In a press release today, Napster, calling themselves, “the biggest brand in digital music…”
(ROTFL)
… announced today the consumer release of its “Napster To Go” technology and the unveiling of the new Napster 3.0. Napster To Go, billed as “the world’s first portable subscription service,” lets consumers move an unlimited amount of songs from Napster’s million plus catalog to compatible MP3 players for a monthly fee of $14.95.
According to Napster’s press release, “Napster To Go marks the most significant milestone to date in the rapidly-growing digital music industry and makes costly download-only stores seem antiquated by comparison.” The release will be accompanied by a major $30 million marketing campaign supported by strategic alliances with “leading” consumer electronics manufacturers Creative, Dell and iriver.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s iPod, which actually is the leading portable music player, with 92.1 percent of hard drive-based music player market, does not support Napster.
“Napster To Go provides infinitely greater value and is much more exciting than the iTunes pay-per-download model,” said Chris Gorog, Napster’s chairman and CEO in the press release. “This is what consumers want and Napster is once again proud to lead the industry by being the first in the world to offer this revolutionary new way to enjoy music.”
MacDailyNews Take: If Gorog really knows what consumers want, why do over 70% of them choose Apple’s iTunes Music Store? Doesn’t Napster actually have to lead the industry before they can claim to do so in their press releases?
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Napster tries to push music subscription service over pay-for-download iTunes-like model – February 03, 2005
Apple Computer could sell 21 million iPod shuffle units in 2005 – January 19, 2005
Cornell University’s Mac users ‘uniformly unhappy’ with Napster – January 19, 2005
Analyst: Apple’s iTunes Music Store ‘downloads could reach 474 million in calendar 2005’ – December 17, 2004
Study: Apple iTunes Music Store dominates with 70 percent market share, second place Napster holds 11 percent – October 19, 2004
Cornell University wrestles with Napster’s exclusion of Mac and iPod-using students – September 08, 2004
Why are Cornell’s Mac students being forced to pay for useless Napster? – September 07, 2004
Napster schools to Mac-using students: bend over and take it – September 04, 2004
Napster CEO: ‘it would be great’ if Apple iPod supported WMA – March 09, 2004
Napster CEO: Apple iTunes, iPod ‘consumer-unfriendly experiences’ – March 09, 2004
Microsoft tries to push WMA by propping up beleaguered Napster – February 25, 2004
Self Delusional Idiot.
Yeah, when you were the REAL napster. Freebie’s.
MDN Magic word “earlier” as in, Earlier Napster had a hold of peer to peer, but now they are just another Real Player, Hoping to do wha everyone else is doing…
Ya right!
Ya know, if you have to talk about how much better you are than your competion, then the competion is usually the victor.
Ah. They name their rival. Free publicity. Thanks Napster.
I’m a fan of ITMS. It’s a great thing. I hate DRM though, so I’ve only ever bought one song from it.
Fairplay may be the best, but it’s still DRM, and DRM sucks.
Can’t sell your old Fairplay songs on eBay, so you’re paying for something that immediately loses all it’s value.
these companies with their ipod/itms killers just sound petty and stupid when they attack apple. it’s even worse when apple stomps ’em. if they just released something and were proud of it and didn’t trash their competition, maybe they’d get somewhere, and if they fail, at least they wouldn’t look like fscking morons.
Oh yeah I remember Apple just recently ousted Google as the biggest “brand” on a list and I don’t think Napster was even on that list.
Bill: We are proud to introduce M$ BOB! This is what the consumer want in an OS !!!!!
If you really are the industry leader, you never mention your competitor by name?
Gorog spelled backwards is Gorog!
What’s up with that?
Hee hee hee, I’ll have whatever Chris Dorog is drinking!!!!
Napster was once … my favorit !
M$ and now Napster start crying it out, just because Apple is on its second coming !
Chris Gorog is right, he just forgot a few words:
“the biggest brand (of crap) in digital music…”
Napster obviously hasn’t seen the reports on how Apple is the brand of the year, even over prized Google.
Hi Webmaster’s Apprentice, I believe the term is called Palindrome, on in French “ par-le-drunk”.
Napster to Apple:
We’re the leaders, we’re the leaders!! Do you hear me up there? WE are the leaders!! Slow down, Apple, and let us lead. PLEASE?
kind of a weak take, mdn. with the material gorog provided, i expected more.
