How long the blogosphere’s microculture can mesh with Microsoft’s macromedia empire is anyone’s guess — if they’ve managed to snag Hopper, an ardent feminist, punk-rock idealist, and frequent critic of corporate culture, then one assumes Urge is letting its columnists out on a long leash. The columns appear to be edited — at least, the posts so far seem to make more sense and contain less slang than do the authors’ regular output. But Eddy, for example, is recognizably in prime voice, declaiming the praises of no-name hard rock bands in a gonzo style of his anti-canonical opus Stairway to Hell. It will be small consolation to MS shareholders if Urge turns out to be a better read than it is a listen. But with iTunes cornering the mp3-download market, Urge could to worse than to market itself less like a mall, and more like a library.
Even with viral media in its back pocket, Urge managed only lukewarm reviews its first week — cnet.com offered the most prominent kudos, go figure. But one issue that’s already threatening to darken the launch is the question of what, exactly, you’re installing on your computer when you download the Urge software, which also requires users to download Microsoft’s newly-revamped Windows Media Player. There’s a whiff of a Sony/DRM scare in the wind, driven by the language of the Urge user agreement, which “make[s] it clear that MTV can basically reach into your PC to monitor it (for attempts at content piracy) and/or make changes to it at will, without first clearing it through you,” as ZDNet’s David Berlind writes. Several passages in the agreement stand out, including this one: “The Software is also capable of monitoring itself to detect tampering or other security-related activities and has the ability to automatically transmit and communicate information about attempted tampering and other security incidents.”
That language was enough for one blogger to question whether URGE wasn’t violating the principle of Microsoft’s anti-spyware policy. “The new service exhibits several questionable behaviors that are identical to those Microsoft uses to identify spyware,” wrote ZDNet’s Ed Bott. “Is Urge spyware? Almost certainly not. But this add-in for Windows Media Player uses some of the same underhanded techniques that spyware distributors use.” Placed high up in a scathing thumbs-down review, the Washington Postoffered users a stern warning about the new Windows Media player that’s required in order to install Urge: “Windows Media Player 11 isn't any old beta release; it's essentially a system upgrade, one that can be removed only with XP's System Restore tool. Nobody should install this kind of preview software lightly.”
That could end up looking like small potatoes considering what activists say Windows has in store with its new Vista operating system, but even the hint of a rootkit-like scandall could be a severe setback to Urge. “Although MTV has been slightly more upfront [than Sony was] about what it may and may not do to end users' PCs with its new music service Urge,” writes Berlind, “the gall of the entertainment company as it prepares to engage in practices that most users should find even more offensive than what Sony did, is equally audacious.”
