Secret Agent Man

Ok, got another response from Real. Turns out that there was a dispute between the RIAA and the labels over the DRM. This halted all new music from being released on Real or Rhapsody for a week. It has been resolved and apparently needed some sort of outage to address the DRM issue and get things straight (that's my own assumption). Anyway, Rhapsody's back and they added over 2000 CDs on Thursday... including the new one from Peter Cincotti which I heartily recommend. Enjoy!

Return to Normalcy

Ok, looks like the folks at Real finally got their crap together and fixed whatever was going on. There was another small outage since my last post and now everything is back up and the new stuff is out there and can be listened to! So, coincidence that the new stuff just appeared after this major outage? I don't think so. I think something's been wrong for the past week... wonder how long it took them to notice that the new stuff wasn't showing up in Rhapsody/RealStore? That canned response I was sent still annoys me... Rock on.

Its Baaa-aaack... Well, sorta...

Ok, Rhapsody is back online and would you believe it, they have new tracks!!! I cannot believe that the outage had nothing to do with the new music so maybe they were either 1) in the middle of a large backend change that prohibited them from adding new tracks and the outage was the completion of that change or 2) they were having a problem that took them a while to resolve and the outage was the completion of the resolution effort. Either way, I'm now happy because I get to listen to the new Peter Cincotti album.... whoa whoa whoa wait... I spoke to soon. The new Cincotti album says that its available for listening and burning, but when you click on it, none of the tracks are available for either... interesting. I'm guessing they are still making the changes necessary to get this music out there... I'll give them a little while before making any other assumptions...

Now Nothing's Working

Ok, now I can't even get the RealStore to come up... all I get is a blank page with the word "Visit." Go figure. Perhaps they are having major technical problems or they are making some major changes. If this is a planned outage, I would have hoped that they have some sort of process to notify the dutifully paying customers... A writer at CNet suggested that this may all be signs that they are finally making upgrades to Rhapsody after focussing so hard on their RealPlayer and Harmony technologies. Probably a valid thought, but why would it affect the RealStore too... unless the upgrades include the music delivery engine which I believe is similar in both as RealStore carries the "powered by RealRhapsody" logo. Another thing that I just remembered noticing a while back is that in RealPlayer 10, RPL is listed as a file type it can play. It has been greyed out ever since the release of RealPlayer 10, but I figure its there because someday soon they plan on merging the two applications into one. This would be nice in one regard because then I would have one app for playing all music. But then again, the RealPlayer is a resource hog and slow while the RealRhapsody app is much faster... Ok, just more thoughts... Nice to have a place to put them and not have to bore my friends to death with my ramblings...

Day 8 - No New Music

Here's a little more to add to the story. I cannot get logged into Rhapsody at all today. When I try to log in it says that a server error has caused me to disconnect or it tells me that my UserID and password combination are wrong... which they are not since I have the application remember them and log me in automatically every day. But I've even retyped those to be sure and still no go... strange strange... So then I went over to the RealStore to see if they've added anything there (since RealStore and RealRhapsody tend to add the same items every day) and still no new additions since the 9th. I did get the following response back from RealRhapsody support:

Dear Chris, Thank you for contacting RealNetworks Music Technical Support. Although we are working very hard to provide the world's biggest and best catalog of legally available digital music, some labels and artists simply have not made their music available to us at this time. This means that there is some music that we just can't legally offer. The good news is that we have thousands and thousands of albums already available and we are adding new music to our system every day. Rest assured that we will be working tirelessly to bring you more of your favorite music in the near future. Check back soon to see if the music you are looking for has arrived. If you are interested in suggesting bands, artists, or producers, please email: content@listen.com Thanks for understanding. If you have questions or comments, feel free to contact us at: rhapsody-support@real.com We hope this information helps and if there is anything else we can assist you with please let us know. RealNetworks Music Technical Support

So there are two ways to read this, I think. Either this is just a generic answer (which is what I challenged them on in my response) or Real has hit some sort of snag with the record companies and they are all not permitting Real to add any new music. That's a bit hard to believe, but maybe some of the latest developments has made them all gun shy? I just can't believe it would be ALL of them... I'll keep you posted.

Uh-oh... Something's Afoot in the Land of Rhapsody

Call me a sensationalist, or a skeptic, but I think something's afoot in the world of Rhapsody and the RealStore. As all (by all I mean both) of you who read this blog know, I am a music nut who loves Rhapsody and checks the new additions every day. Plus, I get a list of the New Releases every Tuesday and go out to Rhapsody that morning to see which ones they have added. (Yeah, yeah, yeah... I am well aware that I am a nerd.) Well, Rhapsody usually lists anywhere from 10 to several hundred CDs a day in their new additions list. Hardly a day goes by without these adds. Only every once in a long while will they skip a day... and never has it gone two. Well, we're now up to day 7 since Rhapsody (or RealStore, for that matter) has added anything new, with the latest adds coming in on September 9th. I was looking forward to a few releases this week and really took note when not only were the ones I was looking forward to not on Rhapsody, neither were the popular ones I didn't really care about... especially the two new Nelly albums. Then you mix in the news about Yahoo buying MusicMatch yesterday and it makes the whole picture look a little funny. I cannot even guess what might be going on, but Real is either revamping the way and the timing of adding new items to their stores, or they are preparing for something much bigger. Not sure who exactly would buy Real or who they would buy... Perhaps I'm just crazy and Real just hasn't been able to add anything new for a week... but that would be weird for sure... Long live Rhapsody.