Yahoo! Music pages to link to iTunes, YouTube

SAN FRANCISCO: Yahoo! on Tuesday will launch "artist pages" that let users connect to digital music at YouTube, iTunes, Pandora and other websites.

Artist Pages at Yahoo! Music are designed to showcase concert tour dates, music videos, band reviews, streaming tunes, and other music-themed online content, the northern California Internet firm announced on Monday.

"We're creating a truly open and indispensable music destination," said Jeff Dossett, senior vice president of Yahoo!'s North America Audience Group.

Users will be able to customize Artist Pages with software "modules" that connect to Internet radio services such as Last.fm and Pandora as well as Google-owned YouTube video-sharing website, according to Yahoo!

Modules will also provide links to iTunes and Amazon.com, which sell music. Yahoo! said Artist Pages at music.yahoo.com will eventually let users publish their own music.

"Artist Pages leverages the scale of the Web and Yahoo!'s massive audience to create something totally new, open, social and original," said Yahoo! Music head Michael Spiegelman. "Artist Pages is a major game-changer for the digital music industry."