Talk about a “reality distortion field”…sheesh
Napsters latest and greatest…$179.40 (per year) and when at the end you can no longer afford to pay them, you get the “Neal and Bob” cause you have nothing to show for your Money. Now that is DRM…
*creek* *creek* *creek* *creek*
Napster CEO, “Damn it, who let the crickets in here!?!”
Who’s Napster? Wasn’t that some music file sharing application that got squashed by those RIAA monsters or something?!
Yeh, go on fooling yourself, but it isn’t going to help.
The magic word is “hear” — hear for whom the bell tolls.
“The release will be accompanied by a major $30 million marketing campaign…”
$30 million? That’s it? Steve Jobs crapped $30 million after breakfast this morning. You’re gonna have to do better than that! I tell ya what Chris, give the $30 million to me instead. I won’t spend a dime of it on your business, so, you see, the outcome will be just the same as it will with you spending it on marketing.
I don’t quite get this subscription idea. Do you have to give the music back after a certain date? How is this enforceable?
I suspect people would use this if there was no way to prevent you from using it after a certain date. If not why would you rent music? Music doesn’t lose it’s appeal on first playing.
DRM is to iTunes
as
one button mouse is to Macs
let it rest, for the love of God.
I’m not Chris Gorog because clearly I would know my own business, then again maybe not
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“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Amazing that Dylan Thomas could have heard about Darth Gorog.
The name Napster is still associated with illegal music downloading. It’s like letting you child molesting uncle watch your kids because he’s cheaper than the cheerleader next door.
where’s this guy’s email?
I’ll bet that even LimeWire is bigger than Napster right now
Is Napster leading the industry? Maybe. But in the wrong direction.
” makes costly download-only stores seem antiquated by comparison.”
Does this mean they are ending their antiquated download store? Doubtful.
How does this even work? What happens when your 2-week vacation falls on the date your songs expire? Your credit card has been billed but if you don’t snyc your Creative/iRiver the songs expire? That will never work.
Magic word = child, Gorog as the mind of a child.
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY;=/www/story/02-03-2005/0002946746&EDATE;=
http://www.prnewswire.com/news/index_mail.shtml?ACCT=104&STORY;=/www/story/02-03-2005/0002946746&EDATE;=
10 million ipods sold (cumulative), 250 million songs sold on iTunes Music Store. That’s only 25 per ipod, and I bet a lot of songs were sold to people without ipods or any portable player. Buy some individual songs, burn a cd, play it on any cd player in the world The music download business is still in its infancy. (no point, just comments)
Hywel is doing more for the cause of No-DRM than anyone. Even for the people using Hymn, each song they purchase is sending the signal (to the tune of 250 million songs) that “DRM IS GOOD”.
One word…
BOLLOCKS!
Napster brand means zero to anyone over 18 years old.
End of story… R.I.P Napster.
MDN SHOULD STOP MAKING UP TITLE THAT DO NOT REFLECT WHAT THE CONTENT OF ITS SUBJECT IS ALL ABOUT!
Napster CEO: We’re ‘the biggest brand in digital music, much more exciting than Apple’s iTunes’
That’s a lie MDN, the CEO never said it the way you put it. he said “Napster To Go provides infinitely greater value and is much more exciting than the iTunes pay-per-download model”.
MSD. you are loosing credibility to the eyes of many. Cut the crap.
this guy reminds me of that guy (iraqi information minister?) that kept saying saddams army was winning the whole time when we were already in the bagdad and had won the war…
didn’t he commit suicide?
he was delusional as well
$30 million will just about pay for 1 30 second superbowl advert!
Oh – well, that was a quick marketing campaign… anyone remember waht it was about????
“How does this even work? What happens when your 2-week vacation falls on the date your songs expire? Your credit card has been billed but if you don’t snyc your Creative/iRiver the songs expire? That will never work. “
I believe what happens, is that once you quit making your monthly payments and you hook up your MP3 player to your computer, then your computer erases all the songs you’ve downloaded thru the subscription service. Someone correct me if I’m wrong.
Wonder how long it’s going to take someone to crack that DRM? And won’t the record companies be happy? I.e. subscribe for one month, download a few thousand songs, crack the encrytion, then cancel the subscription. Whoo hoo!
MDN makes money when you click an article, Boeing777, they want you to click, to read what they right, and click back, not RTFA.
notice how many more ads there are lately?
MDN is biased, opinionated, and sometimes just flat out wrong.
but. if you know all of that, you can read through the crap. like drudgereport. I mean, MDN does find some neat stories.
this post, most appropriatly, brought to you by the word “truth”
How much would it be to buy out Napster just to shut him up?
