"RealNetworks released the latest version of their Rhapsody service last week and I'm hearing lots of great things about it. They've done several things mostly right with the service. Support for a subscription model competing with Napster To Go is definitely a positive. I recognize not everyone is sold on the idea of renting music, but I'm perfectly content with this kind of model as a try-before-you-buy approach. It's cheaper than buying CDs that I only listen to a few times and it doesn't have the same back alley smarmy feel that's associated with traditional file sharing. A new share 25 songs with your friends option seems okay on the surface, but it only works if your friend downloads Real Player, which is a turn off because would be easy for them to use Windows Media DRM to share the files through every player that supports it. Real needs to give up on trying to sell us a player and start looking at how they can bring something else of value."
Jake Ludington has some thoughts about the new Rhapsody release - myself, I'm still gunshy of installing anything with the world "Real" in it from back in the late '90s when RealNetworks turned RealPlayer into a bloated, nagging application. Does anyone here use Rhapsody? If so, how does it compare to other solutions such as Napster?
Updated Rhapsody from RealNetworks
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