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The Year in Digital Music

  • Reuters, Friday, December 21, 2007 11 AM
Reuters looks back at the year in digital music. The most visible failure of 2007 was MTV's Urge, which was replaced with a new entity called Rhapsody America, a partnership with RealNetworks' popular online music service. Sony Corp. was the other big name to throw in the towel, announcing in August that it would gradually shut down its Connect music service, after laying off 20 employees and moving the rest to a new division.

The biggest name not to throw in the towel was Microsoft's Zune. The software giant upgraded its music service this year by adding social media features like user profiles, friend lists, and widgets that users can post to other social networks.

It was also a particularly big year for music launches. Amazon.com rolled out its music service, which offers DRM-free MP3s from EMI Music, Universal Music Group and several independent labels. The oft-delayed ad-supported service SpiralFrog also finally went live, but to "mixed critical reaction." The biggest surprise of the year is social music service Imeem. After languishing in obscurity for many years, the social network finally drew enough users to convince all four major labels to jump on board, receiving a cut of ad revenue when users play their songs.

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