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Net music takes a big step forwardBy DAVE GUSSOW
While Pressplay (www.pressplay.com) is better than the competing MusicNet service (www.musicnet.com), it doesn't give an overall music experience that justifies the monthly subscription fee. At least not in the initial offering. Fans who flocked to online music through Napster's now-dead swapping capabilities are likely to grate under the restrictions placed on them, even though Pressplay allows music to be burned on a CD or transferred to portable devices such as MP3 players. The recording industry successfully shut down Napster in its effort to stop piracy and unauthorized swapping of copyrighted material. And though the industry is still waging war, other sites where users can swap songs, such as Morpheus, keep popping up. Pressplay, started by Sony and Vivendi Universal, went online late last month and, in most areas, is an improvement over MusicNet, which has the backing of AOL Time Warner Music, Bertelsmann, EMI Group and Zomba. MusicNet doesn't allow the burning of CDs and was plagued with technical glitches when it started up (Tech Times, Dec. 17). In addition to making the music portable, Pressplay is better organized, its system of downloads is more consumer-friendly, it has more flexibility in its pricing plans and its customer service was fast and responsive. But -- you knew some bad news was coming -- its selection is only about 50,000 songs, less than MusicNet's 75,000 and a mere drop of what Napster had at its height. Also, it took several attempts to sign up because of glitches. Here's how it works: Users go first to the Pressplay Web site and choose among three links leading to different Web sites where they can sign up and download the software: MSN, Yahoo or Roxio. Signup requires an e-mail address and credit card information. I signed up and downloaded the software, but it refused to let me log on. I rejected the e-mail suggestion from Pressplay customer service that I clear the cookies saved on my computer and try again. That would have meant losing a lot of personal settings on various Web sites. Pressplay cheerfully canceled that account. The second attempt on my son's computer allowed me to sign up, but it wouldn't download from any of the sites. It just sat there with a download icon spinning. I went back to my computer, where I downloaded the software successfully and this time logged on. Once I was on the service, I did not endure problems with failed downloads and broken links as I did with MusicNet. Pressplay offers four monthly pricing plans: $9.95 to stream (listen from the Web) 300 songs and download (store on your hard drive) 30 songs; $14.95 to stream 500, download 50 and burn 10 onto a CD or portable music device; $19.95 to stream 750, download 75 and burn 15; and $24.95 to stream 1,000, download 100 and burn 20. (It also offers a free 14-day trial of the $9.95 plan, a smart marketing move.) Unlike MusicNet, Pressplay allows downloaded songs to accumulate and be played as long as the user is a subscriber. With MusicNet, a user can download a song but listen to it for only that month, unless he wants to download it again the next month. So a Pressplay user could collect 360 songs a year under the $9.95 monthly plan. Pressplay lets users search by genre (such as rock, jazz or alternative), artist or album, as well as create personalized playlists with downloaded songs. It also understands how to alphabetize A-Z, another weakness of MusicNet, but it does not offer a Net radio service, one of MusicNet's highlights. The service requires the latest versions of Internet Explorer and the Windows Media Player, and allows users to set it up on more than one computer, which we couldn't do with MusicNet. But, Pressplay is not yet available for users of Windows 95, Windows NT or Macintosh. It worked almost flawlessly: With one or two exceptions, streaming music played without interruption, and downloads were easy. But that was on a high-speed cable connection. I suspect that using it on a slower dial-up phone connection would cause more interruptions. Next, it was time to turn it over to my 16-year-old son, who had been unimpressed with MusicNet. He liked Pressplay's artist selection more, but not enough to say it was worth the money. Even the ability to burn a CD or copy to his MP3 player didn't make a difference to him. One of the restrictions on CD burning: no more than two songs a month from an artist. That effectively blocks burning a full album by an artist. So while Pressplay is a big step forward for online subscription services, at least from the recording industry, it's still not the whole answer. Users need a service that gives users a broader choice without having to subscribe to more than one music service to hear all their favorites. - Dave Gussow can be reached at gussow@sptimes.com or (727) 445-4228.
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