SillyDog701

[Antony]

Microsoft joins the music download war. As expected.

Earlier, SillyDog701 reported [sdt=5729]Microsoft joins search engine war, competing with Google[/sdt], it is still too earlier to call the result. As a Netscape Archive website, SillyDog701 immediately noticed the similarity between the browser wars many years back. Now, MSN Music has just started in beta testing of its online music, and it is expected to open in October.

It is a service as part of MSN, combining other services such as MSN's web portal.

Our first sight of MSN Music is a rip off copy of iTune Music Store, the layout is very similar. Currently, MSN Music requires credit cards with U.S. billing address.

Microsoft opens MSN Music store:

Apple's iTunes success poses a threat to Windows, as its popularity could help it become a preferred platform for digital media. Many analysts compare today's music battle with Microsoft's war against the Netscape Web browser, which was seen as a challenge to Windows. Microsoft feared that software engineers would gravitate to developing applications on Netscape, thus circumventing Windows. The same possibility with iTunes is throwing a shadow over Microsoft's media hub plans for Windows.

You can buy your legal music from iTunes Music Store through SillyDog701.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/125.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/125.9

[DJGM]

Compare and contrast between the music stores of both MSN and iTunes . . .


Screengrab of MSN Music Store within a Netscape browser window:




Screengrab of iTunes Music Store (UK) within an iTunes window:

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 - DJGM.co.uk (ax)

[Antony]

Screengrab of iTunes Music Store (UK) within an iTunes window:

Your selection of Music Store is actually the US store.

The UK iTunes Music Store, access via iTunes (Mac version)

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/125.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/125.9

[Fulvio]

So far, I have not found any music download site rivaling iTunes, although Real10 has had 49 US cents for a while.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax)

[Antony]

Somehow, the Real software (RealPlayer, RealONE) never worked well for me. I don't think I am willing to try the Real Music Store.

BTW, at least the Real Music Store has a clear difference in style.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/125.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/125.9

[DJGM]

Screengrab of iTunes Music Store (UK) within an iTunes window:

Your selection of Music Store is actually the US store.

The UK iTunes Music Store, access via iTunes (Mac version)

Since the MSN Music Store can only be used by US residents, I decided a fairer comparison
would be achieved if I captured a screengrab of the US version of the iTunes Music Store.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 - DJGM.co.uk (ax)

[Fulvio]

All I see are different selection, and items listed on the left side, which are not necessarily OS-dependant.
Of course, there is a different icon in the Choose Store.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax)