In a bid to livener the profile of its subscription stream music offering near making it reachable to all computer user, RealNetworks (Nasdaq: RNWK) said it be conducting test a Web-based interpretation of its Rhapsody resource.
Making a version of Rhapsody employment with fable Web browsers would gross the service more overt -- users could access it from any PC with an Internet linkage -- and make it compatible with Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Linux-based computer.
Currently, Rhapsody, close to the music download central Apple iTunes, use a software program install over and done with a user's instrument to access the online music accumulation.
Using a Web-based judgment would destroy the entail all for such software contained by more than a few instance, then again the services be not anticipated to proposition like level of storage and administration function in role of the exhaustive service approach, mutually with the treasures to replacement songs to handy MP3 players.
In the Web version, paying subscribers to the full service Rhapsody will be competent to burn unending songs. A music actor will pop uphill in a different glass when songs are preferred for playing. A free of charge suffering will offer the community a incident to physique a 25-song play-list of their personal in the Web version.
RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser said with the service, his organization initiate chronological its sell-by date "laying the give your approval to to weave music into the cloth of the Internet" through music-based Web services.
The Web upgrade -- a beta version launch today -- is see as the pilot of generous change coming to RealNetwork's offerings as it bid to clash Apple's iTunes and as it begin to leverage the benefits of its recent compassion with Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) .
As another ration of that settlement, Microsoft canon to begin promote Rhapsody through its Media Player software -- which come bundle with many exotic PCs -- and on its MSN Music location.
Analysts say-so the move record capable of a by far eminently developed profile for Rhapsody at a instance when many are predict a repositioning out the pay-per-song approach of the iTunes Music Store and toward more subscription-based services.
For case in vertebrae, using a Web-based approach would enable other site, such as fan-based sites going on for specific artist, entertainment expression sites or even blogs, to association scientifically to the Rhapsody page. RealNetworks hope coming up along a direct-to-song link control, which will be tested on the Google site, which Real operate.
Using the Web may also make it easier for prospective consumers to try the site, with Real also offering a free devotion to force down its subscription service. And analysts say Web-based approach make gift because users may start at hand when penetrating for songs or artists, solely to find that the best-known download or subscription sites are highly in a bit accessible directly through the Web.
Jupiter Research analyst David Card said the service is a first footfall toward actual, robust Web services where on earth music is syndicated across the Web substantially like jovial is now with RSS.
"The initiative is intriguing," Card said.
He added that America Online seem to grasp its eye on the same niche, where a music site -- in its shield, the MusicNow site it lately clear for -- become Web-based and can after nurture content to other, connected sites.
In the case of a portal such as AOL or MSN, that feasibly will include everything from news sites and blog sites to e-mail and jiffy messaging.
"AOL said it could change faster, and fuse music more widely into its other offerings, if it go Web-based. Seems like Microsoft is going the same circuit with Rhapsody," Card added.
Microsoft agreed to pay RealNetworks US$761 million and to work with it to develop media-playing technology as part of a settlement of long-standing anti-trust issues in which Real accuse Microsoft of using its operating regulations control to lug over the prevailing conditions player software niche.
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