Troy GilbertGamedev 2.0

I’ve found exactly what the title says: Rhapsody. A subscription music service from Real Networks. Yes, Real. I hated them as well. The Real Player was always updating itself, spewing messages, nagging me… it basically felt like high dollar spyware. I would avoid the format on the net like the Plague. I would *skip* seeing something cool on the net to avoid installing RealPlayer. Of course, I wasn’t the only one…

But, happy to report, Rhapsody doesn’t install/require RealPlayer (though it will RealAudio, I believe). That’s the principal reason I’d never even looked at the software, though my brother had raved about it for quite some time.

Well, last weekend I had long programming session in front of me and no desire to dig through my same library of albums in iTunes that I’d been staring at for the last year. My usual first stop is to Last.fm. Definitely my favorite web 2.0 radio station. I’ve even donated/subscribed for the year to get a bit more control and features. I tried Pandora (and pre-paid a year for $35, I think) when it first debuted (before I discovered last.fm, though I know last.fm was first). Its cool, too, and the more academic approach (as opposed to the census-style population sampling of Last.fm) is a fresh alternative — sometimes.

The problem with both is that you lack direct control over what you’re listening to, or rather you lack on-demand control. You can only influence and guide the music selection. I can’t jump straight to a particular album and track and play that whenever I want. With Rhapsody, I can.

Rhapsody gives the user a huge online library (millions of songs) that you can browse through and listen to on-demand. They also have the “channels” that are editorial crafted to fit certain criteria, e.g. 70′s Power Ballads, and they have an great implementation of playlists.

The playlist is a great thing. Its the modern day version of the mix tape. And on Rhapsody, you can leverage the “always on” nature of the application to share your playlists with other users (by e-mail, IM, URL, etc…) as well as throwing them on the pile for the general public. Users can rate playlists and the best in certain genres rise to the top. They also have “editorial” playlists presented by celebrities, musicians, music critics, site editors and music labels.

Rhapsody does a really good job of staying focused on one thing: the music. They effectively introduce all of the social networking elements while never letting the people get in the way. I know that sounds harsh, but its true. We can adopt (and adapt) a lot of important relational power from the mechanisms fine tuned in the world of MySpace, Facebook, et al. These ultra mainstream sites are teaching a lot of powerful organizational functions to the average web user. The ones who are doing it wrong are taking MySpace and sticking feature X in place of the bands: videos, games, shopping, TV shows, music. The ones who are doing it right, like Rhapsody, maintain a focus and keep the users on the sidelines, where they honestly belong (or rather, behind-the-scenes).

In other words, its very satisfying to live in a social space, but I don’t necessarily want to wade through the egos and personalities every time. With Rhapsody, music (at its core, a single track/song) is the participant in the social network. Us fans are just along for the ride! ;-)

So, these are great features, but probably what you’d expect (its basically iTunes with a giant library on the net). Its subscription vs. possession. But the main reason I usually have a problem with subscription web services is that they’re useless without the web. Sure, I may not be without the web much these days when using a computer (my e-mail is web-based as well), but for my music… well, I want to be able to listen to it *anytime* or anywhere I’ve got a wall outlet or a battery. Like my iPod, or the MP3 ripped to my desktop.

Well, Rhapsody allows you to “cache” any or all of your library to disk. I believe they use WMA DRM to “secure” the music. Which you know what? That’s fine. I can’t put it on my iPod. I can’t copy it to a CD and drop it in the mail to a friend. But *I* can listen whenever I want. And I’m fine with that limitation because its only $15 a month.

So, Rhapsody is radio on demand. And its a better iTunes. If I want to own music, I’ll buy the CD off of Amazon. If I just want to listen to music, I’ll look it up on Rhapsody.