| In today's world, many people turn to the | | | | drawbacks to their music lyrics system. Part |
| internet to find information about any | | | | of the deal agreed upon by Yahoo and various |
| subject that one may think about. One | | | | record labels include the requirement for all |
| subject that is increasing in popularity is | | | | lyrics to be in picture format versus pure |
| searching for full music lyrics to all and | | | | text. This is mainly to prevent users from |
| any genres of songs. This is fairly simple | | | | copying and pasting the text of lyrics and to |
| to accomplish with a simple search in Google, | | | | prevent online robots from crawling their |
| but some people worry that in the very near | | | | webpage with the sole intent to steal the |
| future, this may or may not be changing. | | | | text of the lyrics. This also has a |
| | | | drawback, as mentioned above. Since the |
| Yahoo recently announced a new feature that | | | | lyrics are in picture format, search engines |
| would allow users to search music lyrics from | | | | will not be able to see the text in the |
| their site. Yahoo has obtained licensing for | | | | lyrics, and searches where users enter a |
| tons of artists from many different record | | | | verse from their favorite song will not |
| labels. In exchange for the allowed use of | | | | return a result from Yahoo's system. |
| the music lyrics, Yahoo provides a portion of | | | | |
| all advertising revenue gained from the site | | | | Yahoo's music lyrics search also suffers from |
| to the artists and record labels. | | | | the fact that the "typical" internet user |
| | | | just doesn't know about it. With Google |
| Some owners of other music lyrics websites | | | | being the current king of search engines, a |
| have worried that Yahoo's new system will | | | | good portion of internet users have no idea |
| take away a large portion of their site's | | | | that Yahoo offers such a system. These users |
| traffic. One website I contacted even | | | | will continue to search for music lyrics as |
| suggested that they would have to take an | | | | they always have in the past, through a |
| additional approach, such as offering a new | | | | typical Google search. This, coupled with |
| mobile-based lyrics system for cell-phone | | | | the fact that 90% of search engine traffic |
| users, in response to the loss of advertising | | | | comes from Google, will mean that although |
| revenue due to Yahoo's new music lyrics | | | | Yahoo's system is a nice approach, many |
| system. Additionally, some lyrics websites | | | | online music lyrics websites will not be as |
| are disallowed from posting lyrics to certain | | | | heavily hit as some once thought after |
| artists or bands due to copyright issues. | | | | Yahoo's announcement. One thing is for |
| Yahoo's system is an attempt to get around | | | | certain: unless Yahoo takes over as the king |
| this problem and offers music lyrics to any | | | | of search engines, most users will continue |
| song the user would want to search for. | | | | to find music lyrics online in the same |
| | | | fashion they have used in the past, through |
| While Yahoo's approach is an elegant | | | | Google. |
| solution, there are still a couple of | | | | |