Pros & Cons
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- Simple browser-based interface; personal Music Now library accessible from any PC; up to three PCs can stream tracks simultaneously; works with all PlaysForSure-compatible players.
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- Few playback controls for streamed tracks; limited options for playlist management; not Firefox-friendly.
In late 2005, America Online pulled the plug on its
All you need to stream any of Music Now's 1.5 million songs are a PC (the service doesn't work on Macs), a Web browser, and an Internet connection (preferably broadband, though dial-up is supported). Except for an optional utility that's only necessary if you want to download tracks, there's nothing to install; you can listen from any computer and from any locale—at work, a friend's house, the airport, or wherever—just as easily as if you were at home.
Though still in beta, the service exhibits all the polish of a sophisticated, established product. Its simple, understated home page contains four navigation tabs, a search box, and neatly organized spotlight sections that include new releases, top songs, and the nifty Daily Playlist. At first blush, the last seems like little more than a radio station, but it's much better: It functions like a Web-based auto-DJ, selecting a batch of tunes based on the songs and artists you've played before.
The navigation tabs, accessible from any page on the site, let you easily switch between Music Now's catalog (Get Music) and your personal, Web-based library of songs, albums, artists, and playlists (My Music). Missing, but sorely needed, is a Radio tab, which would solve a vexing problem: the service doesn't offer a master list of available radio stations. Instead, they're haphazardly scattered across various artist and genre pages. Once you've found a station you like, adding it to My Music for later listening is easy, but I'd prefer to could browse stations instead of just stumbling upon them.
Note that most of these features are available to subscribers only; non-subscribers are restricted to the Get Music tab, where they can buy tunes for 99 cents each or play 30-second snippets.
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Listen Anywhere
If you're a subscriber, the real beauty of Music Now is the virtual mobility of your personal library: It goes where you go. Adding playlists, artists, songs, and stations to your Music Now account creates a kind of virtual jukebox that you can access from wherever you're logged in. What's tricky is trying to integrate this jukebox with any non-Music Now tracks (MP3s, WMAs, and other formats) stored on your hard drive: The only way to do so is by physically downloading the Music Now tracks, then playing everything in Windows Media Player (bit rate remains at 128Kbps, regardless of whether you stream music or download it).
Streamed tracks appear in a small pop-up player that's based on a combination of javascript, HTML, and the Windows Media Player 9 ActiveX control. The player's straightforward interface includes basic shuttle controls, a shuffle option, and a drop-down menu for quickly tuning to a playlist, radio station, or hotlist. (Hotlists are essentially radio stations tied to a specific chart, genre, or artist, and their content changes dynamically.) A special icon lets you add a song to My Music, download it, and add it to a playlist.
You can instantly add anything in your My Music library to a playlist. But while you can fairly easily modify the track order within playlists, you can't move or copy songs between them, and a lack of drag-and-drop capabilities definitely slows things down. In addition, the pop-up player displays only the currently playing track (with album art, a nice touch). You can't adjust song order on the fly or skip to a specific song.
Music Now works best with Internet Explorer. Although I was able to access the service from Firefox, trying to select a song or playlist made the page go blank—I had to click the Back button to return to the Music Now service. According to AOL, improved Firefox support is "on the roadmap." Browser notwithstanding, however, you'll need Windows Media Player 10 to transfer tracks to a portable player (anything that's compatible with PlaysForSure will do). I tested it with Creative's
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Pay to Play
Like many of its competitors—including top-rated Napster—AOL charges $9.95 per month for unlimited streaming and downloads, and $14.95 per month if you want to add a portable player to the mix. Songs cost 99 cents each whether you subscribe or not. I'm glad you can stream music on up to three PCs at a time; this makes it possible to share one account between multiple family members in different locations.
Later this spring, AOL plans to offer downloadable music videos as part of its subscription plan. Not only will you be able to watch unlimited videos on your PC, you'll be able to watch them on your portable player as well. Note to AOL: While you're at it, consider linking Music Now with your recently released
In the meantime, I'm enjoying Music Now immensely. The ability to access my music from any Web-connected PC is a major benefit, and for about the cost of one CD per month, I can pack my MP3 player to the brim with music. And I don't have to bother with the slow, clunky, and often confusing software that tends to bog down other subscription services. AOL Music Now is so simple to use that virtually anyone can figure it out: As long as you can work a Web browser, accessing the service's mammoth content catalog is a cinch.
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Final Thoughts
AOL Music Now
An excellent alternative to software-driven subscription services, Music Now brings unsurpassed simplicity to online listening.