So what do you get in exchange for all that? Ultimately, a lot of programming that’s swimming upstream against a strong current. Urge makes no attempt to challenge iTunes’ stranglehold on the podcasting market — an estimated 75 percent of all podcasts are consumed through iTunes — and instead opts to mimic the idea of podcasting through internally-generated “feeds” that will automatically update your iRiver with, for instance, this week’s TRL countdown, the CMT Top 20, or customized playlists from Eminem and the Foo Fighters.
It also appears that MTV has opted not to compete with its own internet-TV operation on MTV.com, where they’ve been investing heavily in broadband video with MTV Overdrive. So if you want to see the video for Paul Wall’s “Drive Slow,” you’ve got to watch it on the MTV.com site — where you’re then invited to buy Paul Wall’s physical album for $15 from the MTV.com store, not the digital album for $11.49 from Urge.
Nobody likes a monopoly, but it’s hard to argue with what iTunes has done with the franchise: casually re-inventing the best-of album (see the “iTunes Originals” series, wherein newly recorded live tracks, album tracks, and interview tracks are cobbled together into new collections that take advantage of the a la carte model), muscling exclusive material out of cult faves like Iron and Wine, offering the pre-record-store-release on, for instance, Johnny Cash’s posthumous album. You hit the iTunes store and come away with the impression that the music business is being reinvented. You surf Urge and come away with an appreciation of how hard it is to build an iTunes.
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