Type of site
|
Online music, Media player |
---|---|
Available in | Multilingual |
Owner | Oath Inc. |
Website | yahoo.com/music |
Commercial | Yes |
Registration | Optional (required for most) |
Current status | Active |
Yahoo! Music, owned by Yahoo!, is the provider of a variety of music services, including Internet radio, music videos, news, artist information, and original programming. Previously, users with Yahoo! accounts can gain access to hundreds of thousands of songs sorted by artist, album, song and genre.
Yahoo Music began as "LAUNCH", a website and magazine produced by LAUNCH Media which Yahoo acquired for US$12 million in 2001. LAUNCH was later rebranded as "Yahoo Music", then simply "Y! Music" in February 2005. LAUNCH's LAUNCHcast Internet radio and music video offerings were integrated into Yahoo's site along with artist profiles containing an extensive selection of music and biographical information.
Yahoo Music was the number one online music site in terms of audience reach and total time spent in March 2007.
As of June 2008[update], Yahoo Music's old website is inactive and redirecting to the new website at new.music.yahoo.co.
Sometime in early 2013, Yahoo Music has deleted its entire database of artists, and their albums & songs as well as the users' ratings. However, music videos continue to be accessible.
As of late 2015, all of Yahoo! Music's previous URLs ('music.yahoo.com' and 'new.music.yahoo.com') have been redirected to its new URL (www.yahoo.com/music).
Yahoo Music offers a variety of products, including:
In 2001, Yahoo purchased LAUNCH Media, makers of the LAUNCHcast Internet radio service. On September 14, 2004, Yahoo purchased Musicmatch, Inc., makers of the Musicmatch Jukebox software. As of Musicmatch 10.1, Yahoo has rebranded Musicmatch Jukebox as Yahoo Music Musicmatch Jukebox, and integrated it with the Yahoo Music Engine store. The main difference is the branding and physical program. In 2005, Yahoo Music became the first major online music service to provide a $5 per month unlimited download service similar to the Open Music Model, albeit with digital rights management, called Yahoo Music Unlimited. In 2008, Yahoo announced that Yahoo Music Unlimited will be merged into Rhapsody. This merge was completed with the shutdown of Yahoo Music Unlimited on September 30, 2008.