“With the MTV movie awards at the end of August in Miami, Yahoo is planning a huge kickoff campaign, including ‘guerilla street teams to help educate consumers on the benefits of Yahoo! Music Unlimited.’ More information from the Motley Fool (requires registration to access) states that ‘Subscription-downloaded tracks expire when your subscription expires. So to keep accessing your tracks, you need to pay the standard $0.99 a song and download it individually. And, after reading through much fine print, you realize that these songs are not compatable with the iPod because they are downloaded by Yahoo! in Windows Media Audio format,'” Wendy Boswell writes for About.com
“What? No iPod? I was just at the Apple store this weekend drooling over iPods and since the big birthday is coming up here soon, I’m dropping heavy hints. If Yahoo really intends to compete in the digital download market they’re going to have to include iPod-compatible offerings. However, since Yahoo is providing a huge variety of songs (over one million) at such a low monthly price, you can check them out relatively cheap and then decide later on if you want to purchase them. So that kind of makes up for the whole non-iPod stuff. Maybe. But I’m wondering what Yahoo marketing is thinking, exactly, since the main demographic they’re targeting at the MTV Music awards with the crack teams of roving guerilla evangelists are exactly the ones who are buying all the iPods,” Boswell writes.
Full article here.
Yeah, what the heck is Yahoo thinking with this “whole non-iPod stuff?” 
Luckily, Apple iPod users have the world’s number one online music store, Apple’s iTunes Music Store, ready and waiting with music, audio books, podcasts, and more.
Come to think of it, maybe the lack of iPod compatibility is the root of the problems all of these Windows Media-based online music stores are having?
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Yahoo! to launch ‘agressive’ campaign for online music subscription service on MTV – August 18, 2005
BusinessWeek: Apple unlikely to launch music subscription service – August 15, 2005
Apple CEO Steve Jobs on Yahoo music, iPod, cellphones, ‘Halo Effect,’ viruses and more – May 23, 2005
Analyst: Yahoo’s music entry threatens Napster and RealNetworks more than Apple – May 12, 2005
Yahoo’s music play hurts Napster, RealNetworks; may force Apple to offer iTunes subscription service – May 12, 2005
Napster To Go Soon? Reports $24.3 million net loss on $17.4 million net revenue – May 12, 2005
J.P. Morgan: Yahoo music service ‘does little to break Apple’s tight grip’ on digital music market – May 11, 2005
Yahoo launches Napster To Go, Rhapsody To Go killer (takes aim at Apple’s iTunes Music Store?) – May 11, 2005
RealNetworks drops 21%, Napster plummets 30% on Yahoo music news – May 11, 2005
Study shows Apple iTunes Music Store pay-per-download model preferred over subscription service – April 11, 2005
PC apologyst
you mean the mp3 and mp4 that my friends give me and that I hear on my iPod only play in my imagination?
LOL
I see what you guys say. The DRM is removed for me to play those MP3 and MP4 not from iTMS.
But then, if Yahoo was using something other than WMA one – in the end – could end up with a tune to be played on the iPod if it was not in the MS format.
Thinking of it, it then looks like Apple – by shutting Fairplay – is making other competitors to go with WMA, hence with lousy players. They have no chance. It looks to me that if Apple starts licensing Fairplay it might lose more than it gets in license fee.
As it is now, the iPod is very well supported by a great store: iTMS. Other online store could not feed the iPod directly hence they will hardly be a competition at all. Other players lose wrt to iPod and are stuck with d/s schemes that are not on par with iTMS.
If this is – in short – the situation then I see no point in licensing Fairplay. Why helping competitors? I see no gain to Apple in doing that.