Monday, we sat down with Rhapsody President Jon Irwin to get a little more insight behind why the company bought fellow online music service Napster. As part of the acquisition, Rhapsody acquired all Napster subscribers and other IP assets from Napster owner BestBuy. Meanwhile, Best Buy received a minority stake in Rhapsody.
Irwin tells us he looks forward to bringing the Napster subscriber base over to Rhapsody. Rhapsody has around 800,000 subscribers and Napster reportedly has around half that. Irwin declined to give us specific subscriber numbers, but says that the combined company will release this number n the next few months. → Read More
Music streaming services are are becoming a dime a dozen, and that’s before we factor in the expected launch of Apple’s own cloud music offering. Today, Best Buy-owned Napster, the Old Skool player of yesteryear (by brand name only) has unleashed its mobile apps here in the UK.
Like Spotify, We7 and a raft of European and U.S. music streaming services, Napster Unlimited plus Mobile, available on iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and Android devices, gives users on-the-go access to the company’s 15 million track-strong music catalog for a monthly fee of £10. And again similar to Spotify et. al. the apps include off-line playback so that playlists can be cached negating the need for a persistent WiFi or 3G connection.
All very me-too. → Read More
Sean Parker is no stranger to Internet success. He’s 28 years old and has already helped start four very well-known services on the web: Napster, Plaxo, Causes, and of course, Facebook. And now he’s taking his impressive resume to Yammer, where he is joining the enterprise microblogging service’s Board of Directors, we’ve learned.
Yammer, which won the top prize at last year’s TechCrunch50, recently rolled out a bunch of updates to its web version, as well as its Adobe Air-based desktop client. We use the service on a daily basis for work, and those of us with iPhones are all eagerly awaiting the release of the new version of the iPhone app with Push Notifications. → Read More
Best Buy will be acquiring Napster for around $121 million as the two companies have announced they’ve “entered into a definitive merger agreement” for Best Buy to scoop up all of Napster’s outstanding shares at $2.65. The deal will include all 700,000 Napster subscribers, Napster’s web-based platform, and key employees. Best Buy already has a digital music initiative that’s powered by Rhapsody, so it’ll remain to be seen what happens with that. I’m guessing the company might just switch those users over to the new platform. We may also see Best Buy further develop its house brand of Insignia digital music players, possibly with some sort of package deals including Napster service. → Read More
Best Buy announced today that it has acquired Napster for $121 million in cash. The company said that it will keep Napster’s executive team and will leave the Napster service and its estimated 700,000 users in place without changing much in the near-term.
During the 2008 fiscal year ending March 31, Napster had revenue of $127.5 million, and a loss of $16.5 million. The loss was an improvement over its last fiscal year, though, when it lost $36.8 million.
Best Buy ostensibly believes that it can eventually make Napster turn a profit or, at the very least, provide a service that is valued by its customers (Best Buy was a Napster partner in 2004). But how does acquiring Napster help the company in any way? → Read More
AppleInsider has posted details about a patent recently filed by Apple that describes technology for playing iTunes content from a desktop computer remotely on an iPhone or iPod touch. The new software would load only meta data about songs, videos, and other media onto a handheld device. It would then allow users to stream this media from their desktop computers on demand and even let them organize their iTunes libraries remotely (by adding, deleting, and moving files around). The main benefits come from saving space on your handheld device, where disk storage is scarce, as well as saving the time it takes to synchronize. There’s been no official word from Apple on when or whether it plans to release this technology (it files patents all the time that go nowhere). But such a development could be seen as one step towards a streaming music service like Rhapsody or Napster, which have operated in stark contrast to Apple’s download model. However, the patent does not suggest that Apple plans to stream data from its own servers – just consumers’ own desktop computers, where they keep the music they have downloaded. Apple could also be understood to be taking on at least one facet of Microsoft Mesh, which promises to make consumers’ personal files available to them on whichever device they use. Of course, MobileMe already goes to show that Apple has data synchronization on its mind – but perhaps there’s a broader trend here as well. CrunchBase Information Apple iPhone Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Napster’s had it up to here (pointing near the top of my head) and wants to regain its position as the King of Online Music. The new Napster web store opened its doors today and features six million DRM-free tracks, most for 99 cents apiece and most full albums for $9.99, according to Reuters. You can still opt for subscription pricing at around $15 per month if you have a Napster-to-Go compatible portable player. With this new DRM-free structure, Napster hopes to win away fans of Apple’s iTunes, which also sells certain DRM-free tracks, although many other tracks use Fairplay DRM and can only be used on Apple iPod and iPhone devices (unless you burn the tracks to a CD and then rip them back into iTunes as unprotected MP3 files). Napster’s service allows you to automatically transfer any purchased tracks into iTunes as unrestricted MP3 files that can then be transferred onto an Apple device. Napster [Napster.com] → Read More
Napster just announced that they are now selling their entire catalog of 6 million songs for $0.99/each, no DRM. And for some reason I’m having trouble getting excited about it (CNET, however, has more than enough excitement for both of us, saying “This is a huge day for digital music.” Whatever.) The fact is that Napster is still unprofitable and still makes most of its revenue from all-you-can-eat subscription sales. Both AOL and Yahoo bailed out of this business, since consumers don’t seem to like it and the labels take all the revenues. Ian Rogers explained why that business sucks last year, right before he bailed out of Yahoo. So Napster is making their big push into DRM-free sales, a market dominated by iTunes and increasingly Amazon. And…cough…BitTorrent. The days of paying for recorded music are nearly over. And there’s nothing Napster can do to change that. CrunchBase Information Napster Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Eliot Van Buskirk was sick — sick! — of paying for music download services. Now that Amazon is DRM-free and offers lots of music, he decided to cancel all of his music subscriptions. Yahoo was the easiest at about 1 minute but it took him 30 minutes to cancel Napster and 10 minutes to cancel Rhapsody. This reminds me of trying to cancel my XBox Live and MS SPOT subscriptions. Microsoft hides most of their cancellation systems behind languid representatives in a call center somewhere in Bangalore, ensuring anger all around. Why (And How) I Just Canceled All My Music Subscriptions [Wired] → Read More
