At the risk of having this blog renamed "The Ian Rogers Man-Crush," I'd like to shine a light on a recent post of his that is a pretty refreshing bit of transparency about Yahoo!'s music licensing efforts. Using Mojo Magazine's Mojo Filter as a scorecard, Ian looks at the past three issues and tallies up how much of what Mojo reviews is available on Yahoo! Music (and, just as admirably, shows where it's available, if at all, when it's not on Yahoo!).
I share Ian's esteem for Mojo as an arbiter of truly great music, but I agree with one poster that there's a fairly evident iTunes/iPod bias at Mojo, if the "What's Rocking Your iPod?" section is any indication. Sure, I'll give Mojo the benefit of the doubt that they're looking under every rock for great music, not just iTunes, but it still seems likely that iTunes' broader selection of indie labels would be reflected somewhat in Mojo's selection of albums to review. And, yes, I know reviewers get promotional album copies directly from the labels.
Regardless, given all the product management focus on features such as playlists, it's heartening to see someone vigilantly looking over the transom for what's most important -- the music.