I’m making an effort to pull together a complete set of links for all of the major new new media players. One of the things I’ve noticed in my very cursory research is most of the big names haven’t done a very good job of integrating the various media types they’re offering.
For example, Yahoo Music isn’t connected with Yahoo TV. For that matter, Yahoo TV doesn’t appear to have any programming available yet (or maybe I’m just missing it).
Google Video is a clunky extension of the traditional Google interface. One of the complaints I’m starting to hear about Google is that they haven’t done a very good job of integrating the various services that they offer (AdWords, AdSense, Analytics, etc.). Each system seems to have it’s own separate interface and there’s no such thing as a common login. They’re going to have to do a lot better than this if they’re serious about competing against iTunes.
Needless to say, no one but Apple has anything resembling a seamless end-to-end digital media solution.
I used to be bothered by the fact that iTunes was a standalone application. Now that I’m starting to get a glimpse of the alternative, I can see the advantages of doing things the Apple way.