by
Michael Arrington
on
April 25, 2006
Yahoo launched Yahoo Go today, a DVR and general Microsoft Media Center competitor based on the recently acquired Meedio technology.
The feature list is comprehensive: Use Yahoo Go to manage photos, search Yahoo videos, watch stored movies on your hard drive, listen to music and manage television shows via a full DVR (like Tivo or Microsoft Media Center). Yahoo Go is only available for Windows machines.
It’s going to be hard for Yahoo Go to compete with Microsoft’s Media Center for the simple reason that it won’t be built into millions of PCs like Media Center is. But at least they are now in the game. More from GigaOm (my head still hurts from drinking scotch with you last night, Om) and Dave Zatz.
Screen shots below.
Comments
Downloaded it. Installed it. Used it.
Two words: Cheap Imitation.
Running after Windows Media Center Edition (MCE) is a lost cause, unless you are Apple unless you produce a product that is as slick as MCE AND incorporates online services to lets you enjoy content not on your computer like YouTube, Flickr, etc.
Web services are incorporated to a limited extent but the experience is so horrible compared to MCE that I would never use it or recommend it.
This will turn out to be a huge waste of their R&D budget, IMO. I’m guessing it will take the release and adoption of Vista to get Yahoo executives to see the obvious.
what don’t you like about it?
My question is always (as is Steve Garfields’): does it support RSS2.0 with media enclosures? If it doesn’t, then who cares? Another walled garden delivery system?
Looks like nobody is going to get this right and I’m not sure why. Is anyone paying attention to iTunes’ market share? iTunes integration is ESSENTIAL and lacking this support is exactly why I don’t use the Media Center capabilities on my computer.
I love the Flickr integration, though. Great job on that.
Seth - It’s bout simple things that are missing such as screen-to-screen transitions, animated photo slideshows, minimize button.
Perhaps what I miss most from the MCE is a responsive interface. For example, the sub menu of each main section stays constant. There is no reason the app should reveal the relevant sub-menu when hovering my mouse over “music”.
It’s lots of subtle things that make the MCE experience more satisfying.
*shouldn’t reveal…
There’s a silly bug. If any of the folders that contain your pictures/music/videos have an accented letter (like á, é…) the program crashes.
Furthermore, it tells me I have an invalid IP, due to not being in the US? What is that all about? I mean, If you don’t want me to watch US programs, that’s fine, but at least let me try the other functionalities.
Silly Yahoo…
I agree. iTunes integration is key for mass adoption of younger audiences. Like it or now, Apple rule the music roost and they have to be catered for.
Also, Where does this leave Tivo subscribers?
Cool more competition in the entertainment business is more fun to audience.
I agree with Peter. Does it handle podcast subscriptions. If yes, it might be worth the look. If no, then why ditch the TiVo?
Check out http://www.team-mediaportal.com/ it’s much better.
So far I only see a lot of comments comparing to iTunes and complaining about RSS/web features. But I’m looking at this from the PVR perspective. I used the Meedio software before to record and replay live TV, and I’m desparately waiting for a product that will deal with TV (and especially HDTV) tuner cards better than MCE does (which does a crappy job with that!). There are some promising open source tools, but no one out there has really got it right so far.
It would be interesting to see how this software compares to other PVR tools such as BeyondTV, SageTV, MediaPortal etc.
I’ll definitely give this one a try.
Why is it that no PC PVR programs support my Radeon All in Wonder X800?
Tivo is still the best technology. Why doesn’t Cisco/Scientific Atlanta just buy them and use them at every MSO>
typical windows only requirement software from yahoo
THANX for the info - downloaded it - up in running in minutes.
Had a feeling this would be the result of the Meedio tech.
Now we’ll wait for Google to reciprocate with something :LOL
Yeah! I’ve been looking for a half decent pvr program!
Huh, figures, I’ve installed it but it tells me that I have an:
‘unauthorized IP address (U.S. IP Addresses Only)’
Great, once again the people in Australia get shafted because of location.
When will the software/web community realise that Australia makes up for a hefty portion of users of new and innovative products?
Skype was one of the first I came across (Skype In-beta is avaliable for UK and US customers but not AUS) now yahoo.
Hello,
Is this service going to be avaliable in australia, or have you just stuffed meedio up, like you americans always stuff things up.
Hello to Z! =)
Cool article!
Hello to bosshawg!
Hi to GangstaLinks!
Hi to Mike!
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