Microsoft Unveils 'Urge' Music Service 582
CHaN_316 writes "CNNMoney has an article entitled, 'Gates unveils his Urge.' From the piece: 'Bill Gates aims to take over your living room and late Wednesday he unveiled a new music service and new software to do it. Using an appearance with Justin Timberlake, the Microsoft chairman debuted a new music service, Urge, to directly compete with the iTunes music store and interface. Urge launches with over 2 million tracks for purchase or as part of an all-you-can eat subscription, an option the iTunes music store doesn't have. The offering will include exclusive material from MTV.' Begin the living room wars we must." Confirmation of an earlier story on this topic.
Urge? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Urge? (Score:5, Funny)
No shit! Did Microsoft outsource their Department Of The Obvious? They should have caught this one early.
Better uses for the brand name Urge:
1. pron site
2. dating service
3. street drug
4. hyper caffinated drink
5. line of hiphop clothing
6. condoms
Can anyone do better?
Re:Urge? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Urge? (Score:2)
Re:Urge? (Score:5, Funny)
Well, (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Urge? (Score:3, Funny)
What I want to know is:
1) Was he wearing a long trench coat at the time?
2) When he did it, were the girls on the floor, crying their eyes out in laughter?
3) re: #2, did he explain this was only version 1.0, wait unless they see the upgrade
4) Did anyone call the police & report this?
you see darling, I get these urges...
Re:Urge? (Score:3, Funny)
I thank yow....
Re:Urge? (Score:3, Interesting)
Urge to... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Urge to... (Score:3, Interesting)
Urge won't work with iPods, so it's dead in the water. Windows Media Player is a horrid music jukebox anyway, even despite its new interface rip-offs from iTunes.
Re:Urge to... (Score:4, Insightful)
I didn't RTFA, but I'm guessing they're going with DRMed WMA files. Does anyone actually use WMA besides Napster and Microsoft? I have a lot of idiot friends who don't know how to use computers and they ripped their CD collections into WMA because it was default encoder in MediaPlayer. As soon as they bought iPods, they had to re-rip their CD collections as MP3.
Re:Look at the sales numbers... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Look at the sales numbers... (Score:5, Informative)
Try 30 million iPods sold [tuaw.com] (as of Nov 2005).
It isn't even close.
Re:Look at the sales numbers... (Score:4, Insightful)
So, would you rather sell 10 million units of something at a loss or 2 million with a profit?
Re:Look at the sales numbers... (Score:3, Funny)
You're forgetting about economies-of-scale. MS is obviously making it up on volume.
Well, Bill killed it right off to bat... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well, Bill killed it right off to bat... (Score:5, Funny)
Right. Because the service is clearly aimed at all of us listening to the King Crimson Oggs we ripped from vinyl and now play through our home-modded toaster ovens that we've set up to stealthily leech bandwidth from the Starbucks upstairs in the commercial space above the studio apartment we've converted from the freight elevator,
Face it, d00d. We are so not Chairman Bill's target audience for this product. I don't even think I could pick Justin Timberlake out of a police line-up.
He's the one with his hand... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:He's the one with his hand... (Score:3, Funny)
That doesn't help. Who's Janet Jackson?
Give us what we went, not what you want to give us (Score:5, Insightful)
When will somebody notice that with a sentance that include the words
in a story about a online music shop, that all this DRM is really just shooting themselves in the foot! If it doesn't work on a iPod will it not work on a RIO either? how about a sony walkman? Maybe I should download a copy for free and at a higher bit rate from the internet?
Why would i want to buy/rent music that i can't even listen to?
Re:Give us what we went, not what you want to give (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Give us what we went, not what you want to give (Score:3, Funny)
Wow.
Re:Give us what we went, not what you want to give (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Give us what we went, not what you want to give (Score:3, Interesting)
I got my Yahoo Music subscription at $36 for a year. That's a whole year of listening to quite a few preset and customized radio stations that never have commercials. And I can skip any songs I don't like or don't feel like listening to at the moment. I can even check a little box to remove the songs with explicit lyrics so I can safely listen at work (though, admittedly, this feature needs some tweaking).
I don't call that a scam. I call it pure genius.
Re:Give us what we went, not what you want to give (Score:5, Funny)
A great man once said, "I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient."
Re:Give us what we went, not what you want to give (Score:2)
That old joke about "if Microsoft built cars... they'd only drive on MSFT licensed roads" just got a little funnier.
>>Why would i want to buy/rent music that i can't even listen to?
