I don’t have much to do with Yahoo these days, apart from continuing to use my email there. (But emails related to this blog are best addressed to andrew at changingway dot org). In particular, I canceled my subscription to Yahoo! Music Unlimited a while ago.
Maybe there will be reason to take another look at Yahoo Music in 2008. I say that based on an excellent post/presentation by Ian Rogers, VP Video and Media Applications at Yahoo! (via Read/Write Richard). I’ll quote Ian on two of his main points.
- There is more opportunity in leveraging the scale of the Web than trying to create scarcity.
- We will do this together by creating a loosely-coupled value chain including users as value creators.
The strongest aspects of Ian’s post are his admission that he has in the past been part of the scarcity conspiracy, his use of concrete examples, and the position he’s writing from. To be specific about his concreteness, he develops some ideas on digital packaging and emphasizes open standards.
The weakest aspects are his overuse of the word leverage – but that’s a pet peeve of mine, and one that’s not widely shared – and the lack of detail of Yahoo’s plans – but perhaps it’s best to wait for specific features and betas than to comment on plans. So, Yahoo Music, bring it on, and try to charm me away from Rhapsody and the other music sites I use.