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Rhapsody retakes the online music throne

The folks at Rhapsody have impressed me. Since I posted my last entry, Rhapsody has pushed multiple updates to their iPhone app and has introduced an impressive update to their web-based service—currently in beta. Both are stable and offer a set of features and music catalog that MOG can't seem to touch at this point.

That makes me very happy because I've been a Rhapsody member since 2005 and I have all kinds of radio stations, playlists and other customization that I wasn't looking forward to losing. I decided to hang on to my Rhapsody account while I evaluated MOG and I'm glad I did.

MOG is a fine service. In fact, it's downright impressive given that it's a relatively new offering. If you're still stuck in the era of owned music in the form of MP3s, CDs, etc., MOG will be a big step up. But Rhapsody is still the one to beat with a roster of features dwarfs that of MOG.

Ralph Stanley's radio ad supporting Obama in West Virginia

I'd like to say a very heartfelt thank you to Dave Allen for his post over at Pampelmoose. It may be the single most heartening thing I've read in a week at least.

Ralph Stanley is the last remaining survivor of the Stanley Brothers, and as such is one of the few remaining figures of the first generation of bluegrass musicians. He’s from the part of the mountains the Carter Family came from, and has had a recent career revival for his part in the Oh Brother Where Art Thou movie.

Listening to Ralph Stanley's iconic voice speaking in support of Barack Obama gives me tremendous encouragement and hope. I hope it does the same for you.

Ralph Stanley, a Radio Ad Supporting Obama in West Virginia - pampelmoose

Josh Groban at the Wax Museum

Video: Worth a watch

Find lyrics, a larger size version of the video and more at Dipdive.com

Overheard: Now no more singing!

I'm sitting at a coffee shop in Southeast Portland and there's a guy with a guitar playing and singing. When he finished the song he was playing a little kid at one of the tables shouted—to the now silent coffee shop:

Now, no more singing!

Awkward silence. Then he started playing and singing again.

Mommy, what does that mean?

Have fun explaining this one to your kids while you're standing at one of the four busy bus stops on the corner of SE 39th and Hawthorne in Portland. ("Hooked on Phonics be damned!")

I'm a very outspoken advocate of free speech--but good taste has to weigh in somewhere...

[And yes, I'm aware of the irony of this post in light of my "public bathroom mischief" entry of yesterday...]

Rhapsody losing the online music battle; in trouble?

I've written a number of articles about online music, including one called Rhapsody rules the online music world. I wish that were still true. I don't know what's happening at Rhapsody but I have to think they're in trouble. New competition seems to spring up every day and existing competitors are steadily improving their software and selection. Meanwhile, Rhapsody is busy breaking their software and alienating users. On December 27, 2006 I wrote an article entitled Rhapsody upgrade is a major downgrade. Don't do it. Not for a minute did I think they would go more than a few days to a week without fixing all the problems created with version 4. It's now been more than six weeks and they haven't fixed a thing. In fact, they've completely ignored the cries of outrage from customers being forced to uninstall their latest bug-filled release and go back to an older version.

Every time I fire up Rhapsody on my Windows XP machine, I get a network error message. The only way to make it go away and connect to the Rhapsody service is to close the application and open it again. It doesn't make any sense and it drives me nuts. I wish the problems ended there, but unfortunately that's just the beginning. Once logged in, all kinds of elements of the interface—including the primary forward and back navigation buttons—are either missing or broken. The main Music Guide screen, for example, the first one to come up when you sign in, has a huge white block in the middle where content is supposed to appear.

The body of the What's New page is even worse: it's completely blank except for outlines of where content is obviously supposed to appear. Rhapsody users are posting comments and complaints about all these problems all over the Web and, as far as I've been able to tell, Rhapsody is completely ignoring them.

This wouldn't all be so strange to me if Rhapsody hadn't been the obvious leader for so long in terms of song selection, quality of service, feature set and so forth. I wouldn't be so worked up about this if I weren't so disappointed. I've invested a great deal of time—and money—in Rhapsody, tuning my preferences, building playlists, etc. Rhapsody is threatening to make that to have all gone for nothing if they don't get their software to a point where it's usable again.

