Remember the old radio patter: "And the hits just keep on coming..." That seems to be the current state of digital music services. Even though no one other than Apple's iTunes Music Store has been doing a big business (and Apple claims to be making no money on it), the new services just keep on coming.

[To go to the main page for Digital Music Revolution coverage, please click here.]

Two recent big additions to the scene, Sony and RealNetworks, produced one major disappointment and one plus. Surprisingly, it was Sony that disappointed and Real that offered something usefully new for users.

Sony calls its service "Connect." One would expect that Sony would insist on using its proprietary ATRAC encoding and digital rights management (DRM) system. One also would expect that support for portable devices would be limited to Sony's own players. One might even expect the Connect software, as a first release, to be lacking in features.

But one also would expect that with all of the above conditions being in place, the upside would be nearly total access to Sony's vast music catalog. But Connect's music choices frankly are inferior. Searching for Sony artists on the service resulted in fewer songs than rival services offer. This is totally bizarre. Why is Sony even bothering with this if not to sell its music and players? Without major improvements, there is little reason to Connect.

On the other hand, RealNetworks -- which is not one of my favorite companies because of its software's notoriously intrusive methods on installation -- pleasantly surprised with its new Real Player 10.

Real has become the first kid on the block to deliver a player that can handle the three key formats now for "ripping" (converting CDs to computer files) -- MP3, WMA (Microsoft's Windows Media), and AAC/MP4 (used by Apple), plus the rights-protected WMA and AAC files sold by most music services.

For its own Music Store, RealNetworks uses AAC, at a 192 kbps encoding rate, the highest quality level of any current online music store. However, it uses its own digital right system, not Apple's FairPlay. RealPlayer 10 can play Apple's protected AAC files, but only if you have a copy of iTunes on your computer and activated your DRM rights with it.

All of which brings up a little sideshow in the music wars. RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser in a e-mail message to Steve Jobs that found its way into The New York Times (the Times attributed the leak to an unnamed "a person close to Apple"), proposed the two companies join in an alliance on digital music distribution. Glaser threatened to form an alliance with Microsoft if turned down. Apple, presumably uninterested in assisting a rival music store, so far has rejected the idea. The curious thing here is that RealNetworks is one of those pushing the European Community's antitrust action against Microsoft.

The lesson here is that in digital media, as with pretty much every other aspect of technology business, principles tend to be flexible.

Meanwhile, back to the player: Real probably can't help itself in being annoying. Installing RealPlayer in Windows XP results in a Windows "autoplay" dialog popping up when you hook an iPod up to your PC proposing that you use RealPlayer to sync. While the dialog is easy enough to turn off, it is a pretty blatant attempt to pull users away from iTunes for Windows.

Real's Music Store appears to be decent enough. Navigation is good, and there is some exclusive content. The standard 99 cents per song pricing applies here, too It passed my test of letting me find at least one obscure song that no one else had, which thereby establishes the service as worth opening an account on.

I would be happier though if Real would reduce the number of ads in the RealPlayer interface urging you to buy Real Rhapsody. This is a streaming music service with a $10 monthly fee. You can listen to unlimited songs without having to buy them individually, but the flip side of that is that you can only listen when you are connected to the Internet. Rhapsody strikes me as a technology whose time has passed.

But let's face it. One or another Web site you visit, or some software, is going to require you to get RealPlayer. So you might as well upgrade to RealPlayer 10.

Wal-Mart Gets Digital

Let's face it, the question of whether Wal-Mart's music download service is any good is pretty much irrelevant. It's Wal-Mart -- the giant of retailers, with marketing clout that makes its suppliers cry "uncle." You have to take it seriously. Even if it is awful, which it is.

If you want elegance and chic, you don't go to a Wal-Mart store; if price matters, you do. The download service fits squarely in the Wal-Mart mode. The retailer has broken the 99 cent price point, setting its standard rate at 88 cents per track and thereby redefining the market rate for music downloads.

The navigation on the Wal-Mart web site is not particularly helpful; finding the songs you want takes more effort than on other services. There is no bundled music player; you use Windows Media Player. The service is part of the walmart.com web site, and the pages are plain ordinary shopping pages. Search boxes let you look by artist, album, or song. The search results come up as just long lists, 50 to a page, with no particular organization to help you narrow your search or, for that matter, to help spur impulse buying.

Wal-Mart uses the secure WMA format (as does MusicMatch and Napster) at a 128 kbps bitrate.

The deal-breaker for me was unsolvable problems with Wal-Mart's digital rights system. After having restored my system settings from a backup, the songs refused to play and Wal-Mart's tech support could not fix it. They did promptly refund my money, however.

Wal-Mart's history is that it forces concessions from its vendors and surely there aren't many record labels that would want to risk having their CDs missing from the shelves of Wal-Mart stores.

While Wal-Mart is believed to be behind other services in the number of available songs, I turned up a number of titles there that weren't available elsewhere. Note, though, that if you are fond of songs with explicit lyrics, you are not going to find them at Wal-Mart. Just as in its stores, artists and recording labels have to deliver PG-rated versions or not sell them at all.

The key question is whether Wal-Mart's 88 cent pricing bring pricing pressures to bear on all sectors of the downloaded music market. Will that market be Wal-Mart-ized like so much of U.S. retailing? There's no way to know for sure at this point. At the moment, industry reports are that prices of music downloads are increasing, Wal-Mart notwithstand. But you know the story about where the 1,000 pound gorilla sits: anywhere he wants.

(c) 2004 Al Gordon.

In addition to his computer interests, Al Gordon is a principal in the Boston-area strategic consulting firm, Mary Fifield Associates, www.maryfifieldassociates.com

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You can reach Al Gordon at:

al@tnpcnewsletter.com