Yahoo Music was a brand under which
Yahoo
Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, an ...
provided music services including
Internet radio
Internet radio, also known as online radio, web radio, net radio, streaming radio, e-radio and IP radio, is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet. Broadcasting on the Internet is usually referred to as webcasting since it is not ...
, a
digital music store,
music streaming service
A music streaming service is a type of online streaming media service that focuses primarily on music, and sometimes other forms of digital audio content such as podcasts. These services are usually subscription-based services allowing users to s ...
,
media player software
Media player software is a type of application software for playing multimedia computer files like audio and video files. Media players commonly display standard media control icons known from physical devices such as tape recorders and CD play ...
, and
original programming
Original programming (also called originals or original programs, and subcategorized as "original series", "original movies", "original documentaries" and "original specials") is a term used for in-house television show, television, television fi ...
. Yahoo Music was sold to
Rhapsody in early 2008.
Products
Yahoo Music Radio
In June 2001, after the bursting of the
dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble (or dot-com boom) was a stock market bubble that ballooned during the late-1990s and peaked on Friday, March 10, 2000. This period of market growth coincided with the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web and the Interne ...
,
Yahoo
Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, an ...
acquired LAUNCH Media, which was facing financial difficulty, for $12 million. In addition to a website with music news and videos, it provided an
Internet radio
Internet radio, also known as online radio, web radio, net radio, streaming radio, e-radio and IP radio, is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet. Broadcasting on the Internet is usually referred to as webcasting since it is not ...
service that allowed users to create personalized
Internet radio
Internet radio, also known as online radio, web radio, net radio, streaming radio, e-radio and IP radio, is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet. Broadcasting on the Internet is usually referred to as webcasting since it is not ...
stations by rating songs selected by a
recommender system
A recommender system (RecSys), or a recommendation system (sometimes replacing ''system'' with terms such as ''platform'', ''engine'', or ''algorithm'') and sometimes only called "the algorithm" or "algorithm", is a subclass of information fi ...
. Users were also able to listen to music from 150 preset Internet radio stations. The service offered both an advertising supported free version and a
subscription fee-based premium version. At the time of the acquisition by Yahoo, the service had 7.4 million users.
In December 2008, the service was integrated into
CBS Radio due to a
rise in royalty rates, with CBS taking full control of the service, including advertising and sales and adding compatibility with
Firefox
Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curr ...
and
Safari
A safari (; originally ) is an overland journey to observe wildlife, wild animals, especially in East Africa. The so-called big five game, "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, African leopard, leopard, rhinoceros, African elephant, elep ...
.
The service was integrated with
iHeartRadio
iHeartRadio (often shortened to just "iHeart") is an American freemium broadcast, podcast, radio streaming and Music Streaming platform owned by iHeartMedia. Founded in August 2008, iHeartRadio serves as the national umbrella brand for iHeart ...
in June 2012, providing listeners exclusive access to music events such as the
iHeartRadio Music Festival. The service was shut down in early 2014 without any announcement.
Musicmatch Jukebox
Musicmatch was a
media player software
Media player software is a type of application software for playing multimedia computer files like audio and video files. Media players commonly display standard media control icons known from physical devices such as tape recorders and CD play ...
that also operated an
internet radio
Internet radio, also known as online radio, web radio, net radio, streaming radio, e-radio and IP radio, is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet. Broadcasting on the Internet is usually referred to as webcasting since it is not ...
service, which allowed users choose the artist they want to listen to but not the song. MusicMatch Jukebox was launched in 1997 and was bundled with the
iPod Classic
The iPod Classic (stylized and marketed as iPod classic and originally simply iPod) is a discontinued portable media player created and formerly marketed by Apple Inc.
There were six generations of the iPod Classic, as well as a spin-off (the ...
as its music manager until the introduction of
iTunes
iTunes is a media player, media library, and mobile device management (MDM) utility developed by Apple. It is used to purchase, play, download and organize digital multimedia on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating s ...
for
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
in 2003. In September 2003, the company launched a
digital music store with 200,000 songs available. It had a partnership with
Dell
Dell Inc. is an American technology company that develops, sells, repairs, and supports personal computers (PCs), Server (computing), servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals including printers and webcam ...
to promote the service and software.
On September 14, 2004, Yahoo acquired
Musicmatch Jukebox for $160 million. However, the service was not integrated well, instead stagnating. It was shut down on August 31, 2007.
Yahoo Music Unlimited
In May 2005, Yahoo Music launched Yahoo Music Unlimited, a
music streaming service
A music streaming service is a type of online streaming media service that focuses primarily on music, and sometimes other forms of digital audio content such as podcasts. These services are usually subscription-based services allowing users to s ...
and
digital music store. Users paid a
subscription fee to access a library of over two million songs which could be either
streamed or downloaded as
DRM-protected Windows Media Audio
Windows Media Audio (WMA) is a series of audio codecs and their corresponding audio coding formats developed by Microsoft. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. Audio encoded in WMA is stored in a digi ...
files and played from a computer in near CD quality sound. Subscribers could also download songs for transfer to CD or supported portable devices with an additional per-song payment. Yahoo Music Jukebox was the software used for the service. The service required an active
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
connection. It was discontinued on September 30, 2008. The service was praised for its music quality, interface, and cheaper price than competitors.
Yahoo Music Jukebox
Yahoo Music Jukebox, formerly known as Yahoo Music Engine, was a
freeware
Freeware is software, often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the free ...
media player software
Media player software is a type of application software for playing multimedia computer files like audio and video files. Media players commonly display standard media control icons known from physical devices such as tape recorders and CD play ...
released by
Yahoo
Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, an ...
in 2005 to compete with
iTunes
iTunes is a media player, media library, and mobile device management (MDM) utility developed by Apple. It is used to purchase, play, download and organize digital multimedia on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating s ...
and
Rhapsody in the digital music market.
References
{{Yahoo
American music websites
Music
Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...
Internet properties disestablished in 2018
Internet properties established in 2001
Music
Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...