MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

Way to go Napster! Not enough colleges signing up, eh?

MW: standard. Napster hopes to become the new standard in failing miserably.

Anyone seen the new Napster commercials? They try to put a positive spin on the subscription by just coming right out and saying "Own nothing, have everything".

Own nothing. That says it all.

got to love all the apples!!!

What was apple's PROFIT for MUSIC last quarter?

subcription model's already fallen. after all, you own nothing. human being has basic instinct to own something so that they have feeling that this is mine.

So, they have $127.3 million in the bank and have been losing around 14 million per quarter. That makes me think that they are only going to be around for about 9 quarters. I don't think we'll be hearing about Napster after 2007 ends....

off topic of course.....so the other day my wife and i were sitting in bed next to our imac G5 and we wanted to watch a movie. We put in " What's the worse that could happen"' with Danny Divito and Martin Lawrance. The drive read the disc....the spit it out on the floor. I actually love when this happens.....I wonder if this is the " once a user finds something they didn't even know they wanted, then realized that Apple thought of that while creating it" features Steve talks about. Before you all flame me, I am a long time Mac user......and even Apple II and commodore 64 user to.....or for those real old timers...the vic 32, so don't go assuming me to be an Apple basher. Now, are there any firm ware updates that I have missed that correct this....not that I want it. Whenever my wife burns cd's or dvd's she knows our imac is done because he discs rolls out on the floor. This I believe is the 2nd rev we bought it in Febuary 05, already replaced the power supply.

thanks, jarrett

space, as in i need to create a clear, safe spot for our media to land.

Apple earned $265 million last quarter on iTunes Music Store sales and iPod related services and accessories. They don't break those numbers out individually or report the profit numbers on just on iTMS sales.

The other $1.212 billion of the $1.477 billion in music revenue quoted by MDN above were from iPod sales, of course.

Figures from Apple's October 11, 2005 8-K filing which can be found via: http://www.apple.com/investor/

Jarett, it would be neater if your name was jared, like the subway dude. Anyway, i bet you could put some kind of cloth with a slit in it over the cd drive (on top of the cloths that the imacs already have), that would keep the disk from going all of the way onto the floor. My imac(also february 05) never spits the disks all the way out of the drive, just half way. I am guessing that your problem is just that the cover on the drive is not stiff enough.

I'M THE REAL NAPSTER!

to Jarrett:

No, I have not heard of this problem. We have a G5 iMac at work, and the CDs eject ok, however, the person that uses it says that every now and again the CD does launch fully out of the side loader and lands on his desk - but not too often. However, if you have a DVD in there, it should read it and not eject it. I would try checking out the forums at the apple support site to see if there is any information there.

My iMac also have this "spit-it-out"syndrome. Not all the time, but with certain CDs and DVDs. Could it be that some CD/DVDs are teeny weeny thinner ? Anyway, on-topic : Napster suck for me as a Mac-user...we all know why.

How about some real 'numbers' MDN?

Compare Apple's 'iTunes Music Store' numbers with Napster's numbers. That's true Apple's to apples.

MDN says Apple hit 500-million songs on July 17, 2005, then hit 600-million songs about October 25, 2005. That's about 100-million songs in 100 days, or 1-million songs a day, or $1-million a day (give or take).

In a 90 day quarter, iTunes Music Store is doing about $90-million in music sales. What's Naptster in the same period? $23-million and over double the revenue from a year ago. Not bad growth, except for the losses, and that gap is closing. Finally, some competition?

Looks like Apple's iTunes Music Store has actually dropped to about 1-million songs a day, doesn't it? That's about $1-million a day revenue from 21 countries. That's also slower sales than from mid May 2005 to mid July 2005 when Apple's iTunes Music Store sold 100-million songs.

iPod sales continue to grow but iTunes Music Store's daily sales rate is at a plateau.

Uh oh. Not good news, folks.

Bambi Hambi
Mac360

MDN magic word 'thinking'.

The ironic thing is that, while I want to own my music, I have no interest whatsoever in owning movies. I want a film subscription. I can't explain that really, except that, as Steve Jobs says, you watch a movie maybe once, maybe twice (maybe ten times if you're a total geek and it's 1980 and it's Star Wars), but you can listen to your music dozens of times and it just gets better every time.