As if that should matter. It's not your job to ask such troublesome questions, your job is to sit at home and wait for instructions from marketing departments (commonly known as commercials), then spend money on the appropriate techogadget dujour. And you have the nerve to
Re:Give us what we went, not what you want to give (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, that's pretty much where I stopped reading. I really need to get some of the drugs they must be using down in Redmond. Delusion like that must be an incredible high.
I did like the "all you can eat" idea, though. The real question is "If I unsubsrcibe to the service, does every song in my collection just disappear?" If the answer is "yes" then my answer is "no thanks."
-Eric
Re:Give us what we went, not what you want to give (Score:3, Insightful)
While I do think they are on bad drugs, I don't think the philosophy is so cracked. It's just playing out differently this time.
When Apple started to have huge success with the iPod, all the naysayers came out of the woodwork and (rightly) pointed out that this very strategy - keep it proprietary and lock it down as best you can - tot
Re:Give us what we went, not what you want to give (Score:3, Insightful)
Digital Sign the music you download so it can be tracked back to you if you swap it, and have a updating list on your PC (updated through Windows Update) that stops banned/illegal copied music from being played?
Or come up with a DRM that will work everywhere! It's not that i mind DRM, it's that is stops me from using music the way I want to use music.
Re:Give us what we went, not what you want to give (Score:5, Insightful)
The solution is simply to avoid DRM altogether. DRM is fundamentally flawed and will always be broken, because in the end, I have your music on my hard drive, and you're not going to be able to stop me from doing what I want with it.
Re:Give us what we went, not what you want to give (Score:2, Informative)
AS for DRM, yes iTMS has it, however I don't have 5 computers at home to use up all my authentications and I have no problems transferring them between the computers I have.
I also have a CD Burner, in case I want to lend some tunes to a friend.
I wonder what MS's DRM terms are.
Re:Give us what we went, not what you want to give (Score:5, Informative)
MS lets you have your music on 2 computers ever, including the same computer uprgraded.
Apple lets you have it on any 5 computers at the same time. if you have 5 computers and buy a 6th, you can just unregister one of the old ones. I honestly don't see how being restricted to only 5 computers simultaneously interferes with any more than a tiny minority of legitimate users. and even when you are affected it just means one less computer - no music is lost.
MS's system on the other hand is guaranteed to affect every user who upgrades, and to effect them in such a way that they lose all their music completely.
Re:Give us what we went, not what you want to give (Score:3, Informative)
One nice thing Apple lets you do is deauthorize all of your computers at the same time from the iTunes web site. That way, if you sold one of your computers or if you signed on to a public computer or a friend's computer with your Apple ID, nobody else can use your account, etc.
Re:Give us what we went, not what you want to give (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Give us what we went, not what you want to give (Score:3, Insightful)
Right now, I can move my MP3 music like so: Copying it across the network. Said feat takes approximately five seconds per MP3.
So why should I be using these stores again?
Re:Give us what we went, not what you want to give (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Give us what we went, not what you want to give (Score:3, Informative)
Because the record companies are greedy fucks who don't get it and you're not going to have any sort of comprehensive catalog without a minimum of DRM at this point in history.
Next question?
Re:Multiple Computers per Song (Score:3, Funny)
There's another 4 in the living room, plus a Showcenter 200 which gets used a lot for playing MP3s.
I'm maybe not your average user, but 5 uses really isn't a lot. Even my Mac Mini would use 2 (OSX 10.4 and OSX 10.3 boots) for one machine.
Then again I won't pay itunes prices... my local music store sells the real CDs for less.
Re:Give us what we went, not what you want to give (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Give us what we went, not what you want to give (Score:5, Insightful)
Just look at the ODF spectical. Independant researchers and archivists have been chiming in saying MSFT format is horrible. MSFT could easily support ODF. MSFT could easily support W3C standards. MSFT could of been smart and killed ActiveX years ago preventing the majoity of the viruses currently in existance.
It's MSFT's way or the highway. Now Napster and Real have all but begged for apple to open up Fairplay. And Apple should of done that by now. But in the end Apple is just as bad as MSFT when it comes to those ideas.
of course I still own a powerbook and have no working windows machines in my presence any more.
Re:Give us what we went, not what you want to give (Score:3, Informative)
Incorrect. Well, not incorrect per se, but definitely incomplete. A web browser can be an application environment via (at least) the following technologies:
Re:Give us what we went, not what you want to give (Score:2)
Who cares about Apple DRM when all your songs are encoded in 192kbps plain-old mp3? I'm DRM-free baby! If you do download from iTMS, just get PlayFair and decode those songs, no biggie (assuming it still works, haven't checked in a while).
