MP3tunes, wow
By glazou on Wednesday 9 February 2005, 15:44 - Computing - Permalink
MP3tunes was launched today by Michael Robertson. He's back in the business after MP3.com. So it all started today with already 300,000 songs in the catalog, at 0.88 cent per song or 8.88$ per album. Hey europeans, wake up, that's only 7.4 EUROS!!! And there's no DRM 
The UI is certainly perfectible, I hate to see artists' names cropped on home page, but otherwise, it's a very good move and a BIG kick in the ass of Apple's, Microsoft's and a few others' jukebox. And remember, he also has LSongs.
Comments
I'm not quite sold that this will work for a few reasons:
- Not as easy to use as Napster, or iTunes (very minimal clicks)
- Selection isn't even close to iTunes. iTunes secured most big US bands. I see very few in mp3tunes.
IMHO most people couldn't really care about DRM, they care about 3 things:
1. Cost
2. Ease of use
3. Selection
If it meets those 3, that's a done deal. iTunes and Napster satisfy that for most people.
I'll still give it time to grow and see what it does. It's got potential, but I don't think this alone is a winning format.
I guess that Michael has underestimated the requests. Currently it takes about 60sec for a search
Such an offer, the day when it's launched, cannot have its servers functionning the normal way. Let's wait, well... one week before saying there are not enough servers...
About DRM... People do not want it, for sure. Here in France I know very few people who would admit that. Not that they don't want to pay for their music, it's only that they want the freedom to use it. And a musician's job is to make music (understand : concerts), not to sell CDs.
Anyway, one thing that really kills the market today, much more than DRM in my opinion is the fact that no lossless formats are available on online stores. Often, people who are ready to pay much for music have an excellent ear, are often musicians themselves. MP3, WMA, AAC are not enough for those people, especially under the (never used) maximum bitrate.
It's quite frustrating:
- to shorten those names of band and title when there is so much empty space left and right. I own a 23.1" monitor @ 1920x1200, but even on smaller monitors it looks like it was designed to display on a handheld. Make it flexible width, or at least display the full bandname and title on mouseover.
- to see nothing come up searching for current bands like Anouk (dutch rock chick), (Red Hot Chilli) Peppers, (Neneh) Cherry or even Elvis Crespo (Salsa/Merengue).
- the music categories are ancient, I like dance music like deep house or salsa, do I look under electronic for house or what.
The idea is good, now come up with usability and music that I like. And of course a 'Other people who downloaded this song also downloaded ...." which is great for getting to know new artists (if now patented by Amazon ;-).
MalibuMan
Crashed my Firefox/0.10.1 as soon as I clicked on the Buy button of a song
to see what payment mechanism they use. I may try again in a few months ...
Daniel
Got results on only my third search for the kind of mostly obscure but really good bands that I prefer (Grey Eye Glances in this case), so it looks like their selection isn't too bad.
Now if only they provided the music in FLAC... For now I don't see any compelling reason to use this over something like mperia.com (which I also don't use, but which makes a better case for being not evil, and has the entire cdbaby catalogue for starters).
>>it's a very good move and a BIG kick in the ass of Apple's, Microsoft's and a few others' jukebox<<
It isn't even a little kick in the ass of any of these companies. Their service has 300,000 songs from a whole bunch of bands that I have never heard of and a few obscure ones that I have. There were even songs there that they want .88 for that can be had LEGALLY for free. Nice try.
I understand that this guy is paying your bills right now, but come on.
The classifications are a little odd to say the least:
"J.S. Bach, Cello Suite No. 3 in C Major, Prelude" --- Traditional Contemporary.
"Bach - Chorale #259" ---- Ambient Background Music.
"Prelude - BWV 998 - Johann Sebastian Bach" --- New Age.
I will have to enlarge my search criteria...
mp3tune belong to linspire.
Ceci explique cela
Ahbon: non, pas du tout. Le fondateur des deux boîtes est Michael Robertson mais ce sont deux entités juridiques et commerciales totalement distinctes.
@Daniel : Réponse très convaincante ou bien c'est de l'humour au 2eme degré ?
www.clubic.com/actualite-...
"... Créateur du site MP3.com revendu depuis à Vivendi Universal et directeur de la firme Linspire, Michael Robertson a annoncé qu'il souhaitait revenir sur le devant de la scène dans le monde de la musique en ligne. Pour rappel, il devrait annoncer _lors du "Linspire Desktop Summit"_ (c'est moi qui souligne) la semaine prochaine un nouveau service baptisé "MP3tunes"...."
Rien a voir donc.
Bon, faut arrêter le délire là : quand Richard Branson annonce l'ouverture d'un site de musique en ligne, c'est la holding Virgin qui possède ou c'est sa compagnie aérienne Virgin Atlantic ? Ici c'est pareil. Robertson profite d'un évènement 100% soutenu et organisé par une de SES sociétés Linspire pour annoncer une nouvelle société. En quoi cela rend-il Linspire responsable de quoi que ce soit chez MP3tunes ?
Ce sont des sociétés séparées, avec des personnels séparés, des bureaux séparés, des budgets séparés.
Autant que Cegetel et Vivendi Environnement. Ou EDF et SNCF; même propriétaire, entreprises distinctes.
Pour en revenir à la vente en ligne de mp3, il ne faudrait pas oublier que d'autres services proposaient de la musique (légale) en mp3 avant mp3tunes (emusic ou audio lunch box par exemple)
Daniel, il n'y a pas de délire, et je m'étonne de ta réponse, surprenante de la part de quelqu'un supposé avoir ton intelligence (ou alors tu es d'une naïveté inouïe mais ça m'étonnerait). On pointe juste du doigt que tu es financé par Linspire, qui appartient à la même personne que MP3Tunes. Donc tu n'es pas forcément le plus neutre en étant laudateur sur cette nouvelle société.
Et je rajouterai qu'il n'y a absolument pas de mal à ça
Ça va dans l'ordre des choses, et c'est finalement en partie aussi grâce à Linspire si on peut utiliser l'excellent Nvu.
Simplement, il est parfois bon de rappeler quelques connexions, même si celles ci paraissent éloignées. Pour aller jusqu'au bout de l'info