“This morning, Napster sent out a press release saying it is forming a partnership with AOL to integrate itself into the AOL Music site, and AOL is scuttling the Music Now service. Music Now subscribers will be migrated over to Napster automatically unless they opt out, and their catalogs will be replicated by Napster,” Kyle Monson reports for AppScout.
Monson reports, “Napster’s got a solid subscription music service that’s never been able to make any money (in fact, last I heard it was up for sale, and I assumed it would either be gone or acquired in the near future). And AOL’s never been able to gain much traction with Music Now, despite it being an excellent service with one of the best UIs around when it was acquired. So what we have are two money-losing-yet-decent services joining forces to create…what?”
Full article here.
Related articles:
AOL revamps online music outfit; still iPod- and Mac-incompatible – August 29, 2006
AOL exec claims ‘artists aren’t happy, publishers aren’t happy’ with Apple’s iTunes – January 23, 2006
AOL acquires MusicNow – November 04, 2005
AOL to launch iTunes Music Store clone in U.S. ‘later this year’ – June 12, 2003
More blood on Apple iTunes Store’s play button: Virgin shutters U.S. music service – January 05, 2007
More blood on Apple iTunes Store’s play button: MSN Music stops selling music downloads – November 03, 2006
More blood on Apple iTunes Store’s play button: Japan’s Oricon bows out – November 01, 2006
More blood on Apple iTunes Store’s play button: Tower Records liquidated – October 09, 2006
More blood on Apple iPod’s Click Wheel: Dell’s ‘DJ Ditty’ flash-based MP3 player is dead – August 22, 2006
More blood on Apple iTunes Music Store’s play button: MyCokeMusic is dead – June 20, 2006
More blood on Apple iPod’s Click Wheel: iRiver gives up on digital media player market – May 23, 2006
More blood on Apple iPod’s Click Wheel: Sony’s Walkman Bean is cooked – February 13, 2006
More blood on Apple iPod’s Click Wheel: Dell dumps ‘DJ’ hard-drive MP3 player line – February 04, 2006
More blood on Apple iPod’s Click Wheel: iRiver pulling out of Europe? – February 01, 2006
More blood on Apple iPod’s Click Wheel: Thomson gives up on MP3 player, CE markets – December 12, 2005
More blood on Apple iPod’s Click Wheel: BenQ withdraws from MP3 player markets – November 28, 2005
More blood on Apple iPod’s Click Wheel: Olympus halts production of portable digital music players – November 09, 2005
More blood on Apple iPod’s Click Wheel: Rio is dead – August 26, 2005
Apple’s iPod has blood on its Click Wheel: Virgin Electronics is dead – March 08, 2005
Apple’s iTunes Music Store has blood on its play button: BuyMusic.com is dead – March 28, 2004
More will soon follow.
follow soon more will
Will more follow soon?
AOL what?
AOL Music… Later
more will follow soon
Actually, I think there is a place for a good subscription service for those that like that model. I have no problem with Napster, especially as long as the DRM stripping software keeps up.
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AOL??? BWAAAAAHAHHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!! They’re still around????? LOL!
More willl follow? Who is left?
iSteve:
Why, the cell carriers, of course! They’ll take a little longer, but with the iPhone coming, the writing is on the wall.
Brilliant! They can both combine to share the burn rate.
Please.. oh please, stay in business for AAPL’s sake. We need the “competition”.
Next up…. the “telcons”.
Game, set, match.
If this keeps up, I might be drinking a bottle of “Montrachet 1978” with my friends next year in celebration.
ITMS is like Amazon and eBay in as much as they are good, simple ideas and volume/stock/reach is important, even critical, to success in the mass market (very different to niche market). It’s difficult to compete with simple, effective ideas.
Was AOL’s ‘Music Now’ ever available to Mac users? My limited research indicates not. Maybe AOL believed the 3% or whatever marketshare figures of Mac OS (probably less for their userbase as many (most) are trying to avoid the crap that comes with Windows) and decided to ignore it. That’s foolish.
You know this might not be good
If all the other online music companies fold, then there won’t be the massive fragmentation of the market that keeps Apple above them. If a clear and streamlines competitor appears on the map because the rest disappeared, then Apple is going to have some real competition for the first time.
It’s truly sad that AOL was born from Apple. Their homepage is a god awful eyesore.
It’s amazing how companies chose to abandon working, profitable partnerships for an unproven business following failed business models. Dell dropped iPod for Dell DJ and instead of making money off iPod, they lost quite a handful before dropping Dell DJ. AOL also abandoned partnership to send AOL members to iTunes and chose a subscription model where so many companies have failed instead. Go figure.
no problem . . . it all plays for sure, with microsoft behind it what could possibly go wrong?
“If a clear and streamlines competitor appears on the map because the rest disappeared, then Apple is going to have some real competition for the first time.”
Problem is, Joe, that’s one helluva big “if”!
I tried Napster for a while, and was surprised that I liked it. The one thing that completely sucked was that you couldn’t listen to everything if you had a subscription–you had to buy certain albums before you could listen to them. That completely sucked, and ended up being more or less a deal breaker for me. But it did prove to me that perhaps a subscription model could work. People have subscriptions to the internet, to phone lines, to gas and electricity, and they are just a given. You move, you re-start your subscription at your new place. Could music be the same thing someday? Why not?
Soon, more will follow.
It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it
—{time I had some time alone}
And I feel fine…
mwfs
War swallows Phil Moon.
There is that Blood word again….yawn …how original
More follows soon will
Perhaps there should be a second iTunes store; one that uses WMA for its DRM. That way iTunes could sell it all!