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Yahoo! Businesses The Internet Media Music Software Upgrades

Yahoo Downgrades MusicMatch Jukebox 217

Posted by kdawson from the nice-while-it-lasted dept.
BanjoBob writes "MusicMatch Jukebox has been a bundle of great MP3 and music management applications in one package. Apparently, it is the end of life for this wonderful MP3 player, ripper, catalog, CD player, Internet radio player, purchase outlet, Auto DJ, Super Tagger, and music database. There was nothing not to like about the product. There is nothing to like about the new downgrade, Yahoo! Music Jukebox. MusicMatch users have been getting notices to 'upgrade'; those who have taken the bait are not pleased. The Yahoo! Music Jukebox feedback forum doesn't have much nice to say about the product. Lots of features have gone away and the 'free upgrade' costs about $20."
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Yahoo Downgrades MusicMatch Jukebox More

Yahoo Downgrades MusicMatch Jukebox

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  • That's a shame (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 09, 2007 @08:22AM (#19798729)
    Maybe we should petition Apple to create some kind of easy-to-use jukebox software to replace it since they have a lot of experience with GUI design issues because of MacOS. Still, it's unlikely they'd be willing to port such a piece of software to Windows unless they had some incredible financial incentive to do so... perhaps create some type of device that can be used on both Windows PCs and Macs so it would give them an incentive to write this cool jukebox software to run on Windows too?

  • Yahoo is killing itself (Score:5, Informative)

    by SCHecklerX ( 229973 ) <greg@gksnetworks.com> on Monday July 09, 2007 @08:22AM (#19798731) Homepage
    They ruined their TV listings this year too:
    http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/12/03/yahoo-gets-tr ashed-by-users/ [techcrunch.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by eht ( 8912 )
      Yah, when I figured out I couldn't turn off the "beta" features I moved over to TVGuide.com which had almost the same format that the Yahoo TV listing used to have(when it was useful).

  • Oh dear. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tygerstripes ( 832644 ) on Monday July 09, 2007 @08:23AM (#19798749)
    The missus has been using Musicmatch Jukebox for ages now - ever since it came bundled with her MP3/CD walkman. She's always ranting about how every upgrade to every application she uses seems to work worse and more slowly than the last (Adobe Reader is her latest pet-hate, and understandably so).

    Fortunately she's had enough and decided to spend some time over the summer installing and learning to use Linux. At least she hasn't been ripping all her CDs into WMA...

    • Actually Adobe Reader has gotten pretty fast with the latest version, whereas you had to book appointments if you wanted to open the earlier ones.

      Musicmatch Jukebox I never cared for, after the last time I tried it 4 years ago. I imagine it's worse than even iTunes now...

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Blue Stone ( 582566 )
        "...Adobe Reader has gotten pretty fast with the latest version ..."

        You must be one of the lucky ones. I uninstalled it as unusable after enless lock-ups due to the updater portion of the program.

        • Hmm, odd, it never gave me a problem... Of course, I just dismiss the updater. Nowadays I use foxit because it's marginally faster, but I might go back for the better rendering.
          • I prefer Foxit too but twice recently it's blue-screened when printing out a particular PDF, for once I'm not blaming Windows. OK, so there's something malformed in the PDF which causes it to barf (Adobe renders it perfectly, of course), but blue-screening is a bit much. A pity as otherwise it's a great replacement. Now returning you to our scheduled topic...
        • If you're running windows, http://tinyurl.com/4a4a6 [tinyurl.com], (if you're not, plenty of FOSS stuff on *nix).

          Loads fast, works really well, and basic version is free.

          But this is getting offtopic...

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by anethema ( 99553 )

      (Adobe Reader is her latest pet-hate, and understandably so)
      Actually, adobe reader comes with a lot of cruft you can do without. Just hold shift while starting it and it will start MUCH faster and take less resources.

      Alternately there are a few programs out there you can google for that will remove the cruft permanently :)

  • Yahoo! sucks (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Junior J. Junior III ( 192702 ) on Monday July 09, 2007 @08:25AM (#19798765) Homepage
    Every time I hear about Yahoo! buying up some part of the internet, a little part of me dies inside. Every single thing they acquire gets made worse as a result. Flickr, OneList/eGroups, etc. It's sad, back when Yahoo! was a search engine + portal, they were probably the most useful web site on the internet, but after google eclipsed their search capability, they quickly became useless to me, despite every attempt they've made at staying relevant by offering email and IM services, etc. They're almost as bad as AOL these days.

