Yahoo Announces Death of Yahoo! Music Unlimited

Morshad published 07 Feb 2008, 09:57 in main - 111 views

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Yahoo, though some people may not realize it, actually has diverse online music offerings. Originally based on the acquired Launch music service, the service has grown into a modestly successful business, which offers over 2 million songs.

The site, according to Yahoo, was the highest ranked music site in terms of audience reach and time spent on site for part of last year. Obviously its competitor iTunes is by far the industry leader, but Yahoo has been relatively competitive with offerings from Amazon or other online content providers like SpiralFrog. Despite its strong focus on its music program, Yahoo has fallen on tough times business-wide, which have forced it to reevaluate its business. First came the announcement of 1,000 layoffs. Now the latest casualty is one of the pillars of its online music business, Yahoo! Music Unlimited.

Yahoo has reached a deal with RealNetworks Inc.'s Rhapsody to promote the service on site, possibly undercutting its own offerings. The full terms of the deal were not disclosed.

As part of the deal Yahoo will migrate its Yahoo! Music Unlimited customers to Rhapsody. Yahoo! Music Unlimited was a service offered through Yahoo Music, which allowed customers to pay a monthly access fee of between $5.99 to $8.99 to gain unlimited access to a library of over 2 million songs. The transfered customers will continue to pay their old rate, which may anger current Rhapsody customers, which pay $12.99 for unlimited access to Rhapsody's catalog of millions of songs (Rhapsody is rather non-specific about exact numbers).