Yahoo Unveils New Yahoo Music with Artist Pages

Yahoo has been involved in online music for years, but now they've revamped their Yahoo Music division to better compete in the digital music space. Released today, the new Yahoo Music features both paid and free music services and partners with other online music providers. Yahoo is the second leading online music destination, after AOL Music.

It offers different modules (which you can drag and move around) such as free audio streaming services from Last.fm and Pandora, videos from Youtube, and the ability to buy music downloads from iTunes and Amazon.com. Yahoo Music also offers a new feature called Artist Pages that gives access to information and products from various musicians (500,000 in all, Yahoo says), including concert dates and tickets, photos, lyrics, and blogs.

I'll post more about Yahoo Music after I get the chance to kick the tires and take it for a spin.

Microsoft Offers to Buy Yahoo

Microsoft has coveted Yahoo for a long time in its quest to better compete with Google, and now Mr. Softy has formally made a bid for Yahoo.

Microsoft's bid, which it made on Friday, is an unsolicited offer to purchase Yahoo for $44.6 billion in cash and stock. Mr. Softy is offering $31 a share for Yahoo, which is 62% above Yahoo's closing stock price on Thursday afternoon. Yahoo said it would consider the bid.

From a music fan's point of view, I'm wondering what the purchase, if it goes through, would mean for services like Yahoo Music. Would Microsoft try to put its clunky DRM protections or other restrictions on Yahoo music, in order to try to get users to pay for unrestricted content to try to make money to earn back some of the millions it would pay for Yahoo? Microsoft doesn't have a good track record on music and copyright-related matters, so I'm wary. And as someone who uses a number of Yahoo services, I'm not sure I want Microsoft in control of my personal info, especially in light of Mr. Softy's many problems with Windows security.