URGE Reviews & Comments
"Despite some glitches, MTV Urge is one of the best subscription music services we’ve seen to date. If taking your choice of millions of songs with you anywhere sounds appealing, make sure you check out this offering from MTV. " – cNet
"How is this any different than the 10+ other Playsforsure ripoff music sites? …I have a feeling this will not topple itunes, as it’s technically inferior in every way…I want to buy something and then have it be mine. For ONE PRICE. This service misses the mark in so many ways, but it’s all intentional. DRM with less rights, more expensive for portable use, it all shows just how greedy the music industry, and Microsoft through proxy, really is. I smell total failure." – Jack Debian in a comment on Engadget.
"…haven’t had enough time to get the feel of Urge yet, so I’ll reserve final judgment, but it looks like a promising start. " – LostRemote.com
"…this looks like a great service, probably the best of them all. Sure iTunes has playlists, and sure there are hundreds of other radio stations on the Internet, but URGE puts a lot of things under one roof. The variety of content is very impressive." – Glenn from Coolfer
Hypebot thinks the service is far less than revolutionary, but does have promise. The direct integration with Windows Media Player 11 could bring new users who have been frightened by the new technologies. – More here.
For the "official" company hype read the press release here.
The problem with most reviews is that they automatically compare URGE to iTunes/iPod.
Some people won’t be able to leave their iPod, and unless interoperability ever sees the light of day URGE is not for the Mac faithful.
The top quote shows the person’s ignorance. How is it different than the other Plays For Sure subscription sites? If that question is even asked that person has obviously not spent any time at those services. The differences are immediately evident and they are great. Sounds to me like a Mac Cult member flaming on a non-Apple product, which is hardly the cornerstone of a good argument.
“The problem with most reviews is that they automatically compare URGE to iTunes/iPod.”
yeah well. what else to compare to? napster? Come on, URGE is Microsoft transparent attempt to wrestle Apple. So naturally people will compare it to iTune.
But it fails to excite people. It doesn’t offer anything that somebody has done it better.
Here is how we will know for sure. in two weeks, if they still hasn’t published “actual subscription” number. It fails.
Within two months, people on the net will move on to next bigger story. MTV or no MTV, URGE is just another online store.
Sorry I have one perspective on this as a consumer. If the music isn’t perminatly transfured to me than why should I pay for it. The idea is to get the consumer to pay for content . I don’t wanna buy content. I wanna buy music. I wanna buy a song for a resonable price and then I own a copy of that song. Subscribeing to a service so I can listen to music that I still have to download, dosen’t make since if when I cancel my subscription the music I have downloaded is no longer playable.
The reson that iTunes was and is successful is because they didn’t go with this greed model. People connect to iTunes download what songs they would like to and that’s it. No further commitment to pay more money just so they can continue to listen to the music.
What more can urge do that itunes cant … i feel there aint no meaning of urge now when itunes does the job pretty decently for us and i feel apple things just work the way they should and MS products have some troubleshhoting necessary… Thanks bill but never mind we are happy with itunes store
For one u CAN BUY songs on URGE, use the service maybe beofre u judge, there’s a free trial. U CAN in fact buy songs, it’s the same 99 cents, and you can also subscribe and “rent” music, and u can “rent” and BUY music at the same time too. so we got that outa the way.
music is never urs for one, even when u buy a cd, it aint urse, it has never been and will never be urs.
when you buy a track from itunes, and lets say u switch mp3 players, or for once u wud like to use a different mp3 player, the number of devices that can play that song can be counted on ur finger. greed and commercialism? u can play the songs amost solely on iPods, if it breaks at one point and lets say you have another one you haven’t used in a while, or bought one of those 20buck versions just for a while (mayb wait on the iPhone to come out) you won’t be able to listen to any of the songs. with urge there are literally hundreds of compatible players.
and the biggest problem i have with itunes, is that if i was to actually at one point lose my music database, to get the songs back, would cost me about… 5000 dollars? im not sure i want to pay that much. and lets say i wanted ALL albums of madonna, it would cost me… 150dollars at least? i can do it with subscription services for 15 bucks a month.
and a great thing I like about URGE (MY opinion!) is that it indeed works with MTV, VH1 and CMT. almost all “playlists” that are on these channels are downloadable. like last week i saw a top 40 dance anthems countdown on vh1, downloaded it the next day, in that exact playlist, uploaded to my mp3 player in that exact playlist too. it would’ve costed me 40 bucks on apple, i aint that rich
so if last week i downloaded 40 dollars of songs, and this week i download madonna albums, all in all i would be at around 190 dollars of music in two weeks? because albums are cheaper to buy it comes at about 80cents per song or something? if i do something like that every week (which i do!) it would cost me 400 dollars a month on itunes.
i get the same at urge for 15 dollars, and in two weeks that would be around (madonna= 15 albums 15 songs) 225 songs plus 40 dance songs, in two weeks it would be 5.5cents a song, and if i do the exact same thing it would be 2.5cents a song. (15dollars divided by 265 songs in two weeks, and 15 dollars divided by 530)
so which one should someone who actually downloads music go with? further more… u might say itunes is better for people who download less, considerin itunes started off for people woth ipods, why do you have a machine that can hold 10, 20, 30, 40 GBs but download so few songs? doesnt make alot of sense
now with urge, i can have a 30gb mp3player and download alot and itll be cheap, i can have a 1gb player and download few songs, and itll still be cheap.
i guess for pc use, if u only download 14 songs a month, no more, itunes is a better choice.
or if in a year u download less than 180 songs (urge is 15dollars a month, times 12 is 180 dollars) a year it’ll be a better choice.
oh and add to my earlier post, if you are young, nowadays its the younger people that really stimulate the economy and gives out money (because we are impulsive, i admit)…
at the end of the year urge will have alot of content that are from the “MTV vaults”, as in real world seasons (again i admit that i like em, so does alot of teenagers/young folks), roadrules, jackass and ALOT of other content exclusive to mtv on the site. and as i understand movies and series not from mtv are supposed to come too.
and a comment on itunes… why is it such a problem on windows but works effortlessly on MAC? use it on a windows machine and then on a MAC, u will see the difference. it tries to “fake” the MAC so much that it just bums out the experience.
its the best. you can download unlimited anything. and it comes in a great format that looks good.
i tunes licks… it was cool for awhile but it lacks the options the visiuals that urge does…
URGE started out great! But i didn’t realize that once i wasn’t paying $14.95/month anymore..the music will not play!! So i ahd all that music that won’t play.Itunes lets you play forever.URGE is a place for renting music.