MTV Networks introduces new online music service "Urge"
15 May, 2006
MTV Networks Inc. will introduce on Wednesday a new online music service, called Urge, in cooperation with Microsoft, and will be promoted from within the latest version of the Windows Media Player.
MTV Networks Inc. will introduce on Wednesday a new online music service, called Urge. The new service will cost 9.95 U.S. dollars a month for people who want to listen to music on their computers and 14.95 dollars a month for those who want to download songs to portable players. The service works with many hand-held music players from Samsung, iRiver and other manufacturers, but not the Apple iPod. Urge's main selling point is its integration with Windows Media Player 11, which also launches into public beta on Wednesday. The MTV service largely matches the price and features of other music services, such as Napster and RealNetworks. It will cost 9.95 U.S. dollars a month for people who want to listen to music on their computers and 14.95 dollars a month for those who want to download songs to portable players.
The service works with many hand-held music players from Samsung, iRiver and other manufacturers, but not the Apple iPod, which dominates the portable market.
It allows users to download as many songs as they choose from a library of two million tracks, but the pieces downloaded will stop playing if the user stops paying the monthly fee. MTV will also sell permanent downloads for 99 cents a track.
Some of the songs will be from performances on MTV's broadcasts. And MTV Networks hopes to differentiate its music store with programming and features, many related to its television shows, that will help users find music they like.
It has more than 500 preset playlists for various moods and styles. MTV has started 24 blogs, with different views of current music. The service will also include 130 Internet radio stations.
Urge's main selling point is its integration with Windows Media Player 11, which also launches into public beta on Wednesday.
It uses WMP 11's navigation, cribs some UI cues, and lets WMP 11 users purchase and download music without even opening a new window. The relationship very much resembles iTunes Music Store's integration with iTunes 6.
Source: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-05/15/content_4548036.htm
First Look: Windows Media Player 11 and MTV Urge
MTV Does Digital Music
While Microsoft has done some impressive work improving Media Player's interface, the company's real coup involves its integration of MTV's Urge music store into the player. While the specs for MTV's music store are fairly standard--a library of around 2 million tracks, 99-cent downloads of 192-kbps WMA files, and an unlimited download subscription model that lets you sync tracks to a portable player for $14.95 per month--MTV's strength as a music brand is unmatched.
MTV plans plenty of Urge tie-ins with its programming, including channel-specific landing pages for VH-1, CMT, and several popular MTV shows. Most such pages come equipped with custom-programmed playlists that recommend music specific to the channel or show you're looking at.
But Urge will feature lots of different sources for music recommendations. For the Informer section of the service, MTV has recruited well-known music bloggers to produce custom playlists in their genres. Future updates of the service should allow users like you and me to start our own music blogs through Urge, recommend songs to friends, and write reviews of tracks or albums we like.
If you'd prefer simply to browse for music by genre, Urge has that covered in a couple interesting ways. Of course, it has the standard genre-based landing pages, but Urge's integration with WMP 11 allows for even more-powerful navigation. By clicking through menu options, you can quickly browse to the most popular tracks in whatever subgenre you like. If you've subscribed to the unlimited downloads service, you can easily grab those tracks as a playlist and move them to your PC or to a portable player.
Thanks to that same integration, browsing through the tracks on Urge can feel just like browsing the tracks in your local music library. The same Instant Search function that works with your music library works in Urge, too, and it's almost as fast (though you have to search your local library and Urge offerings separately).
(In case you're wondering, Urge ships its main track listing over as a hefty XML file when you first download the player. Once that's downloaded, you'll receive small updates in the background every time you log in to the service.)
Currently, MTV is calling Urge a beta product, with more community features planned for later in the year. It's one of those Google-type betas, though: The beta that will be available to grab on Wednesday is a fairly finished product. The results so far are fairly impressive, though it remains to be seen whether even MTV can sway a significant portion of the iPod-buying masses over to a service that won't work with their MP3 player of choice.
Source: http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,125693,pg,2,00.asp#
MTV and Microsoft get Urge to battle Apple iTunes
Stan Beer
15 May 2006
Apple finally looks like getting some real competition in the online music business with the announced entry of a collaboration between cable entertainment group MTV and Microsoft. A beta version of a new online offering called Urge will debut on Wednesday and will be integrated with the latest version of Microsoft's Windows Media Player, which can be downloaded.
The pricing model of Urge will borrow from both Apple iTunes and the monthly subscriptions offered by services such as Napster, the company that started the music download revolution. Like Napster, Urge will enable users to download songs to computers and MP3 players for a monthly subscription of $9.95 and $14.95 respectively.
However, mindful that the subscription model, which stops access to downloaded music unless the subscription is maintained, has not eactly been a roaring success for Apple's competition, the Urge service will also enable users to buy tracks for download at the same price as iTunes, 99c or Albums for $9.95. What's more, at launch, Urge promises to have more than 2 million tracks available for download just like iTunes.
Things start to get interesting when it becomes apparent that iTunes and Urge are not compatible. Urge will not allow downloads to iPods but will be compatible the myriad of competing MP3 players on the market, such as the iRiver, which have not been able to dent the iPod's dominance of the market.
The entry of MTV and Microsoft into the music market with a serious offering may finally inject some real competition into a marketplace, in which Apple has almost as much dominance as Microsoft has on the PC desktop.
Source: http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/4304/53/
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