Quick Hits: Yahoo! Live, consumer interest in connected cars

Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web:

Yahoo! Live has launched: In April we covered Yahoo’s intention to step into the concert-streaming space with Yahoo! Live. the nascent service’s audacious promise was to host a concert every night. that bold challenge appears to be underway as of this week, with concerts by The Neighbourhood, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Kiss, Chevelle, and Common. We found the streaming to be erratic, perhaps because of traffic demands. That notwithstanding, it is an interesting and ambitious project. [Yahoo! Live]

Kindle Unlimited: This isn’t about music, and only a bit about audio, but it says a lot about the content-access model, which is emerging to challenge the content purchases across media types. Amazon’s Kindle book and audiobook ecosystem is launching a subscription feature, wherein you access books on deman, through a catalog of over 600,000 titles. Some computer-read books are included (not the same as human-read audiobooks). [GigaOM]

What do people really want in a connected car? RAIN’s focus when covering digital dashboards is infotainment — where radio fits into a platform increasingly crowded with online services deslivering personalized music and podcasts. But consumers might not be focusing with the same lens, according to a new study by telecom giant Telefonica (which, by the way, partners with Rhapsody’s Napster-branded music service). In its research, Telefonica revealed that safety and navigation features were most important to new-car buyers. Be that as it may, it doesn’t stop the power shift occuring in the car’s cockpit, when it comes to listening options. [The Telegraph]

Brad Hill