We just made it easier to listen to free music on Rhapsody.com. Now anybody can listen to Rhapsody music without having to create an account. We've also changed how login credentials are cached so those of us with accounts will find ourselves having to log in far less often. But the important change is that new users don't have to create an account to be able to hear free music. Consider this example:
Say you listen to an album you love and haven't thought of for a while, and want to share it with your friends. So you send your friends a RhapLink like http://play.rhapsody.com/soulcoughing/rubyvroom or maybe you post it to your blog. Later one of your friends clicks the link and sees the Rhapsody album page and the player window pops up. If your friend has previously signed in to Rhapsody.com, their credentials will be cached and the album will just start playing. If they're new to Rhapsody, we'll automatically create an anonymous Rhapsody 25 account for them in the background. This account gives them access to 25 free songs each month, which is plenty to hear this album. If the Rhapsody Player Engine is already installed (say because they got it with the Real Player) then the music will just start playing with almost no further interaction. If they don't have the plugin, they'll need to install it, but since it's less than a meg, that's not a big deal. There are those pesky pop-up blockers that most browsers have these days, but we know how to get around them.
So next time you want to share some music with your friends you have several choices. You can deal with the hassle of ripping/stealing and e-mailing/uploading big mp3 files. Or you can send them links to any of a number of websites that have 30-second samples. Or you can just type the name of the artist and album into a RhapLink URL and invite them to enjoy full-length high-quality legally-licensed free streaming music through Rhapsody. I know what I think seems easiest.
Enjoy the new features!
-Leo Parker Dirac
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