Open Letter to eMusic

Dear eMusic,

I have been an eMusic user since 2002. I left after you stopped offering unlimited downloads, but I came back to you in 2005. You have helped me find new music. There are bands which I am not sure I would have ever found without you like, The Decemberist, Drive-by Truckers, Akron/Family, Jason Anderson, Art Brut, The Hold Steady, Antony and the Johnsons, Kimya Dawson, Avert Brothers, and Josh Ritter, just to name a few. I really love your service. It gives me a relationship to music that is really strong.

All that being said, eMusic has not made any major changes to their website since 2005. You have not given me any new features. I know that some people might thing that this works, but it does not. It is not enough for you to just go out and sign more music. The world of online retail is changing all the time and you are all the same.

My biggest problem that there are a lack of ways for me to have an idea of I will like music before I download it. There is is also a lack of ways for me to find music I might not know to look for. An example of this problem is that eMusic does not have a suggestion engine. You know all the albums I download, but you do not know if I like them or not. I want a good suggestion engine where I can refine the suggestions. This way I can find bands that I might like.

I would also like some kind of last.fm or iLike social feature. A feature that lets me see what other users are like me and what music they like. A way to communicate with these users. I want to see what they like and dislike. Hopefully that will help me make choices about music.

Lately I want easy ways to share the music I find on eMusic with the outside world. I would like good blogging tools. I want a way to a way to share my lists with an RSS feed. I want to be able to show people how cool eMusic is by adding content to my website.

I will keep using eMusic even it if does not ad these tools. i worry that they are leaving customers on the table by not updating. There site has changed very little since 2002. that is forever in internet time. I am just worried in the current age of DRM free music they will be left behind.