Yahoo Unveils New Internet Music Service
Posted on: Monday, 6 April 2009, 15:55 CDT
Yahoo is executing a new strategy to better position itself in the evolving digital music business, partnering with other online music providers to aggregate paid and free Internet music services.
The company unveiled the latest version of its Yahoo Music on Monday, which allows Yahoo users to gain access and interact with partner services directly from Yahoo’s site.
The company said it has secured commercial relationships with some digital music retailers, such as Apple Inc., and collects a fee for every customer referral.
The new music service is in line with company’s initiative to make its services more open by integrating products and services developed by other firms.
"We really want to focus on providing the service that's most valuable to users, and then partner with third parties to provide the entire set of music services," Yahoo Music General Manager Michael Spiegelman told Reuters.
Spiegelman called the company’s new Yahoo Music a significant strategic shift.
Yahoo Music users will be able to select from a wide variety of modules representing many different music sites, including free music, radio-like streaming audio services such as last.fm and Pandora, YouTube music videos and paid downloads from Amazon and iTunes.
The site’s new Artist Pages will serve as a one-stop shop for those interested in certain singers or bands, and offers everything from concert tickets to tour dates, photos and editorial content,
In total, Yahoo Music will offer music or information for about half a million artists, roughly twice the selection of Yahoo’s previous service, the company said.
According to Spiegelman, the strategy is to provide a starting point for users to obtain information about any artist in which they have an interest.
As of last December, Yahoo Music was the second-highest rated music site, with 19.6 million unique visitors, according to figures from research firm ComScore. Time Warner’s AOL Music was the highest-rated site, with 24.6 million unique visitors, followed by News Corp's MySpace Music, which ranked third at 17.2 million unique visitors.
Yahoo is in the process of a broad reorganization led by CEO Carol Bartz, who took charge in January after Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang stepped down as CEO. The company is set to report its first-quarter 2009 financial results later this month. In the fourth quarter of 2008, it recorded sales of $1.8 billion, a one percent decrease from the same quarter in 2007.
The company first announced its new open approach for Yahoo Music last September.
Technically, the latest version of Yahoo Music is a beta, or test, version. However, it will be made available to the general public, the company said.
Yahoo shares were down 11 cents, or 0.82 percent, on Monday, closing at $13.23.
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Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports
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User Comments (1)
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Posted by potsonna on 04/06/2009, 19:17 Interesting! |
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