  • Use Winamp... It's better. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sjs132 ( 631745 ) on Monday July 09, 2007 @08:26AM (#19798771) Homepage Journal
    I've had problems with MusicMatch bloat for about 2 years now... EVERY TIME I would launch it, it would take so long to go out and "update" streams, etc.. So I finally gave up. I HAD bought the LIFETIME upgrade YEARS ago on it.. so if someone wants to buy my key...

    On the other side, WINAMP is awsome... Supports MORE formats than MusicMatch, and has shoutcast, etc.. Again, software worth supporting.

    Plus cool skins in Winamp... DUMP Musicmatch and pick up Winamp, you'll be happy when you need to access you music on the windows platform with it.

      -Steve
    • Get the latest 2.x version you can find. Really lightweight and supports a lot of audio formats.

      Later versions suck by comparison.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by xtracto ( 837672 )
      I used to use Winamp as my media player (also used MMJB around the 1990s I think) and, after trying several Media players to replace Winamp (I dont like Winamp media library management) I kept returning to Winamp + folders. That is until I read here on slashdot about MediaMonkey [mediamonkey.com], I *really* really recommend it, I have been using it for about 1 year and I do not regret it. I still have Winamp installed but never really use it. I use MediaMonkey for my music library and VLC for video.

      Of course if you are on l
    • I also purchased the full version of MMJB a few versions ago - I think it was version 8 - because I really liked it, much better than WinAmp or other (at the time) available alternatives. I even recommended it to family, and on my music-related website.

      Version 9 had some nice new features, together with some added annoyances and nags. I was still sort of happy.

      But then version 10 came out... and within weeks I'd uninstalled it and gone back to version 9 (I'm glad I keep copies of my downloaded install progr

    • Can't...parse... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Mr. Underbridge ( 666784 ) on Monday July 09, 2007 @10:23AM (#19800097)

      I HAD bought the LIFETIME upgrade YEARS ago on it..

      Dude, you type like Shatner talks.

  • Not to mention (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mpickut ( 721322 ) on Monday July 09, 2007 @08:26AM (#19798777)
    Not to mention that it forces you to see their ads every time you start up. Music Match let you start in your music library, but now you see Yahoo's shilling for their products. Their radio stations put ads after every 3 or 4 songs unless you upgrade to their service too. Can anyone suggest another product for me on xp that has comparable features?
    • Not sure what features you use, but have you tried winamp [winamp.com]. With the various add-ins winamp can duplicate almost everything listed in the original post.
  • Ok, ok, so it's probably because I haven't used it for about 7 years, but I hated that program with a passion. In fact, I still blame that program for every shitty, joint stereo, artifact laden mp3 on the internet.

    Please ignore the irrationality of any opinions stated or implied herein.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by afidel ( 530433 )
      What's wrong with joint stereo?!? I know that using a crappy encoder it can make things worse, but that's no reason to blame the feature. In fact using a good encoder like LAME or Fraunhoffer it makes things significantly better because it only goes to joint stereo when the channels are truly the same leaving more bits in the bucket to encode the detail in the music.
      • Heh, parent correct.

        For those interested, see the wiki [wikipedia.org], or this page. [freeuk.com] "Joint Stereo" can refer to a number of techniques, some of which work better than others, and some implimentations are better than others. I had incorrectly assumed it to be a compression feature not worth the bit savings ~ and it's MusicMatch's fault ;-)

  • not exactly new news (Score:3, Interesting)

    by eck011219 ( 851729 ) on Monday July 09, 2007 @08:32AM (#19798825)
    I "upgraded" to Yahoo Music Jukebox about five to six months ago when I reinstalled Windows. I just went to what I thought would be MusicMatch and found this Yahoo thing -- I thought it would be roughly the same, but it stinks. The constant badgering to upgrade to the premium service is hard to take. Sadly, iTunes stinks just as much in different ways.
  • Anyone out there have a link to the last known "good" version? I haven't used it in a while and would like to get the penultimate uncrippled version. For the archives, yeah, that's it, the archives...

