Following Yahoo's announcement of starting a marketing campaign for the promotion of Yahoo Music Unlimited, which can be used by US residents to purchase music, Yahoo Japan has also introduced a new online music service.

Users can listen, free of charge, to any of the 100,000 songs included in the catalog, their quality being comparable to that of the FM radio stations. If they find something of interest, the users can choose between buying the song or the CD.

Yahoo Japan is the first service in this country that allows the listening to the full length songs, the competition only offering 30 second audio previews. Yahoo Japan hopes that the introduction of the service will increase the traffic recorded by the site.

Apple iTunes Japan might be the real reason why Yahoo Japan has introduced the new service. With one million songs sold in just 4 days after its launching and having the lowest offer, Apple has changed the balance of forces between the Japanese digital music providers, Sony having the most to lose.

Yahoo Music Unlimited, which is focused only on the lending and selling of music, was introduced three months ago, and it has the lowest prices compared to Napster and Real Network Rhapsody.