Yahoo! Audio Search, a Music Pioneer?
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How long have you waited for a professional internet search to index audio files on the internet? Well, now Yahoo! will help music related websites find their audience and help music lovers find their fix. The Y! keeps delivering new features and services to the web, determined and inspired to outdo Google. With enough luck and a little creativity, they have a shot here.
This new Yahoo! Music Search (http://audio.search.yahoo.com) is still in beta form, but is basically functional. It indexes music and sound sharing sites, so you can locate both favorite pop tunes and weird sound effects you may use for Windows noises or who knows what. There is an error reporting board for people to explain their concerns, which may be extensive. It’s clear the new service isn’t nearly a final release, but it’s still extremely unique.
Y! has beaten Google, MSN Search, and AOL to this punch. While the others may have music services, they aren’t anything like this. AOL has a music search, but that is more or less an index of iTunes. The only music sources I could find were, “Buy this album directly from AOL,” “iTunes,” and “Sheet Music.” It only serves to make Yahoo! look better. Both Google and MSN haven’t published any functional music searches yet.
It’s also important to note this is different that the recent Yahoo! Music Unlimited. For a subscription fee, Y! Music Unlimited delivers music files to subscribers (like Napster or Rhapsody). The new Yahoo! Audio Search does not have a subscription fee and does not host any music. What it does is index and list all the music files across any subscription services and also some freebies across the web.
The sources that the audio search lists as being primary elements of its indexes are the following:
That’s the basic idea of the search, now let’s see how well it works.
Next: How the Search Works >>
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