Sunnyvale, California — Yahoo Inc. is continually attempting to smarten up its diminishing services to attract more users is opening up to include third party services to its own. Yahoo is joining hands with other online music providers, will launch a revamped version of its music service today, which will include Artists Pages that will be customizable with modules from competing services like iTunes, Amazon, Last.fm, Rhapsody, Pandora, and YouTube, and more exciting stuff is on the way, too, as the Internet giant tries a fresh approach to getting an edge in the evolving digital music business.
The new version of Yahoo Music, planned to be introduced today, adds up paid and free music services available on the Internet, allowing Yahoo users to access and interact with the services directly from the Yahoo site.
Users visiting the revamped version of its Artist Pages on Tuesday, will have the option of listening to music from iTunes, Amazon, Last.fm, Rhapsody, Pandora, or YouTube while remaining on the Yahoo site.
Artist Pages at Yahoo! Music will also feature concert pages with tour dates, music videos, band reviews, downloads, streaming content, editorial content, and more from other music-themed online content, the northern California Internet firm announced said. Yahoo said that it will soon open up its platform to any musician, artist, or record label so they can create their own artist pages.
“We are creating a truly open and indispensable music destination,” said Jeff Dossett, senior vice president of Yahoo!’s North America Audience Group.
Users will be able to customize Artist Pages with software “modules” that connect to Internet radio services such as Last.fm and Pandora as well as Google-owned YouTube video-sharing website, according to Yahoo!
Yahoo first announced plans for a more open music platform in September.
Yahoo has made commercial association with digital music retailers like Apple Inc’s, collecting a fee for every referral, the company said.
The move comes a little over a year after Yahoo announced it was shuttering its own paid-music service, and is in keeping with the company’s latest efforts to make Yahoo a more open service by integrating products and services developed by other companies.
“We really wish to concentrate on offering the service that is most valuable to users, and then partner with third parties to provide the entire set of music services,” said Yahoo Music General Manager Michael Spiegelman, who described the new Yahoo Music as a major strategic shift for Yahoo.
The move comes as Yahoo attempts to sustain its sinking fortunes and follow through on an “Open Social” strategy that breaks down walls between the online service and other websites.
Yahoo hopes to improve the social aspects of its website in order to attract more users to its online services and get existing users to spend more time on its advertising-supported pages.
In all, the company said, Yahoo Music will offer music or information about 500,000 artists, about double the size of the selection Yahoo previously offered. The idea, Spiegelman said, is to provide a starting point for people to get information about any artist they are interested in.
Yahoo Music was the No. 2 online music site in December, with 19.6 million unique visitors, according to research company comScore. Time Warner Inc’s AOL Music was the top site with 24.6 million visitors, while News Corp’s MySpace Music ranked third with 17.2 million visitors.
Former Autodesk chief executive Carol Bartz, who took the reins from Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang in January, claims more than 500 million users worldwide but has been struggling to cash in on its popularity.
The version set to be launched today is technically a “beta” test version, although the company said it is available to the general public.
Yahoo shares were off 33 cents, or 2.5 percent, at $13.01 in afternoon trading on Monday.