Members Anderton Posted June 18, 2006 Members Share Posted June 18, 2006 It's a partnership of Microsoft and MTV, and is intended not to compete with iPod/iTunes, but cover the 46 people who have other types of portable players Actually, the iPod market share in other countries isn't as big as the US, and there are rumblings of discontent with Apple's proprietary stance. Also Urge offers a subscription program...but I don't know. With digital downloads at about 5% of music sales, either that means there's a huge potential for growth, or that's the limit of what people want to do with downloads right now. Anyone check out the site? It is pretty well-designed, I think... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members spokenward Posted June 18, 2006 Members Share Posted June 18, 2006 According to a Reuters story on Friday URGE isn't the only iron MS has in the fire in this category. The Reuters story headlined an MS branded iPod competitor. A Microsoft-branded music service would reflect a digression from an existing strategy to provide software for other such services, just months after the company announced a service called URGE with Viacom Inc.'s (VIA.N: Quote, Profile, Research) MTV Networks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted June 18, 2006 Author Members Share Posted June 18, 2006 If it's another proprietary system, it's just going to muddy the waters. If it's an open system, it will force Apple's hand more quickly... We all know that iPods are high profit margin devices. There's a lot of room for someone to come in with a much less expensive alternative. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Brittanylips Posted June 18, 2006 Members Share Posted June 18, 2006 I've heard Urge is "clunky." If anyone is going to compete against iTunes, they're going to have to offer a better experience. In a way, this isn't that far from the debate in the 400f thread about the value of technological transparency. iTunes is successful because people will pay to have the easiest user experience with the least amount of technological interference. -plb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members spokenward Posted June 19, 2006 Members Share Posted June 19, 2006 ooops, mistakenly clobbered my previous post. which was something like this from the Reuters article: One source, who has seen a demonstration of the service, said it was an improvement over iTunes."They have been developing technologies that have really good music discovery and community," another source said. "iTunes is the 7-11 (of music stores). You don't hang out there." My theory is that the proprietary MS player will be a video player. MS currently does have some very close connections to some very big brained experts in that area. OK. Poking around URGE, first time. This is really platform specific. noted It works on all Windows PCs with Windows Media Player 11.Broadband Internet connectionWindows XP with Service Pack 2 or higherMicrosoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or above The 14 day signup is an ".exe". In the gateway they don't feature any product. iTunes models a retail store with virtual endcaps, signage, charts and lists. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted June 19, 2006 Members Share Posted June 19, 2006 I wonder what the bitrate is? ... right now I'm paying $5/mo for 160 k (avg VBR) streaming (no transfer to portables, though). That's MusicMatch On Demand. I'd be interested in a bigger selection -- but only at the same bitrate or higher. MMOD has virtually no classical music, so a decent classical selection would be a big plus. I can't say if the MTV/MS Urge is "clunky" -- since I haven't played with it -- but I'm no fan of WMP, so it's not outside my imagination. Still, it looks slick enough as I glanced through their promo stuff. But, like I said, I'm not interested in going backwards down to the 128 that other major stores/services seem stuck at. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members John Sayers Posted June 19, 2006 Members Share Posted June 19, 2006 I noticed you need to download WMP 11. so I did - it loads like lightning. In fact explorer and all graphics also seem faster, but that could just be me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jimbroni Posted June 19, 2006 Members Share Posted June 19, 2006 When is somebody gonna start offering CD quality downloads? www.musicgiant.com offers 1100 kbps wma files. But that doesn't work with iTunes. Why no download services in wav format? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted June 19, 2006 Members Share Posted June 19, 2006 Originally posted by John Sayers I noticed you need to download WMP 11. so I did - it loads like lightning. In fact explorer and all graphics also seem faster, but that could just be me You've clearly stumbled into the Bizarro World, a cube-shaped planet known as "Htrae" and populated by the progeny of Bizarro Superman and Bizarro Lois Lane... ... needless to say, on such a planet, the latest version of Microsoft software would load leaner and run faster than the previous version -- AND it would have less security holes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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