Musicmatch Jukebox

Musicmatch Jukebox has long been a major player in the digital audio player category, however it always came in third. Mostly because of its resource hogging nature and also because it has remained a shareware player from the beginning. Another factor is the limited enhancements that are available for the player. But these does not in any way make this player a lesser mortal. Musicmatch Jukebox was one of the first players that let users on to the completely new world of online radio. Another first was the “try before you buy” shopping style of online music, which later became a rage with iTunes (their marketing strategy and pricing was much better). Something better than what iTunes offers is the sampling of what you are getting before you buy a song. You can savour different genres of music for a little fee every month, which was possible only with this player earlier but is now available on most players.

Musicmatch Jukebox 10

Musicmatch Jukebox was bought over by Yahoo! Inc in 2004 and is in version 10 currently. The free version of MusicMatch Jukebox does not offer you much in terms of features however the Plus or the paid version allows to rip CD’s and also convert music from old tapes to MP3’s.

Musicmatch Jukebox has its fair share of fan following, however with new players coming up every other day and older players getting a makeover of late; Musicmatch Jukebox does need to renew its looks.

The good: Radical interface upgrade offers speedier performance and customization; On Demand subscription service nicely integrated into jukebox; remote access to On Demand; share playlists with non-Musicmatch friends; all-in-one player, ripper, encoder, burner, online radio receiver, music manager, MP3 player loader, and download service; secure songs transfer to MP3 players; supports Universal Plug and Play devices; even more customizable; Auto DJ incorporates On Demand tracks.

The bad: Audiocentric jukebox has no support for video or photos; annoying "upgrade to Plus version" offers; some may balk at playlist-centric design.

The bottom line: This music jukebox/subscription service/store combination does it all, but its playlist-centric interface can cause confusion.