  • Stopped long ago (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ollabelle ( 980205 ) on Monday July 09, 2007 @08:41AM (#19798887)
    I stopped upgrading Musicmatch years ago by permanently blocking it from accessing the internet, back when I discovered the 'old' version ripped iTunes CD's and the 'new' didn't; it was a free no-choice-in-the-matter 'upgrade.' At that moment I learned my lesson and got off the upgrade train for all my applications unless and until I understood what was changing and why ahead of time.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by pclark999 ( 603133 )
      It is possible to rip CD's created by iTunes. You have to turn off iTunes before running Musicmatch.

  • "nothing not to like" -- horses$%^ (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gonar ( 78767 ) <sparkalicious@@@verizon...net> on Monday July 09, 2007 @08:42AM (#19798899) Homepage
    "nothing not to like" ?!?!?! BULS&*@!

    musicmatch was a big hairy craptacular piece of garbage.

  • Who cares. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jgijanto ( 1125695 ) on Monday July 09, 2007 @08:45AM (#19798931)
    Music match was a bloated piece of shit 4 years ago - I'd hate to see what new "features" were added in that time period!

  • MMJB has many faults (Score:5, Informative)

    by phayes ( 202222 ) on Monday July 09, 2007 @08:46AM (#19798933) Homepage

    There was nothing not to like about the product.
    There are many things not to like about MMJB:
    Tags that are changed when MMJB is playing a song are not updated in the MP3 files themselves. The Library is updated, but not the files.
    Versions before 9.0 had multiple libraries which I used extensively. MMJB 10.0 only has 1 library.
    MMJB used to have skins that were well documented & easily changeable. No longer.
    MMJB used to be a fairly lightweight audio player. MMJB has multiple background processes that must run on system startup.
    These daemon processes are the cause on 90% of MMJB's crashes.
    These daemon processes do not die easily causing slow reboots (you usually have to kill the processes off when after 30 seconds of inactivity windows notes that they didn't die when asked "nicely").
    These daemon processes prevent external volumes like USB disks & keys from unmounting cleanly, so you have to kill them off by hand.
    The one task that the deamon processes are supposed to be useful for from a users point of view (noticing that I renamed/moved files in my MP3 collection using the windows explorer so that MMJB will update the library) does not work reliably. I still have to go in & fix the library by hand.
    The Jukebox + features like super tagging that I bought so that I could easily relabel my collection have stopped working because yahoo has turned off the web servers that they rely on.

    I have a "lifetime" MMJB+ license without any of the DRM'ed "On Demand" features. I tried the Yahoo client and agree with BanjoBob that for me at least, is worse than MMJB.
    • From the parent post of changed features I would suspect they either re-wrote the app, or replaced it and attempted to make it somewhat similar. Probably because they don't have the original crew to maintain the original code anymore. Happens too often.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by phayes ( 202222 )
        According to what Yahoo reps have been saying in the ~ 2 years since they bought MM, they were taking all the best features of MMJB & integrating them into Yahoo's existing client. I'm not impressed with their "integration" of MMJB's "best features". I'm subscribed to a Musicmatch mailing list @home with the detailed info, but from what everyone has been saying there, The only significant advantage in the new Yahoo client is Yahoo's DRM'ed OnDemand music subscription which has a better collection than M
    • It comes bundled on some PCs--my church PC had it--which automatically degrades it down to the level of slime in my eyes, regardless of whether or not it is a good product. It was quickly uninstalled.

  • Songbird (Score:2, Interesting)

    by DomesticatedOnion ( 794185 )
    Yeah! MusicMatch does everything, but everything badly. Try Mozilla based, cross-platform Songbird http://www.songbirdnest.com/ [songbirdnest.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cooley ( 261024 )
      Hey thanks buddy, I had not heard of Songbird and it looks pretty neat. I'd be pleased to have a player that would have a similar interface no matter which OS I'm using.

  • Free Upgrade? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ObsessiveMathsFreak ( 773371 ) <obsessivemathsfreak.eircom@net> on Monday July 09, 2007 @09:02AM (#19799041) Homepage Journal
    I don't get it. How can a "free" upgrade cost money? Is there some loophole in trade law that allows this?

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by leehwtsohg ( 618675 )
      If I propose to upgrade your car to a pumpkin for free, the upgrade might end up costing you money.