And I'm glad Apple is locking everyone out of iTunes and iPod. Let MS twist in the wind. Better yet, offer licensing to everyone BUT Microsoft, that would be
Re:Give us what we went, not what you want to give (Score:3, Insightful)
You guarantee that do you? (Is that you Bill?)
Microsoft doesn't license anything - they developed wmv rather then licensing quicktime and so on.
It is simply not in their nature to pay royalties to another company - especially Apple who've been a thorn in their side all these years.
I suspect Microsoft are waiting to see what happens Real's Harmony [appleinsider.com] before embracing and extending fairplay.
Re:Give us what we went, not what you want to give (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Give us what we went, not what you want to give (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Give us what we went, not what you want to give (Score:2)
I've yet to have a need to transfer Apple's DRM'd music to another computer. If I did I'd probably just plug my iPod in and listen to it there. I don't have an innate need to give everyone my music so that's not a problem.
So you see, there are people like me--lots of them--that like the experience Apple provides. I have no *urge* to
Probably not (Score:3, Interesting)
So I'm pretty confident that regardless, you wouldn't be able to transfer to your ipod with the unlimited service anyway.
However, they are lamey McLamersons, because there are programs out there that can do a sort of "
names (Score:2, Funny)
names? (Score:2)
And here I was, thinking the Urge only had like two albums out. [amazon.com]
Rhymes with Purge (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Rhymes with Purge (Score:3, Funny)
DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, I imagine this service is much like Napster in its all-you-can-eat mode; all the music you can download, until you stop paying, and then all the music stops playing. While I could easily strip the DRM off the WMA files (assuming they use a current-gen version of WMA, which we don't know), that would take too much effort on my part to make it worth the money.
Message to Microsoft: If you want to attract people who are currently downloading their music for free elsewhere, you have to offer more than what other music stores offer. Let people who download music through the subscription service (with perhaps a decent per-month limit, say, 100 tracks, to keep people from trying to download the entire database) keep their music when their subscription ends. Otherwise, the service has no value to me, because I know later on I'll get tired of downloading music for a while, and quit paying for the privilege to do so; that doesn't mean I want my entire music collection that I've already paid for to stop working.
I'd also recommend using non-DRM MP3, but hey, this is Microsoft we're talking about. Can't expect everything...
Re:DRM (Score:2)
See, under this model, I don't consider myself to have paid for the music collection. I've paid for the privelege of using someone else's music collection, and I wouldn't expect that use to be permitted once I stopped paying. I don't think of it like albums that I have purchased, I think of it more like Satellite Radio that I control the programming of.
Re:DRM (Score:2)
Maybe it's just me, but I wish one of these companies would get it some time.
Re:DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
CDs, records... music on a physical medium have resale value. Should your taste in music change, you can sell your old stuff to fund your new collection. And don't get me started on old, out of production LPs.
There's also a fair amount of value in being able to control your music. I'm fairly certain that Urge won't be compatible with Linux (Maybe if DVD Jon takes an interest in it....) or Mac. There will likely be restrictions on burning your music to audio CD and which portable players it
Re:Renting versus owning... (Score:3, Interesting)
After I've gone to a movie theater and watched a movie I should get a free copy of the DVD.
After I've paid rent on my appartment for a couple of years I should own it.
Re:DRM (Score:3, Interesting)
Um, how? Last I checked, WMDRM10 had not been cracked for nearly a year. And, the last crack that came out didn't let you strip the DRM from any old file, you had to own a license to it first.
Yet Another Music Store (Score:3, Interesting)
In my opinoin, that will doom it in the long run. Sure, people will play with it for a while, but those with iPods won't be happy when they can't put the music on the iPod.
Unless someone gets Apple to open up Fairplay to potential licensees, or to include WMA playback on the iPod. I don't see either happening without a court case though.
Re:Yet Another Music Store (Score:4, Informative)
I hate to reply to AC postings but I have to correct this.
WMA-AAC conversion via iTunes only works on iTunes for Windows. Unless things've changed recently without me noticing, it's not possible in OS X iTunes.
And if things have changed recently, please let me know as although I don't use WMA it'd be nice to know.
They couldn't think of an uglier name (Score:2, Insightful)
Whoever comes up with this kind of product names at MS has to be fired.
