MTV and Real flesh out a few Rhapsody America details

Cross-marketing is great and all, but we'd rather know how we factor into this new partnership between MTV, Real and Verizon Wireless. Turns out a few things will be changing from the get go. For one, Urge customers can dive into Rhapsody starting today, using their existing login info to get their feet wet in the #1 subscription service. Rhapsody users will also be enjoying a bit of MTV, VH1 and CMT content, but it's not perfectly clear what or when they'll be getting it. Real also confirmed that it'll be keeping its current partnerships with the likes of Best Buy, SanDisk and TiVo. For Verizon's part of the action, they'll be giving you Rhapsody versions of your over-the-air purchases in a few months. Otherwise, the future is unclear. According to the press release, Rhapsody is "the exclusive digital music service for Real and for MTV Networks' premier music and pop culture brands in the United States." That said, MTV hasn't really said anything too solid on its exit from Microsoft cahoots with its current Urge offering, so we'll just have to wait and see how this all pans out.

[Jason @ Aug 21st 2007 2:40PM]

@#$%)(&*

WMP11's library search features are AWESOME for both your library and the MSP (music service provider, yeah, I made that up). Whatever the hell they make me move to better have that search functionality. OR ELSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I'll cry)

[Phillip Black @ Aug 21st 2007 3:58PM]

Someone please say something about the Zune!

[Sam @ Aug 21st 2007 4:05PM]

Okay, the Zune sucks.

[Sam @ Aug 21st 2007 4:08PM]

Seriously, does anyone think this is going to work?

[drew Eastman @ Aug 21st 2007 4:20PM]

NO !

My 1c

[Navstar @ Aug 21st 2007 4:58PM]

To beat iTunes, you need to offer something significantly better than iTunes... not just different or slightly better. I don't know how they are going to do that with audio files. Even normal 128Kb iTunes files sound acceptable to most people.

Unless you have permanently exclusive songs that iTunes will never get. This is just a licensing agreement -- so are these songs available to iPod owners? If not, what's the point? Will I have to use Rhapsody's crummy software with a crummy Windows Audio music player?

[superrrguy @ Aug 21st 2007 4:37PM]

I think MTV + a decent player was the only chance MS had to give Apple and run for their money.

I really don't like the Zune package. I kind of dug having all my music in Windows Media Player even though the actual Urge integration wasn't as great as they claimed.

[Modano @ Aug 21st 2007 4:39PM]

Finally, a chance to pay Real for all the fun I've had installing/reinstalling/clicking ads/buffering over the years!

[Scooter @ Aug 21st 2007 4:40PM]

more corporate twaddle. Okay, I'm old(er than some) but all three enterprises are corporate-driven, think that anybody with 99 cents as a "consumer" and dish up their own favourites rather than some semblance of culture.
Whew, rant over.
Yeah, this blows.

[Preston @ Aug 21st 2007 4:40PM]

I liked Urge (still a subscriber). I just got an email from Urge informing me about it. I downloaded the Rhapsody player and all that stuff, it's alright, but the files are in Real format. Blah. I much preferred WMA even if it did have DRM on it. Anybody know of another subscription bases service out there with a good library similar to Urge?

[Adam @ Aug 21st 2007 7:39PM]

Preston: To download WMAs in Rhapsody, go to Tools, Preferences, My Library. Click the radio button next to "Download tracks to my hard drive whenever possible", and the nested radio button for WMA below it.

Any file you download now (drag into My Library, or click the + icon to left of the song's description) will be stored in My Music\Rhapsody\[Your e-mail], and will be in WMA protected format. You can use a tool like FairUse4WM (coupled with FairUseCommander), to quickly and easily un-DRM your music.

From there, you can use your favorite library management program (I personally prefer Zune, but Synapse works nicely).

[Uchendu Nwachukwu @ Aug 21st 2007 4:43PM]

This is BS. I went with URGE because of its seamless integration with WMP11. By comparison, Rhapsody's software is annoying, cumbersome and bloated.

Gah.

[Duscrom @ Aug 21st 2007 6:07PM]

Dammit, Urge was a great service, and devoid of all the iTunes crap. I fucking hate the iPod/iTunes monopoly. Looks like Zune is my only choice for a Good mp3 player with a good subscription service.

[Adam @ Aug 21st 2007 7:22PM]

I've been an Urge subscriber for about as long as the service has been around. I've always envied Rhapsody for having a greater selection, but I smile smugly to myself knowing that Urge/WMP is much prettier and better organized than Rhapsody. I find the interface too cluttered and confusing, and the search functions all but useless. I can only hope the two pool their catalogues so I can use WMP's superior search tools to discover all the new music.

[Thrasherduck @ Aug 21st 2007 9:58PM]

Damn this sucks! I've been subscribing to URGE since day one as well. I knew something was up when they would no longer let you subscribe for more than a month at a time! I liked the radio stations they had, and the 192kbps stream were sweet. Plus the "seamless" integration with WMP11 is why I went with URGE. Oh well, guess I'll give Slacker another try or go back to Yahoo Music/MusicMatch with my Sirius Stiletto.

[Dave95 @ Aug 22nd 2007 9:29AM]

Playing musical chairs

Unless the competition comes out with a killer DAP (iPod+iTunes), we may see more mergers. Would we have mergers if each service was successful on their own? There's no money in these service, the money is on the hardware side.