  • Comparison of Windows Media Players (Score:5, Informative)

    by pclark999 ( 603133 ) on Monday July 09, 2007 @09:07AM (#19799115)
    I recently experienced the Musicmatch downgrade. As a result, I went out and collected Windows-based MP3 players. Here are my conclusions: 1. Musicmatch v10. - didn't work well with large MP3 libraries. The librarian program (MIM.EXE) had a nasty habit of hanging the whole system. Has my personal favorite music browsing interface, a tree with Artist/Album/Songs 2. iTunes v7.2 - only interface to the iTunes store, which is the best MP3 storefront I have found. Has a nasty habit of using 100% of system resources whenever it wants to. I dislike the browser interface. DRM'd to the max. I only use this to manage my iPod and buy music. 3. WinAmp v5.35 - heavily customizable, but I could never figure out how to implement my favored music browsing interface. Too damn many Windows. 4. MediaMonkey v2.5.5 - my new favorite player. Gives me the Music Explorer Tree. Fast. Let's me play music and playlists from my iPod, which even iTunes won't let me do. Reasonable ripping. 5. Windows Media Player v11 - Slick looking user interface. Lousy music browser. Also DRM'd to the max. A Microsoft product - need I say more? 6. Yahoo MusicMatch - Don't know the version because it pissed me off so much I deleted it from my computer. This player has the music player trifecta - DRM'd, slow, lousy interface. Oh yes, and it deluges you with annoying adds. Avoid this player like the plague. Bottomline - if they had just FIXED MusicMatch v10, I think it would have been the best of the lot. Instead, Yahoo replaced it with some crap they scraped off the sidewalk. I'm trapped with iTunes to manage my iPod, although I suspect that if I screw around with MediaMonkey it will do that, too. Use WinAmp if you like blinking lights and pretty pictures. Otherwise, MediaMonkey is the best of the lot.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by nerdup ( 523587 )

      I'm trapped with iTunes to manage my iPod

      Try Rockbox (www.rockbox.org). It's a free, open-source replacement for the ipod's firmware that allows you to do all sorts of things not possible with the original firmware, like drag a music file to your ipod in Windows Explorer and then listen to it. Rockbox has its flaws too, but I dislike Itunes and the original Ipod firmware so much that I changed it to Rockbox within hours of buying my Ipod and haven't regretted it since.

    • Re:Comparison of Windows Media Players (Score:4, Informative)

      by Jah-Wren Ryel ( 80510 ) on Monday July 09, 2007 @03:15PM (#19804341)
      Try foobar2000 - should be at the top of a google search for foobar.
      It is spartan, but efficient.
      It requires a few add-ons like the Columns UI to make pleasant, and it is very customizable but doesn't come with anything fancy out of the box - you can roll your own or borrow from the the thousands of examples people share on the forums.
  • Remember when a specially modified version of Musicmatch was the official software for the Windows version of the iPod?

    Apple did that because the had no port of iTunes for Windows yet and so they bundled a special version of the Musicmatch software with their Windows iPods. I remember reviews of that time comparing Musicmatch with iTunes and at that point Musicmatch was actually halfway decent (still couldnt hold a candle to iTunes though).

    Sadly, it all got downhill after that...
    • MMJB got bad around the same time its original programmer 'accidentally' drowned in a lake. Look it up sometime. It was already bad at the time it came with the iPod (of course, that generation of iPod was also a POS and iTunes was and is no better).
    • I remember it didn't do "syncing" (i.e. differential) updates. When you wanted to add 1 song the entire library was re-copied to the ipod. I remember it took like 20-30 minutes to update my 15gb back then.

      When iTunes for Windows came out I finally got why people loved the iPod. Just being able to add 1 song at a time was a miracle...

  • Media Monkey (Score:2, Informative)

    by KenAndCorey ( 581410 )
    I was frustrated by MMJB for quite a while, but I couldn't find another product that tagged my files as well. I finally gave up when the application would just crash on me at start-up. I have finally found my nirvana: MediaMonkey [mediamonkey.com]. I only use the free version and it does everything I want, including helping with renaming, creating folders based on ID3 info, searching for duplicates, adding album artwork, conversion from flac and other formats to MP3. I highly recommend it.
    • Wow, you use it for the easy stuff. I use MediaMonkey for tagging my FLACs/APEs and syncing to my devices with conversion on the fly to a compressed format, though the latter is a gold function. I'm currently wating for 4.0 so that I can sync/autocompress to my iPod in AAC format.

      I have issues with most software players because they take Artist as some God-given way to sort, but between compilations, soundtracks/cast recordings, and one-off downloads, my artist list is so long it's practically unusable. Me
  • Gamers remember The All-Seeing Eye [wikipedia.org], which for a time was the single best server browser on the market. It started out life as a shareware product and the owner eventually sold it to Yahoo, staying on for a time as the developer. Yahoo's support for the product waned, the developer moved on, and the product hasn't seen an update in years. Yahoo is good at buying out products and letting them die, it seems.