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Another monthly fee! Yeah, that’s what America wants! Utilities, cable, internet, TiVo, XM, just pile ’em on!
Am I the only one would think long and hard about adding another $15 onto my monthly expenses even if I WANTED Napster’s piece-o-crap service? We are monthly-fee’ing ourselves into the ground, one service at a time.
The only thing Napster ever lead with was showing people how to steal music! Well, I guess if that “is what consumers want’s” they should know.
Hywel,
If you hate DRM’s then just keep buying CD’s and rip them to iTunes, it works great!
hey boeing,
I kick your ass!
if a tree falls in the forest, and no one was there to hear it, does teh bear still wipe his behind with a fluffy white rabbit?
“…MSD. you are loosing credibility to the eyes of many. Cut the crap…” – Boeing 777
First, who the hell is MSD? Second, how can you lose credibility when you didn’t have any to begin with??? Zing!
Chill out, monkey boy.
MDN magic word: wanted …as in the sign that Boeing777 posted: “WANTED: something better to do.”
http://www.applematters.com/comments.php?id=273_0_1_0_C
Thhe applematters take on why subs suck. I liked it and agree that subs aren’t going anywhere
Napster says “do the math”, then Gorog says “infinitely greater value.” He wants you to do the math ’cause he can’t do it himself.
I love Apple has much as the next guy here, but this may have legs.
This is going to appeal in a major way to the Walmart shopper. And the main problem with renting music was the rights limitations. But this doesn’t appear to be the case. Play on any PC–no limit at 5 like iTunes–and any player but the IPod, And to cost conscious folks, they are not going to buy an IPod because of the cost.
I know folks here aren’t this way. But we’re talking the mid-market, not folks who read MDN.
Of course I know all the arguments against it. I’ve heard them from Steve directly.
But with DRM we don’t really “own” the music anyway. We license it, and the rights can change at any time. The only way to own music–for now–is to buy a CD.
And people are starting to get this. I could see a scenario that people begin to understand that licensing DRM laced music is no closer to “buying” music than renting it, and by renting it you get access to a selection of music that no person could reasonably afford.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I hope I am wrong. It warms my heart to see such an innovative and great company like Apple do well. And I hope Napster and Microsoft–especially Microsoft–fall flat on their face.
But, this offering does have legs.
It’s called SPIN. They have to say something positive about their alternative product offering, even if it doesn’t seem to be what the majority are interested in using.
Napster said earlier in the month that it had 270,000 subscribers.
at $15.00 ea, that makes only about $4million in income per month.
with NO expenses.. and I mean ZERO expenses, it’ll take Napster about 7 months to pay for their 30 million campaign.
Take into account expenses, and this is clearly the swan song for Napster…. again
What the HELL took them so long to introduce this? And on 2nd thought, what the HELL is the big difference between this reconstituted merde and the previous pile???
The best comment from the link that jshuteye provided:
so… what you’re saying is, with the subscription model you have to pay *for the rest of your life* or you lose the ability to play the songs you’ve downloaded?
So… if you’re 15 you’re looking at (if $15/mth and living to 85ish) maybe about $13,000. That’s okay if you’re a music junkie, but if you’re the average person who only buys 3 or 4 CDs per year AND as you grow older you buy less but still like to listen to your older ones, then subscription becomes a very expensive way to have gotten your music.
Let’s say you are the average and download approx 100 songs (currently equivalent to 4 to 6 CDs) per year between ages 15 and 30 but then on average only 15/yr (about 1 CD) for the next 50 years, that’s a total of songs.
From iTMS, that’s $2250. From subscription, that’s $13000.
I guess if you are going to sign up for subscription, you have to ask yourself how many years you will want to listen to music…
If you are a music junkie now who buys a new CD every week, maybe it will be worth it for you… but you will be paying for it for the rest of your life.
So, correct me if I’m wrong, but subscription sounds to me like an expensive lifetime commitment.
He obviously hasn’t looked at the facts as far as what brand is the market leader. And it isn’t Napster by a mile! Try iTunes Music Store and the iPod.
Hey Boeing, your’re splitting hairs. Here is the first paragraph of their press release today:
“the biggest brand in digital music, announced today the consumer release of its groundbreaking Napster To Go technology and the unveiling of the new Napster 3.0. Napster To Go, the world’s first portable subscription service, lets consumers move an unlimited amount of songs from Napster’s million plus catalog to compatible MP3 players for one, low monthly fee of $14.95. Napster To Go marks the most significant milestone to date in the rapidly-growing digital music industry and makes costly download-only stores seem antiquated by comparison. The release will be accompanied by a major $30 million marketing campaign supported by strategic alliances with leading consumer electronics manufacturers Creative, Dell and iriver.”
