Michael Janzen

Yes that title is a play on the title of the old song “Video Killed the Radio Star,” which you can listen to right now on Rdio (assuming you have an account).

Rdio is a new music listening website that lets you listen to all the music you want, and don’t own, for just a few bucks a month.

I still pissed off at Apple for eating up Lala.com (an innovative iTunes competitor) and shitting it out. Now that Rdio is online and slowly opening up it’s services to listeners, I’ve got another start-up to cheer for… and secretly hope will rain down some Karma on Apple for their monopolistic activities in the world of music.

I’m not sure that Rdio will kill the Apple Star, but I’m very happy to see a new competitor enter the arena. Turn on your Rdio.

It’s really bothers me that Apple bought and is now killing Lala.com, a competitor to iTunes. The cool thing about Lala.com is/was that you could listen to the whole song once. I didn’t use it much until I heard that Apple is killing it. Now I’m using it as my internet radio until May 31, 2010… the day it goes to the virtual electric chair.

I hope Apple listens to this next comment.

One thing I’ve noticed myself doing is making a list of music to buy as I’ve been taking listening trips down memory lane. In other words, access to the full songs is inspiring me to buy music I used to listen to on the radio years ago.

I could rip off the songs using screen/sound capture software, which I have right here. But that’s not worth my time and I’m happy to pay for the real thing. I’m certain the fact that it’s so easy to rip songs from streaming audio is why iTunes and others only deliver short clips but I suspect there are millions more people like me that would rather not hassel with is and just buy the music.

So… like I said I’m just making a list and not rushing off to iTunes to pay for music (yet). Before I spend any more money at Apple (in effect voting for Apple’s f#$%ed up behavior) my plan is to look for another music source because I am so f$%&ing pissed at Apple for eating and sh&%ing out it’s competition.

WTF is Apple becoming the Monsanto of the tech world?

I guess the underlying problem is that as companies get really big they can forget their roots and fail to notice the power and responsibility that success comes with. I suspect Apple is now at this point and time for guys like me, who like supporting the little guy to jump ship.

(note to self: look for a really user friendly GUI for Linux I can run on my old Apple hardware.)