Nickname: Wim

Review: I have a classical music Web site with a worldwide audience that has advertisements for different music providers. No. 1 is Emusic, the second place is for Napster. Real scored so bad (10% of Napster) that I had to drop it.

Date reviewed: Dec 17, 2005 8:30 PM

Nickname: Rhapsody User

Review: Rhapsody is *by far* the best online music service. For one monthly fee you have unlimited access to nearly every song in their library. I am constantly tweaking my playlists and love the deep access to a large library of songs. And these aren't just the standard albums you would find in your local music store -- lots of imports, EPs and live albums you would never find. For $10/month I can listen to everything I can imagine. I listen on my PC when I am in my office, my laptop when I am travelling, and I use my Sonos Music System (which integrates with Rhapsody) to play music elsewhere in my house. When I love something so much that I have to listen to it in the car or my portable, I just buy the CD and rip it myself. The other amazing thing about the Rhapsody service is the way it recommends and helps me discover new artists. I am constantly finding great new albums. It's really a unique and differentiated offering.

Date reviewed: Dec 7, 2005 9:32 PM

Nickname: caine003

Review: RealNetworks seems to have finally gotten real in terms of what a consumer is willing to pay for. When it first launched its service, and to this day, there is a premium fee to be able to use most of its features. Why would any body want to spend any money a month to access a service just so that you could then give them more money when you downloaded a file? Also, the player was nothing special, a simple juke box. They had the jump out of the box with a decent player but had to make things complicated with the subscription service, which immediately turned off thousands of potential customers. The head of the marketing dept. should have been let go but they probably promoted him or her.

Date reviewed: Dec 7, 2005 5:13 PM

Nickname: Marc van der Chijs

Review: Rhapsody only works within the U.S. I live in China, and got the annoying message, "We have detected that you are outside of the U.S. This service is currently only available to residents within the U.S." Not so smart. Most people will give it a try only once and won't come back in the future to see if the service might have become available to them.

Date reviewed: Dec 7, 2005 3:35 AM

Nickname: Musicjunkie

Review: Signs of desperation? Since no one downloaded the Rhapsody application in the first place (as opposed to iTunes) do they really think making the service browser-based will fix their marketshare problems?

Date reviewed: Dec 5, 2005 3:09 PM

Nickname: corn29

Review: I would suggest that anyone who downloads a .wmv file immediately convert it to .mp3 (there's plenty of software available for this on the Net). Also, I would remove DRM immediately from any downloaded files. Technically this may be against some license agreements but I have a hard time with a vendor who dictates how I can personally use a product post sale. A quick Google search on removing DRM will show you the light. I have removed the restrictions on my music files for both DRM version 1 and 2.

Date reviewed: Dec 5, 2005 2:24 PM

Nickname: sfdoddsy

Review: Alas, migrating to the Net rather than using proprietary software does nothing to make the actual music files any more or less open source. The AOL MusicNow service, for example, is now able to be accessed by anyone with a browser. But the files remain Windows Media copy protected. Ditto with Napster/Rhapsody. No one really minds using a special program to access the files. We hate having those files emasculated. Cheers Steve

Date reviewed: Dec 5, 2005 12:43 PM

Nickname: luckylucciano

Review: I live in Mazatlan, Mexico, and we usually have problems to pay for the service because there isn't a reliable payment procedure for us. Also, there is no mention of bandwidth necessary. Can you help?

Date reviewed: Dec 5, 2005 9:15 AM