Is Yahoo Music Down For The Count?
Wall Street has been less than kind to Yahoo! as its once meteoric growth has slowed and
Google and others have taken over the spotlight with more innovative offerings.
Management has promised a major restructuring with "no sacred cows" and informed rumors suggest that this could mean a major overhaul or even the closing of Yahoo! Music. Even as Rhapsody, iTunes and Amazon have unveiled new initiatives, Yahoo! has stayed silent; perhaps unable to react because of shifting top management or perhaps following Napster’s wait and see attitude.
In the rapidly evolving digital music marketplace waiting can be deadly and it is possible that Yahoo Music will allow its self to be left in the dust. But it is hard to imagine that Yahoo! could consider itself a broad based consumer service without a strong music component.
Perhaps an alliance with a more music centered company like the new Rhapsody America is in order. And whatever the outcome more consolidation in the mass-consumer download space in inevitable even as new niche service begin to proliferate.
I’ve been watching and waiting as well. They have stabilized the client a lot, and recently they’ve made some small but very welcome improvements to the artist pages. I think their recommendation software is just better than everyone else’s and launchcast is a favorite of mine; so I hope they keep developing. I’m sure they see the yahoo music site as a far bigger money maker.
I have a friend at Yahoo music who has been flown up from Santa Monica for three days of meetings in Sunnyvale this week. Sounds like something strategic is bubbling. We’ll see…