Now let those Bill Gates "urge" jokes roll.
I'll bite (Score:3, Funny)
Justin reaches over (Score:3, Funny)
It won't work (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It won't work (Score:3, Insightful)
But do savvy people use Microsoft products?
MS & MTV (Score:2)
Why do I have an urge to purge this scourge? (Score:5, Funny)
Two feet or ten feet, Justin Timberlake still sounds like crap. Whenever I listen to him, I get a temporal lobe malfunction.
creepy (Score:2)
...and a miss! (Score:2)
Obligatory Simpsons quote from snpp:
MTV? (Score:2)
I hope they are depending on more than that to sell their service.
Gah (Score:2)
Believe me, when the snake bites the apple, the apple makes no mistakes...
Netscape?! (Score:2)
Re:Netscape?! (Score:2)
The bookmark icon looks like the Sun Microsystems logo [sun.com], to me.
Even more interesting... (Score:5, Informative)
-Rick
Justin's Influence (Score:2)
First, there was that whole thing where Britney broke her public oath of virginity.
Then, he helped Janet Jackson get funky with the famous "wardrobe malfunction."
Later, he was there when Cameron Diaz stole a paparazzi's camera, not a particularly classy reaction to the tabloid sleaze.
Now he's gonna help Bill's Urge to compete against Apple in a consumer space where the competitor already has a huge majo
Bingo (Score:4, Insightful)
Throw in "50 cent" and we're all set.
There is the critical difference... (Score:5, Funny)
Only one of these choices actually makes music. Coincidentally only one of these companies has a successful online music store.
Re:There is the critical difference... (Score:5, Funny)
Err no, wait.
Re:There is the critical difference... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:There is the critical difference... (Score:3, Funny)
It's a trick question, of course. The answer is "neither."
-Eric
Yes, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Press Release, Minus the Details (Score:4, Interesting)
OK, I read the article. I still don't know what the software being released does. Is it a Web application or a traditional one? What OS's are supported? Does this include a Media player, like iTunes, or is it just the retail store portion? Is this being illegally bundled with Windows or offered separately? They go on to talk about support for TV, without mentioning if that functionality is supported by this new service, and if so what programs will be available. Of course I'll never install this crap anyway, being as it is tied to WMP and I can't think of anything worse for the media industry than to be locked into an MS controlled, proprietary format. Still, I want to know what crap I'll have to deal with when working on PCs. Where's the beef?
Suggestions still suck - the same old shit (Score:2)
music player? (Score:4, Funny)
MTV is involved? So I'm guessing this service won't have any music.
Doesn't support iPod? Bah! (Score:2, Interesting)
iPod is a piece of hardware.
IS Microsoft really, REALLY saying it cannot write a piece of OS software for a hardware product like ipod?
I'm serious, the chip used in most ipods is well known. It can even handle WMA...its just not done via Apple's ipod OS.
As far as "oh that would make them responsible for support" BS! Like they support any piece of hardware windows runs on.
Oh well, I should be happy it didn't happen this time...cause Urge is a horrible name -_-
The reason this is under the "Apple" category (Score:5, Funny)
Smart move (Score:4, Interesting)
Subscription-based music is the way to go. This, combined with the Windows "Plays for Sure" [playsforsure.com] initiative will ultimately give MS the upper hand over Apple in the music arena, unless Apple comes out with a subscription option.
I have a subscription to Yahoo Music Unlimited [yahoo.com] and I've found it is definitely worth the $60/year. Right now I've got 744 songs in my collection, which if purchased at iTunes would cost more than 12 years of subscription fees (assuming the price doesn't go up). I can license 3 computers to access my subscription, so I've got it set up on my home computer, my work computer, and my laptop. The service keeps them in sync so if I add music at home, it gets downloaded at work next time I start the service. Since I download the music to my computer, if the network goes down I can still play music.
If I want to burn CDs I can buy tracks for $0.79. But I haven't needed to do that. I have a Creative Zen Micro to carry around. What's really nice is the Roku SoundBridge [rokulabs.com] is compatible with the service. I've got that hooked into the home theater system (and our wireless network) and I can access my complete music collection (even ripped music) using a remote control.
Ok, I realize this sounds like a commercial for the service. It's not...but I'm very happy with it and think that $60/year is a steal. I used to search the assorted P2P networks but my time has value too and it just wasn't worth it to search for and download music, only to find that I've picked up a bunch of bad tracks (P2P is still great for porn though).
