Yahoo Switches To Rhapsody, For Now

Remember Yahoo! Unlimited, the premium music service run by Yahoo? Neither did we. In light of the poor performance of the music service, the company's financial woes and the recent interest in the company, Yahoo! closed the service.

The handful of subscribers remaining in the Yahoo! Unlimited pool will be transfered to Yahoo's new preferred partner: Rhapsody Music. Recently we announced that Rhapsody had been growing its market share by partnering with companies like MOG (an online social music network). Partnering with Yahoo is a step up for Rhapsody even as dumping its music service is a step down for Yahoo, though a prudent business move.

Customers being transfered from Yahoo! Unlimited music service to Rhapsody should plan to pay more in monthly fees (up nearly $4 per month to $12.99). Rhapsody is a Real Networks company. Real Networks has recently been in talks to partner with MTV on another online music venture, to be called JV.

In other music news, even as Yahoo was dumping Yahoo! Unlimited it was buying FoxyTunes. FoxyTunes is a small Israeli based company that created a plug in for FireFox that plays music and searches for lyrics and music. No announcement was made on integrating FoxyTunes with the new Rhapsody service.

Users of Yahoo! Unlimited may wonder how long a new partnership with Rhapsody would last, and if they will be forced to another platform yet again if a buyout succeeds. Microsoft, who made a hostile takeover offer for Yahoo this week, owns the Zune music service, and News Corp, rumored to be launching a possible counter bid, has interests in several multimedia online outlets.