One interesting and yet frustrating thing to note is that while Rhapsody has been releasing broken software and ignoring their paying subscribers, they've been very quietly and steadily improving a browser-based version of the service. It doesn't have nearly the functionality of the software, but their entire library is available for streaming. Are they following the current trend of moving away from software and going to a browser-based, Web 2.0 model? I'd be all for this as I like the fact that I can use the service on any computer without needing to install software. But if that's what they're doing, they need to say so. All they're doing in the mean time is pissing off all their paying customers and discouraging everyone else from signing up. These people are, of course, signing up with Rhapsody's competition and aren't likely to come back after Rhapsody decides to get their act together.

Come out of the coding cave, Rhapsody, and talk to us!

What's wrong with Rhapsody -- and CNET's editors?

I posted a while back warning people not to upgrade to Rhapsody version 4.0. Rhapsody is by far the best online music service and has been for sometime. But their latest software release is horrible. It is loaded with bugs and ruins the entire experience.

Someone posted a comment to that entry asking where to download the previous version—something I'm sure 90% of subscribers are trying to do. In researching a way to do that, I came across the CNET review of Rhapsody 4.0. They gave it an 8.5 out of 10. I don't know if this review is a paid advertorial or what, but that 8.5 stands in very stark contrast to the 5.3 cumulative rating Rhapsody gets from consumers. The CNET editors don't even mention the myriad bugs that are all you'll hear about if you read about Rhapsody 4 elsewhere online.

Seven of the first ten user reviews tell the harsh truth, with the first two reading, "Stick with the old version" and "The programmers at Rhapsody should be ashamed."

Rhapsody version 4.0 has been out for three months. They've released one update in that time and it didn't fix a thing. I think that second comment above sums it up: The programmers—and management—at Rhapsody should be ashamed. And they'd better remedy this quickly or they're going to continue losing subscribers in droves.

Technorati Tags: Rhapsody, Real Networks, upgrade

Rhapsody upgrade is a major downgrade. Don't do it.

I've been using the Rhapsody online music service since it became available. In August 2003 I wrote a review suggesting Rhapsody may have dethroned Yahoo and MusicMatch as the best online music service. By that December, it was no longer a question. Rhapsody was the undisputed leader. For the first time in the three years since then, I'm considering canceling my subscription.

The folks at Rhapsody have fallen to the same temptation that hurts and often kills off many technology companies. I'm referring to the tendency to focus on bloating a product with more and more features rather than make it function better with the existing feature set. In this case, Rhapsody didn't even break their product by adding features. They seem to have done it while doing nothing more than trying to make it prettier. What a shame.

The new version, Rhapsody 4.0, is loaded with bugs. Every time I start Rhapsody it gives me an error that it can't connect to the network. I close it and open it again and it connects just fine. Once running, the interface is buggy to the point of being almost unusable. It looks like they've tried to integrate Flash content into the interface and that doesn't display. The screen is just blank where that content should be. The forward and back buttons on the navigation bar often disappear altogether, making it impossible to navigate the screens.

I was hopeful when an update was released a couple days ago, but it didn't fix any of this. I've restarted my Yahoo Music subscription since these problems started and, if Rhapsody doesn't get it together soon, I'm going to switch to Yahoo Music permanently.

Windows Media Player 11 = Spyware

I just allowed Microsoft to prompt-spam me into upgrading to Windows Media Player 11. Don't make the same mistake.

I haven't even had a chance to see whether there are any compelling new features. I just caved to the urge to have the latest version and went for it. It took forever to install -- at least 10 minutes -- and then forced me to restart my computer. How very Microsoft of it. But I've come to expect that from a company that considers it's customers hostages that can be bullied into accepting whatever it decides to dish out. What really drew my ire was the fact that, after the incredibly long download, it forced me to authenticate my copy of Windows. There was no warning whatsoever before I installed it that it would force me to do this. In the hacker world, that's damn close to being a trojan horse and spyware.

If Microsoft thinks it can survive by mimicking the thug tactics of the RIAA and MPAA by policing and bullying their paying customers, they'd better wake up fast. Linux and other options are looking better and better everyday.