The quote may not be attributed “directly” to the CEO, but it is on their press release so if A=B & B=C, then A=C.
He did say “Napster To Go provides infinitely greater value and is much more exciting than the iTunes pay-per-download model,” said Chris Gorog, Napster’s chairman and CEO. “This is what consumers want and Napster is once again proud to lead the industry by being the first in the world to offer this revolutionary new way to enjoy music.”
It’s simple: Why rent music when you can own it?
Napster…napster…. wait, wait…don’t tell me… isn’t a brand of orthopedic mattresses? No? damn… no, wait, don’t tell me…..I know I heard of them before…
Isn’t even “compatible MP3” a lie? Don’t you have to have a compatible WMA player? Or has Napster created a special DRMed MP3 file format I don’t know about.
“It’s simple: Why rent music when you can own it?” – rorschach
Good question. Hmmmm… Why would someone do such a thing… Because they’re a dumbass?
Seriously. There are a lot of very, very stupid people out there.
Its a short term money saver. Except the $15/month for the service + $250 for the player + $40/month for internet access (if you lose it you lose your music) + 99¢ per track if you wanna make a CD + $500 for a crappy Windows PC (cause you know Macs will not be supported)
Not to mention the BEST part. talk about customer lock in, if I find that Real has a better service and I want to change, I lose all the music and have to go back and search and download and organize all my music AGAIN! If I choose to never use iTMS again, I can burn all my music to cd and change to whatever I want. Heck, Im lucky right now if I buy 1 album in 6 months. For people who already OWN most of what they listen to and rarely buy anything new, this will not fly.
I “rent” TV because I wont want to watch 99% of the content again. Muusic is different
I have no intention of using ANY music subscription service.
What is the point of renting music???
– You change your credit card – this will effect your subscription.
– cancel your subscription – NO MUSIC LIBRARY.
– First month you download 25 songs, 2nd month 12 songs, 3rd month 6 songs, 4th month 2 songs… 1 year later you are not downloading any songs and you are still paying that monthly fee! – just to keep access to your music library.
SUBSCRIPTIONS SUCK!
Does this subscription service prevent a user from simply burning as many MP3 song copies onto CDs as he wants? If it prevents you from copying songs to CDs, that’s pretty lame. If you can do it, it’s hard to believe this won’t be ripped off.
How can subscription work…?
So when Napster goes belly up, I can watch my entire music library disappear! Oh yeah, I definitely want to sign up for THAT service!!! ROFL
What? Napster isn’t belly up yet?
I thought they were gone a long time ago. Geez, I wish they would just die alrady.
Napster to go only works on Janus enabled players. The “plays for sure” logo gives no hint whether or not you can use napster to go.
Go to this page and try and figure out which players will work with napster to go. Fun.
http://www.playsforsure.com/FindPortableDevices.aspx
People want to own their music, not rent it!
Napster has over 700,000 subscribers. Just mind boggeling.
Apple has over 10,000,000 iPod owners. If they wanted a subscription model they would not have bought an iPod.
So far, including iPods, there are about 15 million MP3 players out there that will not use the Napster service and about 2000 that will. Napster is really going to clean up aren’t they.
as someone stated above, once someone hacks it, a subscription service becomes a one time $15 fee to download all the music you can store. you hack fairplay and you can give out copies of the music you already bought. big deal. hack janus and you hit a goldmine. but i’m sure they’ve considered that possibility, haven’t they??
Retro Cat “Play on any PC–no limit at 5 like iTunes–and any player but the IPod, And to cost conscious folks, they are not going to buy an IPod because of the cost. “
Is this right?? So if one kid in a college dorm pays for the service, EVERYONE in the dorm can put the music on their computers? So the fee is only 15 dollars per GROUP of people????
The ad window that pops up everytime I try and post is blank but the URL says http://z1.adserver.com/w/cp.x;rid=3;tid=18;ev=2;dt=3;ac=17;c=889;
WHAT IS UP WITH THIS MDN? Kinda of annoying and a pain so please fix this soon.
Dude, you guys are totally WACK. Napster is the bomb and you Mac fanboys are just jealuss of their great new idea. Subscriptions are totally the way to go and they will rock your world. Just wait and see. You fanboys are so lame and you don’t see anything good that doesn’t come out of Steve Jobs’ ass.