  • The Death of MusicMatch.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Bunderfeld ( 1113805 ) on Monday July 09, 2007 @09:54AM (#19799683) Homepage
    I have used MusicMatch since it's inception, and loved it. My friends all sword by WINAMP and others, but there was something about MusicMatch that was more appealing.

    You COULD RIP CD's, download network stream music and save it to your Music Library so it will always be there, Play Radio of your Favorite Music Genre, and loads of other things.

    Now, after "upgrading" here's what I get. Constant stream interruption from Yahoo, as they must check my "license". LESS music from the UNLIMITED listen area. Before you could find just about ANYONE, now, IF you find your favorite 60's band (shut up, it's already established that I'm old), you are lucky if there are more then 8 tracks for you to choose. Just this past evening (I'm suffering thru some insomnia) I was listening to the "Classic Rock" channel and no less then 4 times did the Stream stop because Yahoo was trying to check for a license. Apparently they were having trouble checking, because I was told the music stopped because they couldn't find a license for it. The instructions on the screen said I should DOWNGRADE my MusicMatch to 8.1 and use it instead.

    I really was hopeful that since Yahoo took things over, they might actually improve the service; although it didn't need MUCH improvement. As it stands right now though, when September 1 comes (my due date for renewal) if things haven't changed, I'll be looking for a new music streaming source, suggestions friends?
  • since the mid 90s...in about 95 or so, it was a fairly light weight, well put together little audio program/ripper. That's at about version 3 or 4. After that the code bloat set in and it was inundated with unnecessary, system slowing features that ruined it for its original purpose (probably at the behest of big media, I'm sure). Winamp was arguably better all along, but I thought Musicmatch was easier to use until about 96 or so. C'est la vie.

  • Forget Musicmatch, use Musikcube! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Lxy ( 80823 ) on Monday July 09, 2007 @10:25AM (#19800101) Journal
    Musicmatch 6.0 or so was an awesome player. It tied media into a nice clean interface, gave options to rip CDs, managed your library, etc. Fantastic piece of software.

    When Musicmatch 7 rolled around, it was obvious that it was turning into bloatware. The interface was getting bloated and cumbersome, and as I recall it went from annoying (would you like to upgrade?) to flat out nagware (do you want to buy album? Do you want to download music like this for $xx?, etc). Beyond that, I haven't touched the software because once it started sporting the Yahoo! banner I knew it was complete garbage.

    So, in my search for a Windows based music player, I happened across musikCube. It's a music player with most of the features of MusicMatch, 100% free, BSD licensed, and even supports ogg vorbis. Here's the Sourceforge [sourceforge.net] page.

    Screw Musicmatch, Winamp, Windows Media Player. Give me musikCube!
  • Proprietary software is going backwards? It seems that about half the upgrades you hear about involve adding restrictions (DRM) or intentionally crippling the software (unless you buy Ultimate).

  • The Corporate Problem (Score:3, Insightful)

    by athloi ( 1075845 ) on Monday July 09, 2007 @10:55AM (#19800561) Homepage Journal

    Too many fingers in the pie, and people are polite instead of telling the truth and offending those who need to grow up and deal with the fact that they're not always right.

    Marketing wants to make sure we channel users toward buying the upgrade, legal is concerned about having too powerful of an mp3 ripper, management wants to simplify it so our support costs are less... the product that was once a great idea ends up being a stripped-down, pointless version of itself.

    The problem that causes this isn't unique to corporations. It's unique to large groups of humans where we are afraid to tell the truth for social consequences. I've seen it in volunteer groups, the F/OSS movement, even friend groups trying to pick a restaurant.

    It is the Human Disease, and the only solution is to get over our personal pretenses and look at the task, not how we represent ourselves in it.

