Andre Yoskowitz
21 Sep 2008 14:54
Yahoo and Rhapsody have announced a new service that will allow users of Yahoo's search engine to get full song playback for songs they are searching for without needing to head to other sites.
Users who search for a specific artist's song using Yahoo Search will be able to play the song back in its entirety through Rhapsody's FoxyTunes Player which will be sitting in a shortcut at the top of the search results page.
Yahoo says the new feature is just another part of its new "play the web" strategy which it hopes will open Yahoo to content and services it is not known for.
The company added that there are already 5 million tracks supported but there is of course one large catch. Users can only listen to 25 free full length songs each month before they are only allowed to listen to 30-second clips like on iTunes.
Overall, the service works well and I've screencapped a recent search of mine to show how the service works. After typing in Pink Floyd in the search the artist, with picture, discography etc showed up and underneath there is the "play full length tracks" option. Also, if you stop the song before the one minute mark, it does not count against your 25 free for the month.