and access their subscription service from any Internet-connected computer.

The factors that we can see that might slow the growth of Yahoo! Music Unlimited are technological glitches or consumer’s lack of willingness to rent rather than own (or download free via P2P’s) their music.

Yahoo! Music Unlimited can be accessed by downloading the free Yahoo! Music Engine music management software from http://music.yahoo.com. Yahoo! Music Unlimited is available for an introductory annual fee of $59.88 or monthly subscription of $6.99. To get started Yahoo! is also offering a 7-day free trial to consumers. 

We’d love to hear users experiences with Yahoo! Music Unlimited as well as any reader comments and predictions.  Feel free to post your comments or email us directly.

For Wired.com’s report click here.

For the full company press release click here.

For a full list of Yahoo! Music Unlimited features click below.

YAHOO! MUSIC UNLIMITED FEATURES:

• Yahoo Music Engine: Yahoo! Music Unlimited comes with a free music management application, the Yahoo! Music Engine, which lets consumers rip, mix and burn CDs, import and manage music, and transfer music to portable devices.
• Large Music Library: Yahoo! Music Unlimited offers a continuously growing online catalog of music composed of more than one million songs, encoded highest at192 kbsfrom all major record labels as well as most independent labels.
• Yahoo!Messenger Integration: Yahoo! Music Unlimited makes it easy for consumers to share and discover music among an online community of friends. Integrated with Yahoo! Messenger, the service provides the unique ability for subscribers to browse and listen to friends’ subscription music collections and playlists.
• Personalization & Community: Leveraging the more than three billion song, artist and album ratings of Yahoo! Music fans, Yahoo! Music Unlimited will generate personalized homepages and recommendations based on perceived tastes and subscriber community ratings. As users rate more songs and add to their digital collection by importing music from CDs, downloads, etc., subscribers discover new music through recommendations made by other Yahoo! members who have similar music tastes.
• Music Portability: Yahoo! Music Unlimited uses the WMA format and Windows Media Digital Rights Management 10 (WM DRM 10). This support enables subscription tracks to be transferred to any portable device that supports WM DRM 10. Dell, Creative and other MP3 players are on the compatible list but not Apples iPod.
• Instant Playlists: Members seeking music similar to a particular artist or genre can generate instant playlists of dozens of comparable tracks and store them in their personal music library. Instant playlists are a convenient way to discover new music; organize tracks for special occasions such as roadtrips, workouts or dinners-for-two; as well as transfer multiple files to portable devices.
• LAUNCHcast Integration: Yahoo! Music Unlimited subscribers automatically receive a premium version of LAUNCHcast, the leading Internet radio service. This version of LAUNCHcast offers more than 150 pre-programmed stations, no commercial interruptions, unlimited song skipping, premium audio quality and exclusive genre and artist stations.
• Access From Any PC: Using their Yahoo! ID, members can access their personalized subscription content from any Internet-connected computer.
• Download Purchases: The Yahoo! Music Engine provides access to a music download store, allowing users to purchase and permanently own songs for $0.99 per track. Subscribers to Yahoo! Music Unlimited are offered downloads at a discounted rate of $0.79 per song. Downloads purchased through Yahoo! Music Unlimited can be burned onto CDs, transferred to compatible portable devices, and used on a total of five PCs.
• Yahoo! Music will continue to offer Musicmatch’s Jukebox 10 music management and On Demand subscription services. Effective today, Musicmatch On Demand pricing will be lowered to $6.99 monthly, $5.99 quarterly and $4.99 annually for subscribers. Yahoo! Music intends to eventually combine Musicmatch’s offerings with Yahoo! Music Unlimited to create the industry’s best end-to-end suite of music services.