Yahoo Music was a brand under which Yahoo provided music services including Internet radio, a digital music store, music streaming service, media player software, and original programming. Yahoo Music was sold to Rhapsody in early 2008.[1][2]
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 and Safari.[8][9][10][11]
The service was integrated with iHeartRadio in June 2012, providing listeners exclusive access to music events such as the iHeartRadio Music Festival.[12] The service was shut down in early 2014 without any announcement.
Musicmatch was a media player software that also operated an internet radio service, which allowed users choose the artist they want to listen to but not the song.[13] MusicMatch Jukebox was launched in 1997[14] and was bundled with the iPod Classic as its music manager until the introduction of iTunes for Microsoft Windows in 2003.[15] In September 2003, the company launched a digital music store with 200,000 songs available.[16][17] It had a partnership with Dell to promote the service and software.[18]
On September 14, 2004, Yahoo acquired Musicmatch Jukebox for $160 million. However, the service was not integrated well, instead stagnating.[19] It was shut down on August 31, 2007.[20]
In May 2005, Yahoo Music launched Yahoo Music Unlimited, a music streaming service and digital music store.[21][22][23][24][25] 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 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 connection. It was discontinued on September 30, 2008.[26][27] The service was praised for its music quality, interface, and cheaper price than competitors.[28][29]
Yahoo Music Jukebox, formerly known as Yahoo Music Engine, was a freeware media player software released by Yahoo in 2005 to compete with iTunes and Rhapsody in the digital music market.[30][31][32][33][34]