Napster is now selling ringtones for $2 a pop. Now compare this to the fact that you can also buy a full length digital copy of a song from Napster (thats right, the very same company selling the ringtones), or even iTunes for just $1. Maybe I’m missing something, but this absolutely makes no sense and is insane. Technically there’s no difference between a ‘ringtone’ and a ’song’…. well, other than the fact that it’s $2 for a ringtone, which you’ll hear occasionally for maybe 15 seconds at a time, or $1 for a full length song, which you can play anytime you want anywhere you want on your portable MP3 player. What is going on??

On a related note, Yahoo! Is! Now! Offering! Their! Own! Music! Service! It actually looks pretty interesting, especially since they’re offering a subscription service for only $5 / month, whereas Napster and Rhapsody both charge around $15 / month for similar subscription services. Here’s a blog post from one of the developers at Yahoo on why you should or shouldn’t use Yahoo’s music service. As usual, music downloaded from Yahoo! is based on Microsoft technology, and as such is Windows only, and also won’t play on iPods.