From today's Wall Street Journal: "[Jupiter Communications analyst Aram] Sinnreich doesn't expect to see widespread downloading of music from the Web to PCs any time soon. Most Internet users currently have slow, dial-up access that makes music downloads too time-consuming and cumbersome...

"Instead, he expects AOL Time Warner to introduce something akin to what he calls a 'personalized radio subscription.' Users could pay to listen to songs from the top 10 artists in a particular musical genre for one month, for example. Dial-up Internet subscribers use special software to do this without downloading anything onto their PCs."

Read the rest of the story about the Time Warner purchase of EMI by using "search" in today's WSJ here (subscription required).

CNET News notes that "when AOL and Time Warner launch their music initiative, they will have about 35 percent of American recorded music at their disposal." In CNET News here.

A Reuters article adds that music "is the one media that is already in huge demand by consumers and that is conducive to the Internet as it stands today," quoting Kevin Hause, an analyst with International Data Corp. In Media Central here.




From Radio Ink: "AMFM and traffic.com, Inc. (www.traffic.com), a provider of real-time traffic and logistics information services, today announced a strategic alliance whereby traffic.com will act as a national representative for a portion of AMFM's active information spot inventory and provide traffic reports to AMFM radio stations in Philadelphia beginning in April 2000.

"In connection with the representation agreement, traffic.com will receive future advertising and promotional time on AMFM's radio properties. Additionally, as part of the transaction AMFM received warrants to purchase a minority equity stake in traffic.com.

"Starting in April, traffic.com will also begin providing traffic information for broadcast and Internet use in the Philadelphia market where AMFM owns WDAS-FM/AM, WJJZ-FM, WLCE-FM, WIOQ-FM and WUSL-FM."

Read the full story in Radio Ink here. Visit the traffic.com website by clicking the image above; the Philadelphia deal is the beginning of a national roll-out for the firm.



The Hiwire streaming audio tuner/player that we wrote about last week in RAIN will be incorporated, effective immediately, within the latest version of MusicMatch's jukebox system, the firms announced yesterday.

The new MusicMatch software will be pre-loaded on about 4 million new PCs before the year is over, according to Hiwire.




MusicMatch's system, which has received excellent reviews from the press (read a review from PC Magazine here), already supports MP3, Windows Media Audio, Icecast and Shoutcast streaming audio. Its jukebox features allow users to record CDs and organize the music on their system into playlists.

The Hiwire features can be accessed via the "Radio" button two buttons to the left of the "MusicMatch" logo on the system's "tuner" window. The "Go to Station's Website" button in the MusicMatch version opens up a full-size browser window rather than the 1/3-size window in Hiwire's own player that we wrote about last week. The "Station Selector" feature is identical to Hiwire's except for the color scheme.

MusicMatch Jukebox version 4.5 is a free download currently available here. (A $29.95 upgrade allows users to record CDs onto the hard drive at a higher quality level.) More details in Streaming Media News here.



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