Yahoo Music opens doors to rivals

 

Gallery

By Reuters

Posted on 7 Apr 2009 at 09:13

Yahoo has launched a revamped music service that aggregates content from sites such as YouTube, iTunes and Amazon.

Visitors to the Yahoo Music site will now be greeted by a variety of modules representing the web's disparate music sites. All sorts are represented, including free and radio streaming services such as Pandora and last.fm, music videos from YouTube and paid-for music downloads from iTunes and Amazon.com.

Yahoo confirms it has struck commercial relationships with digital music retailers like Apple to collect a fee for every referral, though it refused to announce the terms of the deal.

Alongside the homepage, a new Artist Page will offer a one-stop shop for people interested in particular singers or bands, offering everything from tour dates and concert tickets to photos and editorial content.

In all, Yahoo says the service will offer music and information from 500,000 artists, around double that of the site it shut down last year.

"We really want to focus on providing the service that's most valuable to users, and then partner with third parties to provide the entire set of music services," says Yahoo Music general manager Michael Spiegelman, who described the new Yahoo Music as a major strategic shift for Yahoo.