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1. I love my to friends and family, but perhaps not quite to the tune of 3 months a piece. Any chance one month gift subscriptions will be available?

   Comment by codybaker — December 20, 2006 #

2. Oh, Ian. We don’t want gift cards for the holidays. We just want software that works!

   -that transfers track numbers and album art to our portables.
   -that converts files to formats compatible with portables.
   -that plays nice with Sonos and other DAPs.
   -that properly imports tracks from our hard drive, applying album art and tag info
   -that brings back podcast support!

   I’d love to give the gift of YMU, but when friends and family see all of these usability problems they balk and head on over to Appleville.

   Comment by ChoppinBroccoli — December 22, 2006 #

3. I love YMU, discovered tons of great new music and I have made a few people sign up for the Mastarcard 2 years for 1 deal, but the YM Jukebox is what keeps me from singing its praises from the mountaintop.

   Everything CB said is true.

   Do you know if a new version is coming soon?
   Not just a minor 2.1 upgrade.

   A version that adds common sense features like
   - Video Support
   - Editorial Content (Year End Lists, Yahoo Grammies coverage should be in the Jukebox not on the Launch site)
   - New Music Tuesday ON TUESDAY. (I use iTunes to see what the new releases are)
   - Better album art and settings control.
   - iTunes quality podcasts (I’d love not to have to use iTunes)
   - 0-100 rating system (I don’t like the star system)

   I think YMU has a lot of potential but it doesnt seem like it uses the strengths of a large media company like Yahoo.
   Launch.com seems way too separate from what you get in the YMJ.
   I could go on and on but I’ll stop here.
   If you guys need help I’d be glad to lend a hand.

   Comment by resource — December 23, 2006 #

4. Hey Choppin,

   What portable do you want album art xferred to? YMJ does xfer album art if the player supports the Windows Media Device Manager spec properly. Ditto for track numbers.

   What format do you want it to convert to?

   We work great with any DAP that supports Microsoft’s Cardea platform. We’d like Sonos support, too, and are talking to our friend Joni @ Sonos about a solution.

   When we scan your HD, we attempt to match the track to our catalog, and if we can we’ll pull the cover art. Is this just not working for you at all or is it not working as often as you’d expect?

   We’re working on fixing the Podcast support. That was some big company nonsense that fell through the cracks. Stay tuned.

   Resource,

   Good comments on the new version. Most of our users are more like Choppin, though, they don’t want new features, they want the existing features to work properly. That’s why we’ve been doing point releases often (look for another bug fix release in January) and have fixed tens of bugs in the past six months in both the client and the server. Until we get our existing issues with licensing, thirty second samples when you should hear full tracks, etc covered, we’re not adding a bunch of new features.

   Not sure what you mean about the new music Tuesday issues. We’ve had a couple weeks where we’ve been off for tech reasons, but for the most part we have more new releases every Tuesday than Apple does. Or are you referring to receiving the New Music Alert via email?

   We’d welcome your help. How are you going to help us?

   Happy New Year,
   ian

   Comment by iancr — December 28, 2006 #

5. Hello Ian,

   My portable is the iRiver Clix. It has no problems transferring album art or track numbers from Rhapsody (free trial) or WMP11. It rarely transfers at all from YMJ. We are looking to get a second subscription-able portable, and if at the end of the trial Rhapsody has a higher WAF we’ll probably switch and get their player. I’d prefer to stay with YMU, but…

   For file conversions, I just would like to see YMJ recognize that a file format is incompatible with a portable and either convert on the fly or at least give me an error message. At this point when I try to send a FLAC or WMA Lossless file to the Clix, YMJ just sends the file and the device won’t play it. The same sync in Rhapsody or WMP11 results in an on-the-fly conversion (of course it slows down the sync), or in the case of FLAC, an incompatible file error message and no xfer. For FLACS I will probably just burn a CD and re-rip to MP3.

   As for scanning the hard drive, YMJ does not apply cover art *at all*. This even applies to tracks I purchased from Yahoo! Speculation on the support board is that YMJ and WMP11 are incompatible in their tagging, but nobody from Yahoo has confirmed or denied. Once art has been applied in WMP11, it doesn’t show in YMJ. Tracks downloaded from YMU do not show art in WMP11 — but at least WMP lets you fix it.

   I know in the grand scheme of things cover art is much less important than the music itself. But all we really want is ONE software/online/hardware solution that seamlessly integrates our ripped music and our subscription music. Right now these issues force us to use two different jukebox programs, and we shouldn’t have to.

   Thanks and Happy New Year,
   Mac

   Comment by ChoppinBroccoli — December 28, 2006 #

6. I think his point about new release Tuesday is just to simply list the new stuff that comes out every Tuesday. YMJ is vastly inferior to Itunes if you just want to browse for new music. The idea of only showing me what you think I will like makes sense on paper but I don’t even have the option of just browsing everything that comes out each week. How about a section the lists upcoming releases? I’ve been a subscriber since the launch of YME and I love the subscription concept and your pricing but your software and customer support (non-existent) is so bad that I’m seriously considering switching.

   Comment by fixymjplease — December 29, 2006 #

7. I agree that everything should be smoothed out before new features are crammed in. That would be software disaster.

   I just see the album art, podcast and video capabilities of iTunes and of the Zune wish YMJ had that same smoothness and coordination with MP3 players.

   - I wasn’t talking about the email updates.
   I meant that when I click on the Y! Unlimited homepage on Tuesday, the page shows the albums from the previous week.
   Yahoo! doesn’t tell me what the new music is until Thursday.
   iTunes shows what’s new on Tuesday when I wake up.
   I have to go through iTunes, find the new music releases and then go back to YMJ to stream it.
   Even today 12/29, YMJ is still displaying albums from 12/19 as the newest releases.

   I would be willing to test software, report bugs and whatever else a company like Yahoo! would allow a non-paid employee to do.

   Comment by resource — December 30, 2006 #

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   Pingback by FISTFULAYEN » Blog Archive » Last Minute Gift Idea Fer Ya — December 31, 2006 #

9. […] http://ymusicblog.com/blog/2006/12/19/yahoo-music-unlimited-gift-certificates/ […]

   Pingback by FISTFULAYEN » Blog Archive » Last Minute Gift Idea Fer Ya — December 31, 2006 #

10. that’s funny Choppin, I had the same exact reaction. way too many marketing posts on the blog for my tastes. and there just has been little of any impact from yahoo on the software side for so long. hard to keep the faith. I actually let my subscription end because of the lack of progress. Urge is adding features and tweaking constantly to improve. Rhapsody wrote their own DRM and co-branded a player that has none of the PFS issues we all complain about. What has Yahoo done? Does anyone want to make the product great? What’s on the horizon?

    here’s a simple idea that won’t break anything and will show the users development is ongoing. add artist bios to YMJ. why in the world do I have to launch a web browser to see artist info. when I am browsing around.

    Comment by buchananmb — January 2, 2007 #

11. […] Yahoo! Music Unlimited Gift CertificatesAh yes, the holiday season. Shopping at Best Buy and your local mall with the cast of COPS and the same thirteen songs pouring out of the ceiling everywhere you walk. My favorite time of year.I haven’t been to a store yet this year, though. I’m getting everyone the same two things: […]Publ.Date : Tue, 19 Dec 2006 19:08:56 +0000 […]

    Pingback by LyricalData — February 15, 2007 #

12. Has there been any progress on the album art issue with the iRiver Clix?

    Comment by jonahu — February 16, 2007 #

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