So based on my experience with Yahoo Music Unlimited I think that despite its name Urge will be successful and combined with MS's marketing power may turn out to be an iTunes...well, not killer but maybe wounder.
Re:Smart move (Score:3, Interesting)
Obviously eMusic, with their downloadable unDRMed mp3 tracks, bypasses all of these problems. Though the eMusic catalog is not very mainstream, that's fine by me because I actuall
Re:Smart move (Score:3, Insightful)
But most people don't understand the subscription model and, when they do, they're hostile to it. People don't want to pay money month after month for music.
"Plays for Sure" will never give MS an upper hand over Apple. Consumers don't much care if their music is WMA or AAC; what they want is cool, easy-to-use software and hardware. Apple has this cornered. N
Re:Smart move (Score:5, Insightful)
Subscription-based music is the way to go.
Gee, really? I guess that explains why none of them are doing very well then and why analyst after analyst has found that people want to own, not rent music.
I've found it is definitely worth the $60/year. Right now I've got 744 songs in my collection, which if purchased at iTunes would cost more than 12 years of subscription fees (assuming the price doesn't go up).
So how many songs do you think you will download, versus how long do you think you will live? I spend under $60 on used CDs and music downloads a year. Plus, I don't ever have to worry about whether or not I will get enough any given year. It stays forever. Finally, there is no danger that someone will go out of business and my CDs or downloads (which I burn to CD) will go out of business. You're betting that in 30 years Yahoo music service will still be around and carrying music you like, otherwise your investment is wasted. That's a lot of commitment to one service. I have some friends who are looking for a good man, would you like me to forward some marriage proposals to them for you?
Seriously though, I hope it works out for you, and nothing is wrong with choice, it just isn't a choice many consumers seem to want, according to most market evaluations.
Re:Smart move (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, I'm betting that in 30 years the DRM will have been cracked and I'll have all my music burned to holographic cubes or whatever replaces DVDs.
Re:Smart move (Score:3, Insightful)
I know it's the biggest trend in business right now; recurring revenue and all that, but some things just shouldn't be subscriptions and a downloadable music service is one of them.
Re:Smart move (Score:3, Informative)
Not to split hairs... but no, you don't.
You don't have a single song from them; you have access to those songs as long as you continue to pay. This is a great system for those who understand this (rather large) distinction, and crave constant new music. To many other people - the vast majority, according to my company's research (I work for a DSP)
Christian rock (Score:5, Funny)
Christian rock is like some youth minister's idea of what rock and roll is: you don't even have Link Wray or the Rolling Stones, no it's derivative boy band music and hair metal. And Urge is like some out of touch dorky software mogul's idea of hip -- aesthetically perfectly paired with Stryper, Petra and Creed.
``Have you heard about this totally praiseworthy and righteous new music service, Urge? Rock on! Praise the Lord, man!''
Re:Christian rock (Score:4, Insightful)
Good rock is good rock, and Stryper and Creed would suck no matter what their message.
Re:Christian rock (Score:3, Interesting)
The 77's: remind me of The Judybats. However, the production is poor and they sound too sterile. They may be good in concert? Cheeseball lyrics.
Starflyer 59: Reminds me of My Bloody Valentine... sort of "dark". Calling it "Christian" is a bit of a stretch, or maybe it's just subtle. The music is quite dated though - they still sound like an early 90s band. My favorite of the ones you listed, though. (Maybe because the early 90s was when I w
I see how Apple wins these things... (Score:4, Insightful)
Steve announces these things and you can buy one immediately. If it's software, you can download it/buy it today.
I think the slow lumbering of MS will make this product as much of an also ran as every other competing service to itunes. Tying themselves to MTV is supposed to appeal to a younger demographic, but what teenager associates MTV with music? Unless they're awake at 2:30 am on a Tuesday, they've never seen MTV air a music video. What older person does? VH1 coulda been a better fit than this.
MSN MUZAK STOARE AKA Urge(ent need to pee) (Score:3, Informative)
Billy Boy's new toy, not compatible with the most popular by far audio player, will only help Billy Boy to lose even more money than his current MSN venture does.
My only wish, Billy Boy, is that in a year or two, some journalist with real balls instead of the pants-shitting, brown-nosing creeps that pretend to be such these days, will play you back a recording of your words this day and force you to either admit to just how badly you erred, or to get you to walk out of the studio in tears.
Re:Who wrote this article? (Score:2)
No, that would just instantly throw off their oblivious target audience.
-1 Troll (Score:3, Informative)