MusicMatch launches its iTunes clone
Spinner
Birmingham, UK
Yesterday MusicMatch launched its own version of the highly sucessful iTunes service, created by Apple.
Source - AfterdawnMusicMatch's service can be seen as the first real "clone" of iTunes as it uses, just like iTunes, the desktop application to deliver and sell the songs instead of traditional website front-end.
MusicMatch has relatively good chances of succeeding as it claims to have delivered over 40M copies of its media player software, MusicMatch Jukebox, to Windows users. Definitely the funniest thing about the whole situation is the fact that MusicMatch Jukebox ships as a standard application with Apple's iPod, portable digital music player, for Windows users.
MusicMatch's store operates on same principles that Apple's does -- each song costs $0.99, can be burned to a CDR and transferred to portable digital music players. This is a sharp contrast to Buy.com's web-based music store that was launched earlier, which has severe restrictions on purchased tracks and pricing of tracks varies based on the record labels' decisions.
According to rumours, Dell is planning to launch its consumer electronics and digital music products by simply re-branding various products -- Dell will most likely use now-launched MusicMatch Jukebox as the Dell re-branded frontend to its own music store and its first digital music player seems to be re-branded version of Creative's portable MP3 player.
MusicMatch's store sells tracks only in WMA format and tracks have 160kbps bitrate. Music store is currently available only for U.S. customers and has a selection of over 200,000 tracks. MusicMatch has promised to increase the selection to 500,000 by the end of the year.
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Comments
Linky
Wow, so not only do they cost more than normal Albums, they also sound ****, don't have a hard-copy, and take time to download.
Wow. The incentive.
NS
Am I missing something?
NS
I just purchased an album- 3 Doors Down - Away From the Sun
It sounds pretty darn good to me, especially when you figure that most songs dl'ed on P2P's are 128 bitrate.
I can put it on 3 computers, but it has to use MM to play.
That's ok with me. I'll glady use MM if it means I have 2 backup files.
I'm not planning on burning a cd, or sharing the files.
My computer is my "stereo".
It's kind of nice to be able to legitimately purchase the music without having to fight crowds or even leave home.
Shopping at my leisure from my chair. That's worth something to me.
One song purchases? That's fine too. How many albums and cd's have I bought over the years that have only had a few good songs on them and you pay for the whole album just to get those songs?
I like having the choice to just buy the one song I want.
This new way of buying music may not be for everyone, but it definately has it's niche.
I like it.
I doubt you will find anyone on here who ever goes below 192Kbps because 128 and below sound like kak.
I also only really use OGG Vorbis now. Harder to find tracks, but ok if you rip yourself or use other software like WinMX.
NS
Sound system is a VideoLogic DigiTheatre DTS Theatre system using the Digital Coax connection, and when I am not using that I use my Sennheiser 580D Precision headphones.
NS
To be honest Nightshade', old buddy, MP3's are a load of crud compared to WMA files, and even though I really (like you said) prefer MP3's to be no less than 192Kbps, WMA files are much better at lower kbps levels. For example, a 96kbps WMA, if encoded using the official codec, will sound much better than a same bitrate encoded MP3, infact Microsoft claims 96kpbs in WMA format is almost as good as CD quality, even though that's a load of rubbish, it does help illustrate the much more efficient encoding technology used for WMA files. So in fact a 160kbps encoded WMA file, is actually great.
p.s (Love your new Avatar text, very honest.
I'll do some testing with WMA files when I get home later.
NS