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LAUNCHcast
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LAUNCHcast is an Internet radio service offered by CBS Radio that plays music based on user ratings and preferences. Users with Yahoo! accounts can gain access to hundreds of thousands of songs sorted by artist, album, song and genre. The service, formerly offered by LAUNCH Media, and originally developed by Todd Beaupré and Jeff Boulter, debuted on November 11, 1999, and was purchased by Yahoo! in October, 2001. LAUNCHcast, combined with CBS Radio beginning in February 16, 2009.
CHcast allowed users to create personal radio stations or playlists of songs tailored to their musical tastes.
To create a personal station, users rated music on a 4-star or 100-point (depending on one's preference) scale.
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Encyclopedia
LAUNCHcast is an Internet radio service offered by CBS Radio that plays music based on user ratings and preferences. Users with Yahoo! accounts can gain access to hundreds of thousands of songs sorted by artist, album, song and genre. The service, formerly offered by LAUNCH Media, and originally developed by Todd Beaupré and Jeff Boulter, debuted on November 11, 1999, and was purchased by Yahoo! in October, 2001. LAUNCHcast, combined with CBS Radio beginning in February 16, 2009.
2001- 2009: LAUNCHcast powered by Yahoo! Music
LAUNCHcast allowed users to create personal radio stations or playlists of songs tailored to their musical tastes.
To create a personal station, users rated music on a 4-star or 100-point (depending on one's preference) scale. The service used those ratings to create a personal station of songs based on a user's favorite genres, artists, albums, and songs. The generated playlist contained a combination of rated and recommended songs. The ratio of rated/recommended songs could be specified by each user, but by default it was 50/50.
A recommendation engine suggested songs that might have matched a user's particular musical taste according to the following similarity criteria:
- Songs from the same artist
- Songs from the same album
- Songs from the same genre
- Songs recommended by users with similar musical tastes
- Songs recommended by Yahoo!
Users were not required to participate in the ratings system to listen to music. Pre-programmed stations based on theme, genre, or artist were available throughout the Yahoo! Music website.
Music videos could also be rated, allowing users to create personal music video channels as well. For legal reasons, specific songs could not be played whenever one wished. However, videos could be. The service could generate a personal video channel based on a single selection.
Free accounts
Users could share their personal stations publicly and listen to other users' stations.
Music was available for streaming for free at "Low" or "Medium" quality, although later these were combined into "Standard".
Between tracks, free accounts would hear commercial advertising for the Yahoo! service and its partners and affiliates. The advertisements were generally 30 seconds.
In 2007 Yahoo! added permanent banner ads to the LAUNCHcast player. Because Launchcast was only compatible with Internet Explorer, which charges for its banner ad blocker, users must either tolerate the banner ads or pay to block them. An alternative was to use the Yahoo! Music Engine, which was called Jukebox in version 2 of the same software. The Jukebox was unable to stream music anymore following September 2008, although it remained available for download well into the following year.
Limited skipping was available, at up to 5 skips per hour. Previously, banning a song skipped the song automatically, but this was removed. If the skips were not used in the previous hour, they did not roll over.
Free accounts were limited to playing up to 1000 songs/mo (up to 120,000/yr) without any special restrictions. A song could be skipped to bypass an undesired track, but skipped songs counted against the monthly allowance. If a free account user exceeds the monthly limit, the user would no longer be able to listen to LAUNCHcast radio for the remainder of the month, although they could listen to their personal station with no skips. Like skips, songs did not roll over to the next month. This won't be the case when LAUNCHcast is powered by CBS as it will provide unlimited listening.
Free users had access to only specific stations labeled "free". Such stations had a yellow icon whereas premium stations had a blue icon.
Pausing was only possible after 30 seconds into the song, although a song could be skipped before the 30 seconds by pressing "stop" and then starting the station again.