I've listened to some Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson recordings maybe a hundred times and I still get all slack-jawed. But if I had to watch Sleepless in Seattle twice I would shove a hand grenade up my nose.

Sum Jung Gai (nice name by the way )

I was thinking the very same thing and wholeheartedly agree, although I have nearly 500 DVDs in my collection. I do not have cable premium channels and do not watch television (too busy most of the time), but I'd drop $9.95-$14.95 a month to DL any number of time-limited or low quality movies I could watch on a subscription basis and not feel like I was being cheated, as I wasn't expecting to "own" the movies anyway. I guess this is due to the ubiquitous television model where I just watch whatever is on at the time. I could record televison shows to VHS, but I would not expect it to be good quality or last long. This is why I love DVD and when I buy one I expect it to be archival quality.

SirROM

MW: friends, as in one of the DVD series I don't have, but would watch if I had a movie subscription service through iTunes so I didn't have sink a fortune into all 10-11 seasons....

Hey B Hambi,

If I were to give you a million dollars to make one trade: Short Napster stock, or go long on Napter stock, which would you do?

iPod and iTMS users are now finding a ton of content to further lock them in and promote the platform through Podcasts, which are not reflected in any sales yet bode well for the future of the platform.

Napster is firing up the national ad campaign again, but may be only burning up cash over the long run.

I would guess that Apple hit the 600M mark close to Sept 7th ... in SJ's announcement ... he mentioned 10 million accounts with an average of 60 songs purchased ... do the math.

SJ also mentioned in his announcement on Sept 7th that the rate was 1.8 million songs sold per day.

OMG, their website sucks; it is sooo static. If I'm a hip-happening college student, I want to see some motion, some action at the site. Maybe a little Flash w/ Gwen Stefani telling me how great Napster is and I should try it. Right, like Gwen would ever do that. <hehehe>

Anyone know if Napster works in Virtual PC?

MDN Magic Word = "given," as in "It's a given that Napster will fail."

Bambi, that date for 600M was the Aussie iTMS opening date, when they held a press conference in Aus. They didn't say exactly when they passed the 600M mark, just that it had been passed.

As for Napster, their ads are really odd. Hypnotic, as if they're trying to hypnotize you into joining their little cult. A little weird marketing. I'm not sure it really plays too well, as the message seems to defeat its purpose.

The numbers are interesting. It seems like they're losing money while generating sales of about $15 a subscriber a month. Conversely, Real, which is making money on music is only generating about $4 a subscriber a month. Counterintuitive, if you ask me.

To all the nit-pickers:

Napster's "biggest brand in digital music" claim doesn't require an "Apple-to-Apples" rebuttal. MDN's point is that Napster is one of the smallest brands in digital music.

Because Napster is primarily a subscription service, there is no realistic way to compare iTunes' and Napster's revenue numbers.

For all we know, Napster's subscription revenue may have already hit a plateau. The company may already have as many dimwit renters as they're ever likely to get. Even if Napster manages to hook a few more, the fact that subscribers won't lose anything by leaving (since they don't own anything, anyway) means Napster will have to fight to keep and hold subscribers past any initial commitments.

How many people do you know who've expressed interest in a Napster gift card? How many have times has someone bragged up their music rental service to you? Napster isn't gaining mindshare, and their subscription model isn't going to save the music industry.

So even though I've never purchased a single song from the iTunes Music Store, I am continually insulted by Napster's advertising and bewildered by the whole music rental concept. Therefore, I have no problem with Napster-bashing for sport.

so it swallows, and then it spits? i guess thats ok as long as it swallows in the first place.

Never mind the songs sold..remember Jobs said they have (more than?) 10 million live user accounts on iTunes.

Total number of subscribers is up (46,000?).
Revenue is up and beat analysts consensus.
The company still has money to burn (in cash & equiv).

That's all the good news. Now for the bad:

Advertising is damned expensive and will burn cash fast (better not do much of that).

If the company goes down everyone who rented music loses their legal rights to their tunes.

I wonder how the "greedy record companies" feel about selling music through subscriptions.... better start raising the price to subscribers if "new cuts" are played by users.

I know two Napster users. They both use "sideways" software to make illegal dubs of their rented music.... Hmmmm, perhaps this is where the swap sites are getting the latest material. Nice! Good going Nappy.

