Okay so this was all super-secret until midnight EST today but now I can tell you guys.
No, I’m not filming a series for VH1. Or launching a record label. Or a fashion line.
It’s actually the company that owns my website, RealNetworks, that’s doing something cool this time.
Tonight they’re having a big fancy exclusive-style party to celebrate the launch of their new DRM-free Rhapsody music store.
What does that mean? It means you can download music from their store in MP3 format and play it anywhere. Even on an iPod! Or on whatever other music player you have. They have agreements with all four major music labels and a ton of the indie labels, so there are 5 million tracks available, and most are priced at 99 cents a pop.
The first 100,000 customers who sign up at www.rhapsody.com/mp3 get a free album. And you guys are hearing about this FIRST. Seriously. NOBODY ELSE KNOWS ABOUT THIS RIGHT NOW. So get your ass over there and sign up to get yourself a free album.
There’s gonna be a kick-ass music act at the party tonight, and I’ll take a bunch of pictures and get all chit-chatty about it afterward.
Beet, you’re the best!
YAY thanks Beet I got my free album =D
none for canadians :(
im there if you’re there beet.
I was just about to ask, should I assume it’s US only?
It probably is US only, since I just tried it from Germany and I was lead to a “We’re sorry…” page.
<3 free music
not free for canadians:(
Thanks Beet. I got my free album, though it took a bit of work to get it. Have fun at your part-tay tonight. You better look damn good!
Sorry, guys, didn’t realize it was US-only! Damn that!
That’s great, thank you! I got my free $10 credit :)
Hi all – it’s also not for Macs. I have the latest OS, and you can’t play song samples or use their player, and after spending an 1.5 hours trying to get 10 songs into my cart, the stuff won’t download for macs. I’ve been thru three levels of tech support, so far (37 mins and counting!), with no one able to figure out why it won’t play nice with Mac OS 10.4. All they say is “we’re new at this and we’re working out a lot of problems…”
oh well, thanks Beet for the freebie, even if I couldn’t get it!
Hey Beet, could you find out what the Mac glitch is all about? I don’ want to spend 1.5 hours trying to get something I can’t use. Thanks
Viva la Vida, here I come! Thanks Beet.
Update: I finally got to a tech guy who directed me to an alternate site where I could log in and he had my files. They know there is a prob for macs and told me they were trying to figure out what. fyi – I use the newest version of Safari, but they said Firefox would fare no better. One of the tech guys wanted me to shut off my firewall and completely wipe my browser of all passwords, cookies, bookmarks, etc. I politely declined *cough*idiot*cough* The guy who eventually helped me said none of that was necessary (he was actually pissed the guy suggested it), so don’t do that if you get another tech dork.
It works fine on my Mac. They basically do not have a downloader like the PC does, but what it does do, is ZIPs up all of your tracks in a zip file, downloads them, then you simply double click on that ZIP and it will open it. Drag the files into your iTunes.
One of the great things they are doing is using a flash playback player. No more having to download that plugin. It is really slick.
Kudos to the RN/Rhapsody team!
I love the quality of the tracks.
Beet say hi to the good folks at the party. ;)
Ad-ver-tise-ment.
Sorry Beet but this Rhapsody BS is lame. Why on earth would anyone pay monthly to purchase mp3’s? I get the whole itunes-mp4-only-listen-on-computer-or-ipod but all that takes is a mp3 converter and an extra 2 minutes. Can you tell me if I’m missing something??? I don’t get it….
You don’t pay a monthly fee to buy MP3s from Rhapsody. You only pay a monthly fee for their subscription service, which is different than their MP3 store.