Yahoo!'s New Artist Pages Are Live

Artist Pages, a new music-centric online hotspot, was launched on Yahoo Music on April 7, 2009. Designed to aggregate and offer users a variety of content including music, information and commercial products, Artist Pages will focus on more than 500.000 of the artists that are currently listed on Yahoo! Music.

Users will be able to create their own “mashup” pages by importing data from iTunes, Amazon.com, Last.fm, Rhapsody, Pandora, YouTube and, of course, Yahoo!. The idea is to open a gate for young artists looking to promote themselves online, thus making their creations available to everyone.

“Yahoo! is focused on attracting and engaging the largest online audience and connecting each individual to the people and experiences that matter most to them,” noted Jeff Dossett, senior vice president of Yahoo's North America Audience Group.

”With Yahoo! Music's Artist Pages, we're creating a truly open and indispensable music destination that will drive music fans to Yahoo! first on their path to music discovery, experience and purchase," he concluded.

In order to make the web experience more pleasant for users the new formula of Artist Pages will combine the discovery, experience and purchase of music online, in a single place. Additionally, it also offers information about concerts or tours, therefore creating a complete experience.

“Artist Pages leverages the scale of the Web and Yahoo!'s massive audience to create something totally new, open, social and original which we believe will attract a new generation of music fans and Web users to Yahoo! Music” commented Michael Spiegelman, head of Yahoo! Music.

If all this sounds familiar, it should, because this new service will rival the popular MySpace, used by start-up and even established music bands across the globe. Granted, it takes a rather new approach and brings its own weapons to the table, and it will be interesting to see how it all plays out.