eMusic going Web 2.0

It's sometimes lost in all the flavor-of-the-week mix-remix-download-social networking sites, but eMusic has been selling DRM-free MP3s--meaning they can be played on the iPod or any other player--from independent labels and artists for a decade now, and has a reasonable claim to be the No. 2 music store behind iTunes.

The venerable MP3 retailer is getting a redesign.

(Credit: eMusic)

A planned redesign is meant to help eMusic retain this position. According to reports in Fortune and Digital Music News, the site's slated for an overhaul beginning next week. Artist pages will be updated with Wikipedia biographies, original editorial content, and embedded YouTube videos. In a nod to Web 2.0, fans will be able to embed portions of these artist profiles, including streaming song samples, in their Facebook pages, as well as on other social-recommendation sites such as Digg. A navigational update is also in the works--for such a well-established site, eMusic is kind of hard to get around.

One thing they're not getting rid of: the subscription-based purchasing model. That's always been a deal-breaker for me, as I simply don't download 30 songs from independent artists and labels per month. Still, if you're a voracious consumer of new music, and prefer legal downloads to file-sharing or buying physical recordings, eMusic remains an excellent choice.

[Patrikc325]

I hope they do it right. I am seeing problems with the new www.lala.com and www.lastfm.com and their web 2.0 attempts.

[Preserved Killick]

I agree with the 'deal-breaker' comment. The subscription model was a big waste of my money-- while I was a member I felt obligated to plow through their recommendations hunting for something worth downloading. I rarely used up my monthly quota and it just felt like work. I'm happy now-- I hear a song I like, I write down the title and download the plain vanilla mp3 from Amazon.

[gerrrg]

Including the first free 50 songs and with 3 months' worth of downloading, I haven't had problems finding music that I want and using up all my download quotas. The radio station that I listen to (KNRK) in Portland Oregon plays a lot of the songs that I find on eMusic. Yes, there are a lot of songs that I can't find, but so what....I can buy them individually from somewhere else.

I would pay gladly pay the same price for half the songs if they offered those songs in FLAC format, but I doubt too many companies will be going that route. I would actually appreciate this more than any other change that they might institute.