SharkJumping

4 years after Listen.com launched the original award-winning Rhapsody client, RealNetworks today launched a web version of it and it's a really nice effort, allowing users to access most of the Rhapsody feature set with just a 500K plug-in component.  Combined with the Rhapsody 25 free sampling service, this is a very easy way to try out the service, and it follows the general Web 2.0 trend of making services easily linkable and shareable across the Internet.   

Some of the advantages of this approach are that it exposes the differentiated Rhapsody editorial features to a wider audience, Real can now attract Mac and Linux users, and that it should open up additional advertising opportunities due to the removal of the required client download.  As one would expect, there are limits to the service to encourage heavy users to upgrade to the full subscription service, such as no skipping in the radio stations, and no ability to move tracks to portable players, but it's otherwise a rich web music experience.  The only issues I'm running into right now are intermittent skipping, but that could be a beta issue since there is no real reason for that to occur.

Given the Apple iTunes juggernaut, "Websody" is a much smarter way to approach the digital music market rather than just pounding away on client software and on downloads.  I'd say that RealNetworks just raised the bar for competitors Napster, Yahoo Music, Pandora, etc  with this innovative approach.