We’ve all been calling it MTV Urge for months but that misses the point. It’s the music service of MTV Networks- not one network — something that is obvious as soon as the screen loads. MTV, VH1 and CMT each have a major presence, and it looks like care was taken to make sure one network doesn’t appear to be more equal. The networks also are at the core of what is supposed to really make Urge stand out: the programming.
WMP11: Far more technically minded people than me are hard at word deconstructing the differences between WMP versions. Based on demos, most recently at NAB, I knew the look was very different. I clicked on pictures — it started to show my photos by date. When I looked for videos, it found my few home videos. Playing was easy, the window was full size and the look was good. It’s meant to integrate with the Windows Media Center for recorded TV. As soon as I went back to music, Urge re-emerged. At first glance, it’s a serious upgrade.
Installation: Installing WMP11 took a little time on the computer with a lot of multimedia loaded but was simple. Installing Urge as the default music store was as easy as it should be. I’m told that if I already had a default music store, that would stay in place during an upgrade. My installation came through the update to WMP11 so Urge looks secondary to the player in some ways. Downloads starting from Urge.com or one of the network sites and added as a plug-in to WMP11 have more branding on the desktop, similar to that of standalone music services. An XML file with all of the metadata for everything in the catalog is loaded at install.
The look: Black background, lots of cover art, long scrolling pages. A block showing the genres looks like a tag cloud. The front page could feel cluttered given the amount of information showcased, but it’s organized enough not to come off that way. Some pages show too little text before scrolling. Flash and Ajax play prominent roles.
Music: More than 2 million tracks provided through Musicnet.
Programming: MTVN stresses the role of hands-on programming across the service from 500 or so “handmade” playlists to 130-plus DJ-programmed radio stations. About two dozen bloggers are supposed to be writing regularly about different genres or other aspects. Other editorial elements include artist profiles, interviews, etc. A recurring sidebar links to offerings programmed by the various networks: for instance, the greatest country duets and an 82-song playlist that can be downloaded as is. It links back to the broadcast schedule for the “100 Greatest Songs” show on CMT.
Devices/Syncing: One of the selling points of Urge and WMP11 is downward compatibility with devices powered through WMP10 — the first round of “Plays for Sure.” I connected my Creative Zen Micro to my laptop, opened the Media Player and My Zen showed up. Within minutes, I could see the contents organized by album with cover art. My device was pictured at the top of the sync list; actually the picture was identified as the 5G version, mine is only 4G. The sync showed the right amount of space left. It was easy to delete albums or tracks and then to search for what I wanted on Urge, drag and drop to the sync list and click start sync. If tracks aren’t on the computer already, they’re downloaded and synced at the same time. It also can reverse sync from the device to the PC. I’ll be trying a device native to WMP11 soon and will see how it differs.
Some numbers: Launches with more than 2 million tracks provided through MusicNet. Organized by 18 main genres and more than 400 styles. 130-plus DJ-driven radio stations.
Upshot: Worth a second look. Would I trade in one of the other services for it? So far, it’s a strong challenger — stronger if some performance issues like slow-loading pages are resolved early in the beta. Was it worth the wait? Viacom should have been out front; since that wasn’t the case, they had to launch with something that takes full advantage of the technology developed in the interim while playing to MTVN’s strengths.
Subscriber content
?
Subscriber content comes from Gigaom Research, bridging the gap between breaking news and long-tail research. Visit any of our reports to learn more and subscribe.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Comments have been disabled for this post