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APRIL 22, 2003
By Jane Black Web Music Gets Its Act Together [Page 2 of 2]
Key features: Unlimited streaming and tethered downloads; limited burning Price: $8.95 per month unlimited streaming and tethered downloads with AOL subscription; $17.95 unlimited streaming and tethered downloads, plus 10 permanent downloads With online titans RealNetworks (RNWK ) and AOL behind it, it's hard to understand just why AOL's MusicNet service falls so flat. True to AOL's heritage, it's incredibly easy to use. Even Grandma will know what to do with choices like "Listen Now" or "Download Now." But unlike its competitors, MusicNet on AOL doesn't offer integrated radio. (For that you have to go to AOL's Radio page.) Nor does it offer music recommendations -- an omission that's hard to understand for an offering that needs to be "better than free" to lure file traders from the illicit peer-to-peer services. The main discovery tool is a search box, but even that's faulty. You can search by artist, album, song title, or genre. After I found my favorite artists, I searched "Brit Pop" and "Trip Hop," two fairly common contemporary music styles, to find more I might like. Both searches came up empty. In contrast, a search for "Jazz" and "Country" returned too many songs to be useful. Once you find what you're looking for, managing the music isn't any easier. I couldn't add tracks to my library without first assigning them to a playlist. That means if I want to add my favorite U2 track to my "weekend" playlist and my "workout" playlist I have to search for the files twice and add them separately to each. And since it's all browser-based, the process can be slow. AOL members get a free 30-day trial of the service. It's a good way to lure customers. But MusicNet on AOL won't give them a true taste for the power of digital music. And if AOL doesn't fix the major irritants fast, it likely won't keep subscribers for long. PressPlay Key features: Premium radio, unlimited streaming and tethered downloads; limited burning Price: $9.95 per month unlimited streaming and tethered downloads; $17.95 unlimited streaming and tethered downloads, plus 10 burnable downloads. Extra download packs available: Five for $5.95; 10 for $9.95 For the full-range of features, PressPlay is the hands-down winner. Streaming, downloading, burning, and adding tracks to a playlist are one click away, whether you're browsing for an artist, an album, or listening to a preprogrammed radio station. That makes amassing a great music collection a cinch: After just 45 minutes of using PressPlay I had "bookmarked" and catalogued some 60 songs, or four hours worth of music. The next 60 came in half that time -- even though I could still only listen to them on my computer. Different people want different things from a music service. My priority is discovering new music. And PressPlay delivers. Radio PressPlay offers the standard jazz, country, and rock stations, as well as a few you didn't know you needed like "The Thorn," a collection of sad songs for the lonely or broken hearted, and "The Velvet Lounge," schlocky listening for your trip to Vegas which includes those Tom Jones, Wayne Newton, and Johnny Mathis songs you secretly love. You can also find music by searching the Billboard charts by year and season. I looked up songs from the year I was born (don't ask when) and in two clicks made a playlist for my upcoming birthday party. PressPlay definitely works better with broadband. If you're always on, you can simply bookmark tracks. Listen to them once or 100 times. It doesn't matter, because they're not taking up space on your hard drive. Still, company executives insist that the service also caters to dial-up users, who can use tethered downloads to get the same experience. About 50% of subscribers are still on a dial-up connection. Like its competitors, PressPlay still doesn't have all the songs you want. In addition to no Beatles, it has no Michael Jackson and only a limited Madonna selection. And the more you use it, the more gaps you find in the catalog. Still, the only downside to PressPlay is that so many options make it easy to be overwhelmed. Press on. Choice is not to be underestimated in the world of digital music. And once you get the hang of it, you'll experience music like never before. Of course, that's the goal of every digital music service: To make getting music off the Internet "better than free." The latest generation of services are a giant step closer to revolutionizing the industry. Though they still have hiccups, the good services are well worth a try.
 Black is a reporter for BusinessWeek Online in New York Edited by Douglas Harbrecht Get BusinessWeek directly on your desktop with our RSS feeds.  Add BusinessWeek news to your Web site with our headline feed. Click to buy an e-print or reprint of a BusinessWeek or BusinessWeek Online story or video. To subscribe online to BusinessWeek magazine, please click here. Learn more, go to the BusinessWeekOnline home page  | | |
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