January 08, 2009

By By Antony Bruno, Denver

Rhapsody, the music subscription joint venture between MTV and RealNetworks, has teamed up with several partners to bring the music service into the living room via new TVs and other products.

The first is VIZIO's new "Connected HDTV" platform, which will be added to new TVs this fall. Rhapsody also joined with Cisco's Linksys division to integrate the service into its new Conductor line of wireless home audio products, a system similar to the Sonos multi-room wireless stereo system. The company also extended its deal with current partner Yahoo to bring Rhapsody to Yahoo's Connected TV service, which makes the Yahoo Widget Engine available on the TV sets of participating manufacturers.

In other Rhapsody news, the service debuted a "free song of the day" feature, under which it will select a different song each day to give away to users in DRM free form.

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