LAUNCHcast Plus
Some users subscribed to the LAUNCHcast Plus premium service on a monthly ($3.99/mo [$47.88/yr]) or annual basis ($35.88/yr [$2.99/mo]), or it came as bundled software from some ISPs (included in price) such as Verizon Yahoo! online services. In addition to the features offered by the free account, LAUNCHcast Plus users received the following additional benefits:
- "High" quality sound (CD-quality)
- No commercials or banner ads
- Access to all LAUNCHcast pre-programmed stations
- Unlimited skipping
- Unlimited monthly listening
- Access to all artists, songs, and albums (subject to licensing restrictions by country)
- The ability to designate other user's stations as "influencers" of one's own personal radio station
- The ability to create "moods" (genre-based subsets of a user's personal radio station)
- Pausing whenever you want
LAUNCHcast Plus was only offered in the US and Canada through Yahoo. On November 2, 2008, Verizon Yahoo! announced via e-mail that certain services would be discontinued including LAUNCHcast Plus. In an e-mail delivered in January 2009, Yahoo states "the LAUNCHcast Plus premium service will be closing on February 12, 2009." . LAUNCHcast Plus was available to AT&T and Verizon subscribers at no charge previously.
2009 - current: LAUNCHcast powered by CBS
With the rise of royalty rates, Yahoo! has inked a deal with CBS Radio to power LAUNCHcast. Its 150 pre-programmed stations (lineup maybe subject to change) as well as CBS's local music, news/talk, and sports stations are made available to Yahoo! listeners. All personalized stations are no longer available, neither is the LAUNCHcast plus premium service. However, listeners can still rate music and have the option to listen to those stations in high quality audio as well as using the 5 skips-per-hour (not applicable on local stations). Ratings in the new LAUNCHcast powered by CBS Radio player will not yet be saved back into Yahoo! users listings, so until Yahoo! Music and CBS Radio associate radio ratings with their profiles, Yahoo! encourages users to rate songs, artists, and albums throughout their site as well as through their recommendations based on their tastes.
For the first time, LAUNCHcast powered by CBS Radio will also be available to Firefox and Safari users.
Most commercial interruptions can currently be skipped or paused. However, skips will still count toward the maximum five skips per hour.
Geographic availability
The free version of LAUNCHcast is available in most areas of the world. However, content varies by country due to music licensing restrictions.
The LAUNCHcast Plus premium service was widely available in the United States and Canada. In the United Kingdom it was restricted to BT Yahoo! Internet customers.
Technological requirements
The LAUNCHcast music player (from development date to February 2009) required Microsoft's Windows Media Player 9.0 or higher to function, although it could not be streamed from the Windows Media Player itself. Before the merger with CBS Radio, LAUNCHcast only worked with Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6.0 and up web browser with Flash 6.0 or higher, and in Yahoo!'s Messenger and Music Engine programs on the Microsoft Windows operating system 98, ME, 2000 Professional, XP (Home and Professional). LAUNCHcast did not load properly using a Firefox web browser. According to Yahoo!, the LAUNCHcast music player was not compatible with the Mac OS X or Linux operating systems, however as of February 16, 2009; this may not be the case. Yahoo! stated that following CBS's acquisition, loading the player in Firefox may become possible.
Since the relaunch of LAUNCHcast by CBS, users are only required to download the latest Flash Player plug-in (currently Version 10). See external links (below) for Yahoo's help page on system requirements.
Legal troubles
On April 27, 2007, Yahoo! defeated Sony BMG in a copyright infringement lawsuit involving LAUNCHcast's personalization features. At issue was whether or not LAUNCHcast's "personal radio station" constitutes an "interactive" service, which requires a negotiated license agreement with a record company, or a "non-interactive" service, which requires a cheaper "compulsory license" from SoundExchange. In an "interactive" service, users can play songs on demand, but with LAUNCHcast they can only influence whether or not a particular song appears in their station.
After a six-year litigation, a jury decided that LAUNCHcast was not required to negotiate licenses as an "interactive" service, and that the service's compulsory licenses as a "non-interactive" service were sufficient.
See also
External links
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