Yahoo’s New Browser-Based MP3 Player

Yahoo recently announced a new free browser-based MP3 player that you can embed in your any web page.

To use the Yahoo MP3 player, you’ll need to:

• Add links to MP3s in your web page. These can be anywhere on the web.
• Add a line of code to insert Yahoo’s Javascript library.
• Refresh your page and see the player buttons appear on your web page

You may be thinking this is a great idea, however one must be cautious when working with their precious audio productions. This sentiment was felt by the +30 people who left comments at TechCrunch.

Why You Should Think Twice Before Adding the Yahoo MP3 Player

Podcasting News gives three valid reasons why webmasters, podcasters and voice talent should avoid the Yahoo MP3 Player:

• First of all, Yahoo’s player duplicates the functionality of a lot of existing Flash-based MP3 players. If you’ve got MP3s to share, there are free plugins for the popular blogging platforms that embed players into your pages.

• You don’t want to outsource control of your site’s look or functionality to a third party. If you put a middle man between your content and your audience, they can change the features, introduce advertising and even hijack your content at any time. It’s happened before.

• You especially don’t want to rely on Yahoo for this. Remember how Yahoo unceremoniously killed their podcast portal last year? They could drop support for this MP3 player at any time, which would break every page that you used their player on.

Given Yahoo’s history of trying out new ideas and be willing to pull the plug with little notice to their users, I’d recommend staying away from the Yahoo MP3 player, particularly if your business depends on having a reliable, ad-free MP3 player.