  • Bad software, but blame Yahoo and not the egineers (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ProppaT ( 557551 ) on Monday July 09, 2007 @11:02AM (#19800649) Homepage

    I actually met one of the MusicMatch engineers and I tell you, I've never felt so bad for a guy. They were so proud of their product when it was MusicMatch. Then Yahoo bought them out and overnight they were working at breakneck speed converting it to Yahoo's vision of the Yahoo Music Engine (as it was called then) to launch their Yahoo Music Unlimited service on. I guess somewhere in the rush a bad memory leak was introduced (along with a few smaller problems). I don't think they ever got around to fixing the leak because it was too deep rooted in the code. Instead, they jury rigged it to where it wouldn't kill Windows, just make the software itself slow as all get out. Basically, everytime they went to actually fix the software, Yahoo kept pushing more of their external changes. Now it's to the point where I'll be surprised if they ever fix it unless they just scrap what they have and start over.

    I would like to say, however, as much as the software sucks the Yahoo! Music Unlimited service for $7 a month is the best $7 I spend each month. Less than the price of a cd and I'm actually surprised at some of the obscure stuff I find on it. If your tastes are more mainstream, you'll find everything you want minus Zepplin and a few other hard to contract acts.
  • IMHO Windows Media Player 11 is much better than iTunes at this point. It's responsive, good looking, downloads cover art from the web, rips and burns audio CDs with ease, and keeps good tabs on the additions/removals from my media library. I'll never be accused of being a Microsoft fan but this is one of their upgrades that went well. Really the only music organizer that I like as much is Amarok which isn't an option for my Vista machine.

  • I know you fuckers are going crusify me for this but why not just use windows media player if your going to use shit? I'm one of the dumb fucks that paid for the life time upgrade on musicmatch and I just didn't get screwed, I got fucked up the ass with a pole. You see, I paid 70 fucking bucks for 10.0, damn my ass hurts. Okay, enough rambling, but windows media player is pig and is put out by the antichrist all right but once you get over that, its not really half bad. I mean once you kick that urge s

  • False! (Score:2, Informative)

    by DanGarion ( 778826 )
    I'm calling B.S. that is costs $20 for the upgrade. I owned MusicMatch since early 2000 something. I ended up costing me nothing to get the upgrade to Yahoo Music. The only problem I have with it right now is that it's sort of a resource hog.

  • Yahoo Music **ENGINE** (Score:2, Interesting)

    by BcNexus ( 826974 )
    ...used to be my favorite store front end. Reasonably fast, nice user interface. Good sorting of my music and Yahoo's. Then it got fuxored and became jukebox or some shit and that's when it began pestering me to buy crap when I WAS ALREADY PAYING for Y! Music Unlimited. The endless stream of mandatory updates that made it slower, less functional, more naggy and more crash prone really turned me off. Way to take Y! Music Unlimited which I chose over Napster and Rhapsody as my MS Windows music store for the

  • The day the music died... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 09, 2007 @12:12PM (#19801653)
    Thanks for noticing. As a former MM employee I can only thank Yahoo! for doing nothing for MM since the acquisition. I cannot recommend that anybody reading this allow Yahoo! to purchase your company. You may walk away rich, but the company you kept will become bankrupt.

    MMJB was a product of devotion and effort among it's employees. The product wasn't perfect, but that wasn't because everyone didn't want it to be, more because we needed to get it out the door to satisfy some requirement or another. At the time of the purchase, everyone was looking forward to the resources that Yahoo! could bring to the table. What we discovered afterwards was mismanagement, corruption, and incompetence among those running the show. The news that they are discontinuing MMJB is no real surprise to me, as everyone realizes that YMJ is in no condition to be considered an upgrade path, and the afore mentioned incompetence would lead to a decision like this.

    This may be the final nail in the coffin, but trust me folks, this was a long time coming. I would encourage a user revolt, but I don't think anyone would care enough to notice.

  • I had this on myDell when it was new (Score:3)

    by PingXao ( 153057 ) on Monday July 09, 2007 @03:50PM (#19804885)
    I have carefully refused all attempts to get me to "upgrade". Nevertheless, the thing that ticks me off is the setting in the program's preferences that sets the frequency the program waits before phoning home to check for updates and new versions. I have had that set to NEVER for over 2 years but it didn't stop the notices that Yahoo was taking over MM Jukebox.

    Some freaking ethics. You tell it not to phone home and it does it anyway. I guess it has been doing so all along. That setting is more like a 'severity' level for displaying their spammy drek.

    And don't kid yourself, there's plenty not to like about MM Jukebox, although most of my complaints center on the user interface and the way they scatter secret "upgrade now" menu items and buttons all over the place.

    A pox on Yahoo's house. Now that MM Jukebox has been discontinues I think I'll reverse-engineer a key for it. No use being bothered to register a program that can no longer be registered.

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