Rhapsody.com
December 5th 2005
Props to Rhapsody.com, Real’s new through-the-web version of their music service, for supporting Firefox not only at a minimum level, but completely. The player that streams the music from the site? Yeah, it’s a Firefox plugin. Good job guys. The instructions for setting it up were also just about perfect, getting every detail of the Firefox UI exactly right. I love this extention to the service, which should let me play music from several places I couldn’t before (ahem–the computer science labs), making the limitation of streaming a little more bearable.
I’ve been a Rhapsody member for about 2 months, by the way, thanks to UC Berkeley’s deal with them. Three bucks a month for unlimited streaming of any music in the world is definitely worth it, even if Rhapsody’s UI could use some improvement when compared to iTunes.
My point: I’m paying this much just to discover and listen to new music, and it’s fulfilling exactly that–which is all I used to use P2P networks for. I still buy CDs, and I always will. Just gotta have my raw bits that I can use as I see fit.
Oh music labels, when will you trust your consumers? Or rather, when will you realize that trust will be lucrative?
it sucks that you have to be in the US to use it. I can’t even if i have a canadian credit card and everything, since I am working in Germany it just kicks me out! ahhhhh