Yahoo Unlimited Launched on SBC

Release: Yahoo Unlimited, the online music service recently launched by Yahoo, is now available through SBC, its access partner. SBC Yahoo Music Unlimited provides music fans with music downloads at only $4.99 per month for an annual subscription or $6.99 on a monthly basis.
Subscribers to SBC Yahoo Music Unlimited are offered downloads at a discounted rate of $0.79 per song.

Yahoo Japan To Expand Its Online Music Service

Reuters: The Japanese online music market is heating up, especially after the blockbuster launch of Apple iTunes there. Now Yahoo Japan will expand its online music distribution service, allowing customers in the world's second-largest music market to listen to selected songs in full before they decide to buy. The new service with 100,000 available songs would be launched on Monday morning.
Yahoo Japan expects to earn ad revenue and commissions from song sales, while it also aims to bolster traffic to its fee-based operations through the new service that is based on an online radio format.

Yahoo's Music Stays at $5; Big Ad Campaign

Reuters: Yahoo's music subscription service, Yahoo Unlimited, which was launched in beta in May for a promotion price of $5 per month, will stay at that price when it is formally launched tomorrow. This keeps the service's price below competitors like RealNetworks and Napster (though I would venture to say that Rhapsody, at $24 a quarter, is still a far superior service).
When the service was launched, many analysts said that after the introductory period, the price would be increased. Anyway, I have it from reliable sources that the initial feedback and pickup from users is lower than company expectations, and some of the aggressive pricing decision may have stemmed from that.
With the full launch, Yahoo is launching a big TV ad campaign...The campaign debuts on August 28 during the MTV Video Music Awards with the tagline "Over A Million Songs - 5 Bucks A Month - This Is Huge." Commercials will air on MTV and Comedy Central. Yahoo has also planned ads in a new video game from Midway Games and other nontraditional campaign efforts.

Related:

-- Our Coverage: Yahoo Music Unlimited

-- Interview: Dave Goldberg, VP & GM, Yahoo Music -- Excerpts

Yahoo Introduces Search Service for Music, Audio

Updated: read below: NYT: (reg. req.): Yahoo, which has been threatening to launch a music/audio search service for some time now, has finally launched it in beta: it claims can comb through 50 million music, voice and other audio files. It also supports podcast search.
Yahoo's music search service will let users find sites, news and photos of artists, as well as information about albums and songs.... The service will also display links to the competitor music sites where users can pay to download a song. Most major music sites (here's the complete list of competitors Yahoo is working with) have agreed to send Yahoo lists of their songs and pay a commission on every song sold. The current version of the service has no advertising, though that may come later.
Bunch of others are in the same field: Singingfish, Blinkx, and other audio and video search engines, though no one has this met-search-rev-share deal for music. The new new MP3.com has a similar comparison shopping for online music, but it hasn't really caught on.
USA Today: Yahoo Audio will not include songs from file-sharing sites such as Kazaa and Grokster, which are often used to trade copyrighted music. If a record label complains about any song featured on the site, Yahoo Audio will take it off the list, says Technology Director Bradley Horowitz.
Updated: Yahoo is NOT the first one with such a meta-search and rev share service: San Francisco based GoFish Technologies has had a similar compare-and-buy service for some time now.

Motorola Adds Yahoo Content

Chicago Tribune: Yesterday, Motorola announced a partnership with Yahoo that will give wireless phone users quicker and easier access to Yahoo's popular Internet services...Starting in 2006, the full suite of Yahoo's core products and services will be directly available on Motorola's Linux-based mobile phones, as well as on some Motorola broadband products... Customers of Motorola's iRadio (still in testing stages) will also be able to get Yahoo services. From what I gathered at Demo's website, iRadio is a podcast-like service for mobile phones that delivers your music - plus hundreds of channels of commercial free audio, to your mobile phone and your car radio. This unique approach blends the best of the downloadable MP3 and satellite radio models and demonstrates the role the mobile phone can play as a “remote control” for your media...Also, during the press conference, Motorola gave analysts some insight into how the company intends to improve its operating profit margin by revamping its supply chain - squeezing out excess costs and inefficiencies...

Yahoo Shares Fall Despite Healthy Profit

Marketwatch: Even though Yahoo's second-quarter profit increased more than sixfold, shares dropped nearly 9% in pre-market action Wednesday after the company posted its latest earnings report...Finicky investors hammered the company's stock, driving it down after the healthy earnings announcement - shares rose $1.15 to $37.73 in regular trading, but then plunged to $33.90 after hours...Among the chief concerns is whether the online media giant is losing market share in its search business...Through June, Google had a 36.9 percent share of the U.S. market, outdistancing Yahoo!'s 30.4 percent share, according to comScore Networks.

Yahoo earned $754.7 million, or 51 cents a share, during the three months ending in June, compared with a profit of $112.5 million, or 8 cents per share, a year earlier. Revenue totaled $1.25 billion, which is a 51 percent increase from $832.3 million last year. Surprisingly though, investors expressed dismay with a quarter that revealed slowing growth of the company's operating profit....According to the report, "Yahoo expects to generate sales between $880 million and $930 million in the third quarter. Analysts currently expect Yahoo to generate sales of $922.4 million. Yahoo expects third-quarter earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization to be between $350 million and $380 million, below analysts' consensus forecast of $390 million." RBC Capital Markets weighed in early on the results, cutting its price target on the stock to $36 from $40, due to the below consensus sales...

Related:
--Wall St. Wants More from Yahoo!
--Yahoo Profit Soars; Shares Tumble

Clear Channel, Yahoo Plan Concert-Promotion Deal

WSJ: Clear Channel is announcing a major marketing partnership with Yahoo...The Yahoo partnership will work by alerting fans who access music or videos by a particular artist to upcoming concerts by that performer in the fan's geographical area. A link within the alert will give the fan the option to buy tickets to the show.

Yahoo Hires TV Executive Katz

Yahoo: Yesterday, Yahoo added another television exec to its ranks with the addition of David Katz to run the sports and entertainment divisions of Yahoo's Media Group...Katz comes to Yahoo after eight years at CBS Television Network, where he was most recently charged with strategic planning and interactive ventures. Katz will be based at the company's Santa Monica, California offices (which is close to Hollywood) where Yahoo's Media Group is based. The Media Group includes games, sports, news, finance, movies, music and other services....

Yahoo! Tries Interruption-Free Web Radio, Chrysler Sponsors

ClickZ: Yahoo Music signed Chrysler to sponsor four commercial-free channels on the free version of its LAUNCHcast online radio service. Yahoo dubbed the program "Listen Now!" and is promoting it across the portal.
Chrysler branding appears on the player window and on the LAUNCHcast front page. Additionally, at the start of each audio stream, a 21-second spot identifies Chrysler as the stream sponsor.

Apple Dismisses Yahoo's Online Music Rivalry

AFP: Steve Jobs said the company's iTunes online music service has now sold nearly half a billion songs, and is strong enough to see off a rival offering from Yahoo. "In the end it's all about the results and so, you know, I'm waiting for Yahoo to tell us how many subscribers they have. I assume they will very shortly," he said.