MSN Music

I went and bought some music at the MSN Music Store today.

In case you are interested, it was Lean Back by Terror Squad. My kids love that song and I have to admit, its pretty fun to listen to.

Anway, the experience left me a little empty. First, I had to become a .NET Passport user. That sucks. I am not particularly interested in doing that. Second, there was nothing new at the MSN Music Store that I haven’t been getting from iTunes for over a year.

I did like the browser based interface at some level. It feels more open and standard, but also its not integrated with my music player and since I still run Win 2000, I can’t get Windows Media Player 10 to work on my laptop.

The worst thing is the music comes down in Microsoft’s proprietary WMA format. I bet that means I can’t play it on my iPod. No way am I going to get a new portable music player just to use Microsoft’s store.

Brian Cooley at ZDNet thinks its just a matter of time before Microsoft wins the digital music store battle. I am not so sure about that.

#My Music#VC & Technology