Farewell, LAUNCHcast
In April of 1999, I left Microsoft, 1 year and 1 day from when I joined. I had the bug to create something new with online radio. Todd Beaupre and I were shoved in a conference room in Santa Monica. Six months later, we introduced the world to LAUNCHcast, the customized and social online radio service.
I learned a hell of a lot from my years at LAUNCH and I never worked harder. LAUNCHcast built up quite a following, especially after we were bought by Yahoo!.
From literally day one of the service, the music industry tried to kill LAUNCHcast. I went to court to defend it. Well, they finally won by raising the rates services like LAUNCHcast pay to play music to an amount that makes no financial sense. Every online radio site will now lose money. As a result, Yahoo!, decided to get out of online radio, instead sending users off to CBS Radio. There will no longer be any customized radio.
Nice job, music industry. Instead of collecting money from these services, you’ve shut down any chance of revenue. Nobody buys CDs anymore and Apple is in control of all your music distribution. Way to go.
Farewell, LAUNCHcast. You introduced me to so much music and many friends along the way.
December 3rd, 2008 at 4:57 pm
When will this happen? I’ve been using LAUNCHcast for like 5 years now and love it.
December 9th, 2008 at 8:22 am
I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I absolutely hate pre-programmed stations. Which of them will play Lemon Jelly, Tones on Tail, Sparks, etc…, and all on the same station? None of them, that’s who. Guess I’ll try Pandora. I’m just very sad, as I have over 12,000 ratings that are going to be thrown out.
December 22nd, 2008 at 4:59 pm
I saw on another blog today where CBS is going to keep the ratings part of Launchcast…is that true?
December 22nd, 2008 at 5:57 pm
I’ve been a Launchcast Plus subscribers since 2002. I listen to it every day, all day at work and am simply distraught. Every new artist that I’ve been introduced to since ‘02 I found through this service. The music industry has made plenty of money off me, because I by the music that I like best. How will I find new artists now? I won’t. Great thinking music execs. You’ve screwed us both.
December 22nd, 2008 at 6:58 pm
I have been listening to Launchcast at work for years. I would pay ten times as much as I am paying now; it is that valuable to me. I couldn’t believe someone else wasn’t stepping in and taking over, but I guess, Jeff, you have explained that part. Thanks for giving it to us.
Jane
December 24th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Is there anything we can do to save this? Does anyone know of another service that is even reasonable similar to Launch?
I’ve been using launch for over 3 years, have thousands of ratings, and can’t imagine what it’s going to be like without it.
December 29th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Very sad, I am a proud Launchcast user and make many CD purchases (note to record companies, you make more money on these types of purchases), based simply on discovering bands on launch. Why in the heck they couldn’t just give us the option to pay more or just insert advertisements into our custom stations. The system already works, why not keep it going. I will probably switch to a different provider now as I simply hate listening to pre-programmed stations now, I am simply spoiled now. This really sucks.
I will just have to kiss this goodbye:
RATINGS:
Artists (1,509)
Albums (3,838)
Songs (11,068)
RATINGS LEVEL
Ratings Master
(16,415 total ratings)
When you include what I didn’t rate, that is a whopping amount of music that influenced me to buy more (I have over 3100 CDs and don’t buy lossy MP3s).
December 29th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
The ratings will be saved on Yahoo! Music, but for now they won’t be used for anything. You may be able to download them if you’d like.
December 29th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Thanks Jeff, I hope that remains the case, I appreciate the follow up.
And oh, thanks to you and Todd for putting this thing together in the first place :).
December 30th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Thanks for the email! I’ve successfully saved all my ratings in OpenOffice Calc.
January 5th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Jeff, thanks for the genius behind this service. I just passed 16,000 ratings while listening at work over the years. I am beside myself as to what to listen to otherwise. Maybe Pandora can expand it’s rating system to mimic Launchcast. I pay even though I get it free thru AT&T, just to preserve my ratings (long, stupid story). Nothing else compares. So much for personal choice in the music industry.