Petteri Pyyny
11 Jun 2002 13:15
Net media giant Terra Lycos launched a co-branded version of Listen.com's Rhapsody service today, dubbed as Lycos Rhapsody.
Service offer is slightly different than the one what Listen.com currently offers -- you get a streaming radio version for free, you pay $5 a month for a version which has 50 commercial-free streaming radio stations and for $10 you get the same 50 channels, but also the ability to skip tracks and save tracks to your online "media library".
Lycos used to be a pioneering web portal in music biz back in last millennium and their Lycos Music service added with their web-based MP3 search engine and their acquired Sonique MP3 player made some nice features available to regular Net users a long time before other major service providers had anything similiar. Unfortunately Terra Lycos's financial problems virtually killed Sonique and lots of other creative features they used to have. But at least this deal will make sure that Listen.com has some major portal to back up their fight against major record label-backed subscription services, Pressplay and MusicNet.
Rhapsody currently has content from four major record labels and from various indie labels -- only major record label missing from its offering is currently Vivendi Universal.