August 20, 2007

Who Doesn’t Love Samples?

When was the last time you suddenly remembered a favorite song and craved to hear a piece of it right away? If you’re like me, it happens pretty often.

Now on Yahoo! Audio Search you can play samples of millions of songs. The new inline player provides instant playback right next to the search results. There are no intrusive pop-ups or multiple browser windows to manage — only a 30-second, uninterrupted instant audio experience. And, there’s also a ‘Select Preferred Audio Service’ feature that helps you link to your favorite audio provider directly from the results page.

From Cliff Richard to Norah Jones, search for your favorite songs, artists, albums, and lyrics and listen to the sample playback instantly. All you need to do is click on the ‘Play Sample’ button next to the track you want to hear.

For example, you can listen to back-to-back samples of Shakira’s most popular songs or all the 2007 Grammy nominees’ tracks right from the search results page.

Shakira Artist Page.JPG

Or perhaps get nostalgic by listening to John Denver’s voice or sampling through tracks of ABBA’s popular album Voulez-Vous.

You can access Yahoo! Audio Search from www.yahoo.com by selecting the ‘Audio’ option from the ‘more’ drop down menu.

Yahoo! Audio Search option_smaller.JPG

This is just the beginning. Over time, we plan to roll out more features on Yahoo! Audio Search and additional song samples, so stay tuned. Try it out and let us know what you think.

Sweta Raghavan
Yahoo! Search, Product Manager

Comments

  1. Wow, that’s very nice. Any chance you guys will create an API for this?

  2. Hats off to a great idea!

    Everyone involved wins and no copyrights are violated.

  3. This is a great marketing idea.Sales will soar and hopefully music piracy will come to an end and the artists will receive their dues.
    Great collection of music samples, I especially liked the Norah Jones and the Cliff Richard selections. Keep the Idea Factory rolling.Is someone is going to get a pay rise for this superb idea? Cheers!

  4. Very nice. RSS feeds would also be useful to keep track of new releases

  5. Very cool integration! Yet IMO 30 seconds seem to be a little short!

  6. For subscribers of Yahoo Music Unlimited like myself, I would love to be able to hear the entire song. Great idea, nonetheless.

  7. Very nice. RSS feeds would also be useful to keep track of new releases

  8. It’s good to have the sample, but still if you want the whole track you need to buy it.

  9. Couldn’t Yahoo, using all of their internet muscle, offer a way of buying tracks cheaper than those offered by the likes of I-Tunes??

  10. I agree with that last comment

  11. This is a quick way of searching for songs that you can’t quite remember the names of

  12. Is someone is going to get a pay rise for this superb idea? Cheers!