Japan is the latest country that’s tuned into online music. Yahoo Japan, the Japanese chapter of the US-based search engine and portal giant, launched an audio service through which music aficionados can listen to their favorite songs, in full, online without paying a penny for it.
According to Yahoo Japan spokesman Masaki Hanyu, visitors to the popular portal would be able to choose and listen to tracks from over 100,000 songs. Other sites offering online music allow a user to listen to 30-second song bytes only. The new service is scheduled for launch on August 29, Hanyu said.
As the Internet war gets hotter, Yahoo Japan is hoping to lure music lovers into buying music from its online shopping portal or from its music downloads section which charges a fee per downloadable track. According to reports, the offering stems from an effort to counter Apple Computer’s iTunes online music store which launched on August 4 in Japan. In a period of four days, iTunes sold one million songs online at a cost of 150 yen per track.
Through the new service, Yahoo Japan hopes to not only garner advertising and commission revenue but also to boost traffic to its online radio and music channels. The site charges about 210 yen for downloading chart-topping hits and 150 yen for other songs. Yahoo Japan is a joint venture between Japan’s Softbank Corp and US-based Yahoo Inc that own 42 and 33 per cent stake in the company respectively.
Other sites in the running for the Japan online music market include the likes of Mora, Sony, Excite and Oricon.