Sorry for the delay, folks. I was busy fondling my Kindle yesterday and seemed to have left this one slip through the cracks. AT&T and Samsung announced the SLM yesterday, which is the first phone to feature Napster Mobile. On top of that it also has video share (3G!), stereo Bluetooth, and a 2-megapixel camera. Internal memory is a bit skimpy at only 50MB split between media and photos. The SLM will be available on the 23rd for $150 after a $50 rebate. → Read More
Hey, hipsters! Put down your hacky-sacks for a few minutes and hear me lay down this smack! AT&T (the “Fun Network”) and Napster (“The service you used to steal all your music from”) are teaming up to offer 5 million songs over the air for $7.49 a month for 5 songs per month or $1.99 per single. What’s that, cool kittens and kiddios? That’s too much for a stupid single on a phone that your probably don’t want to listen to music on anyway because that is not a North American usage model and this entire deal smacks of desperation on Napster’s part because they’re trying to sell themselves and 63 million “subscribers” would definitely sweeten the deal? You emo kids are so hyper-critical and knee-jerk reactionary. What are you going to do? Picket the sale in your Che t-shirt, skinny jeans, and Chuck Taylors? These are big corporations. Just take your $1.99 music and shut up. TC via Press Release → Read More
AT&T have announced that their wireless customers will soon be able to download songs from Napster Mobile. Starting mid-November, the service will allow AT&T customers to browse 5 million songs, preview samples of each song and purchase and download music from their mobile phones. Unlike a previous deal where some AT&T customers had free access to Napster, under this deal users will pay $7.49 a month for 5 songs or $1.99 per single, double the going rate on iTunes. The deal is good news for the struggling Napster, who will gain exposure to AT&T’s 63 million customers at a time they are looking to sell the company. AT&T also announced two new music applications: MobiVJ, a streaming video service, and VIP Access, a “mobile fan club and discovery service.” The MobiVJ music video channels cover eight genres and provide streamed video to AT&T customers for $6.99 a month. VIP Access allows customers to search artist biographies and discographies, sample new music, participate in polls and receive breaking alerts via text messaging services for only $2.99 a month. → Read More
Word is that Napster is dumping their desktop client and relaunching with a fully web based client as part of an effort to broaden their reach. Customers will be able to listen to their music over the web on any computer after signing in. The new web client will make it possible to join a slew of other online music services in creating embeddable music widgets to push their product and become accessible on web enabled devices. However, the desktop client is only part of what’s holding the company back. Napster is still a subscription-centered service, which keeps them incompatible with the leading digital music player, the iPod (not a good idea, say industry experts). Consequently Napster has lagged behind Apple’s end to end iTunes system which reportedly controls 70% of the digital music market. But the company is holding out for a glimmer of hope. Amazon has already crossed the chasm into open digital downloads. Christopher Allen, chief operating officer at Napster, forecasts that by the end of next year these DRM free MP3s will become standard. So far, only Universal Music Group and EMI Group sell music DRM free. However, with labels loving the iPod but hating the revenue split, other labels are sure to follow. In other music news, Ars Technica is expecting iTunes to lower the price of DRM-free songs to $0.99. That’s still $0.10 more per song than Amazon is charging. Note our recently article on the inevitable march of recorded music towards free. → Read More
Napster is rolling out its over-the-air (OTA) music service on Japan’s NTT Docomo. The service lets Napster To Go subscribers download music onto compatible cellphones (so far, the 904i series). All songs downloaded onto cellphones can then be transferred to compatible music players and PCs. Can iTunes do that? This is fun and all, and something many people wish the iPhone would be able to do right out of the box, but until Napster brings it over here, it might as well not exist. The monthly subscription fee seems like overkill if you’re the type of person who only downloads (well, legally) one or two songs per month. But good luck to Napster and all its future endeavors. Press Release → Read More
You’d think that with 5 million music services already in the works that Circuit City and Napster would think twice about teaming up. No such luck. The company will sell subscription services — essentially Napster — for $14.95 per month. The chain will probably sell a co-branded player which will probably fail. Circuit City, Napster to offer joint music service [Reuters] → Read More
In a conference with Cingular/AT&T about their new service, Video Share, a mobile-to-mobile video chat service reminiscient of video chat in Europe. The service is rolling out this summer. The best part? They’re partnering with WWE and Napster for some video and music hotness. Also, we’ll be seeing a new phone from Apple – something called the iPhone – officially available in June with no delays. The reps said data and mobile use is going to go through the roof when the device launches, suggesting some sort of all-you-can-eat plan (similar to what they have for Blackberry users or their 3G unlimited data plans). → Read More
Starting April 1, AT&T customers will have access to over three million songs through Napster To Go for an entire year, free of charge. This service applies to wireless handset users with the right plan as well as customers who have home phone and broadband triple-pack bundle services. What makes the deal even sweeter than the year of free service is the ability to stream music to a handful of devices, which include your PC, wireless handset and compatible PMP’s. There has to be a catch, right? Of course there is! New customers will qualify and existing customers who are outside of the traditional 22-state territory have to sign on for two years with the purchase of the Samsung BlackJack or SYNC. Press Release [via Reuters] → Read More
San Francisco, CA