If growth of their subscription base continues at their currrent rate of increase the rotton music stealing brand, Napster, will be history in 13-19 months.

MW: beleagured

R.I.P NAPSTER.

Your song is over.

Here's a prime example of "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" offered by an English professor from the University of Phoenix:

The professor told his class one day:
"Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The
process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right.
As homework tonight, one of you will write the first paragraph of a short story. You will e-mail your partner that paragraph and send another copy to me. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story and send it back, so sending another copy to me. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on
back-and-forth. Remember to re-read what has been written each time in
order to keep the story coherent.

There is to be absolutely NO talking outside of the e-mails and anything you wish to say must be written in the e-mail. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached."

The following was actually turned in by two of his English students: Rebecca and Gary.

THE STORY:
(first paragraph by Rebecca) At first, Laurie couldn't decide which
kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for
lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question.

(second paragraph by Gary)
Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron
now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than
the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had
spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geostation 17," he said into his transgalactic communicator. "Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far..." But before he could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay.The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.

(Rebecca)
He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel," Laurie read in her newspaperone morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed
unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspaper to read, no television to distract her from
her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her. "Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully.

(Gary ) Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace disarmament Treaty through the congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the
coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid Laurie.

(Rebecca)
This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writingpartner is a violent, chauvinistic semi-literate adolescent.

(Gary) Yeah? Well, my writing partner is a self-centered tediousneurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium.
"Oh, shall I have chamomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of F--KING TEA??? Oh no, what am I to do? I'm such an air headed bimbo who reads too many Danielle Steele novels

(Rebecca)
Asshole.

(Gary)
Bitch

(Rebecca) F__K YOU - YOU NEANDERTHAL!
(Gary)
Go drink some tea - whore.

(TEACHER)
A+ - I really liked this one.

Soon to be renamed "Dirt Napster."

A+ for Jay Rice too. More interesting than any news related to Napster today.

Go Barsa!

Jay Rice,

Wow, not sure how this relates to anything, but thanks for the laugh!

Jarrett:
I would look here first -
http://www.apple.com/support/imac/

(Note to Jay: Actually, I'm pretty sure men are from one of Jupiter's moons, Lysithea and women are from Masvingo, Zimbabwe. It was on the internet so it must be true.)

Have a lauch at this:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=NAPS&t=3m&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=aapl

Apple vs. Napster stock comparison for the last 3 months.

Oh, and Apple is up over $1.25 in premarket today to above $61

MDN word: trying

Did the financial results include Microsoft's contribution from the settlement? I hope so.

Jay Rice

Very funny. Along with AAPL it made my morning.

Impressive -- NAPS is still not a penny stock! Just a matter of time.

Jay Rice,

Hilarious!

On a related note, if a company more than doubles its revenue but didn't cut its losses by half then that company is in trouble - plain and simple. Apple has nothing to worry about right now especially as more and more people are buying iPods. By the time iPod sales slow down, Napster would have bled all the cash and would be trying to find someone to buy it.

Do the math, losing about 30 US per subscriber

This news makes me wonder if the Record companies are more intelligent and less greedy than we seem to think.

We all knew Apple is cleaning up in the online music buisness, the industry does too. I wonder if their attempts to raise prices are aimed at giving places like napster a shot in the arm to boost online music sales into the primary revenue stream for their companies rather than a nice paycheck from Apple every now and then...

Nah

Napster was the biggest online p2p before it became a legal seller, or should I say, renter of music to PC only users. Now it is but a dot of sand in the vast desert of iTunes music store. Sorry Napster but your label is very missleading and down right false advertising.

Jay

I actually just blew a snot bubble halfway through that. Seriously funny.

Heh. Things are looking up for Napster. No, seriously. Yeah, they're gushing money like water through a sieve, but not as much as last year and less than was expected by analysts. Plus revenue went up. It's funny, but this will probably be seen as an improvement and increase their stock price.

Oh wait, it's down 7%. Never mind. I guess the sight of Napster improving is overwhelmed by the strong possibility of them running out of cash before they can turn it around.

Mark my words: This will end with Napster being purchased by somebody.

Maybe Samsung would be interested, since they're interested in creating a music store but now are not creating their own music store.

Maybe not.

Or drink some chamomile tea.

Or just get destroyed by the Anu'udrian iPod mothership (that's Apple).