I’ll be laughing so hard when Napster eats iTunes for lunch and dinner.
Play on any PC? How does that work? I can establish the same subscription on how many PCs? Can I have one subscription for all the PCs in the dorm? (Hey I can charge them a couple bucks a month.) And the PCs of my siblings and relatives?
Play on any portable player? How does that work? I can hook up all my friends’ non-hip, non-cool MP3 players and fill them up, too? All this for $15/month?
Hey, this sounds like it might work if I could live with those non-hip MP3 players? Do you think someone could hack an iPod to work with this?
Hey Jack A,
You and I had the same exact thought but you beat me to print by 2 minutes.
If you don’t sue me for stealing your idea
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />, I’m thinking I could start a business on the PC end; not too sure about the portable players, since so few people have Janus-enabled players.
Gorog: “I am the leader! I am the leader!”
Stranger: “Uh, sir…turn around. The line is going in the other direction.”
Alot of people seem confused. I believe it goes like this. You pay the subscription and download the Janus-enables iTunes wannabe. You then purchase a Janus-enables iPod wannabe. You then go through their library and download all the songs you want, but all the songs have a liitle software in them, and if you dont connect back to the service in 30 days the music file goes “Poof.” And unlike iTunes, there is no group sharing. from napsters user agreement..”You may not authorize, encourage or allow any Tracks or Materials used or obtained by you to be reproduced, modified, displayed, performed, transferred, distributed or otherwise used by anyone else.” Your music in confined to your computer your specific Janus-enables player, NOT 5 computers and Unlimited CDs and iPods and home movies and Keynote presentations.
Some more fun stuff
“Loss of Rights by Napster. Napster may at any time lose the right to make certain Tracks and/or Materials available. In such event, you will no longer be able to obtain these Tracks and/or Materials or to utilize the “Sync/Restore” function for Purchased Tracks.
Delivery of Products. On occasion, technical problems may delay or prevent delivery of Purchased Tracks and Materials to you. Your sole remedy with respect to Purchased Tracks and any Materials that are not delivered will be either replacement of such products or refund of the price paid for such content, at Napster’s discretion.
Right to Change Prices. All prices for products within the Service are subject to change by Napster at any time.
MODIFICATIONS TO SERVICE
Napster reserves the right at any time and from time to time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, the Service (or any part thereof) with or without notice to you, without any liability to you or to any third party.
“
Buffy! You’re not supposed to READ that!
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/smileys/#
Oops.
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They really expect people to spend $179.40 per year to rent music? Isn’t that what the radio is for? That is more expensive than paying for HBO… give me a break! No way I’m going to blow that kind of money on renting music… or I could spent $179 and actually own 18 CDs which I can play on my computer, transfer to my iPod, burn a CD and play in my car, use in my iMovies or iDVDs. Ummm… whatever will I do?
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Napster is so last century.
I honestly wouldn’t mind a subscription-based service from Apple as an optional addition to iTunes. For $5-$10 per month, not $15.
I’m imagining something like this:
iTunes : 99 cents per song
iTunes “Plus”: $10 per month for unlimited listening/ipod use (no burning), plus download burnable songs that you “own” for .89 each.
I’d be willing to pay $10/month for Apple to offer a service that would analyze my current iTunes library, compare it with their database, and offer me an extensive/comprehensive list of other music they have at the iTMS that I might also like. And then let me listen to any/all of it on a “rental” basis. I *don’t* have time for some sort of system that says “here are 1 million songs, just grab anything and listen to it for $15/month”. I already know what *I* like, I’m looking for other artists that might appeal to *me*, if only I knew they existed. It wouldn’t be something to enroll in for life – it would be a thing to use for a couple of months and cancel.
Think of it like satellite radio that comes through your iTunes/iPod.
Good God, this guy is delusional!
He must never meet Creative’s CEO, Sim Wong Hoo — their combined power might set off a chain reaction that would incinerate the Universe!
MagWo: “Job,” as in “Thanks to Steve Jobs, now Rob Glaser, Chris Gorog, and Sim Wong Hoo are each in search of a new job.”
umm…let me clarify, since I’m kinda mixing two thoughts together. Like Vodka & Lemonade!
If people are going to pay approx. $10 per month for satellite radio, why not pay $10 for “iTunes Plus” and actually choose the music yourself? You already have the iPod and the Mac, so there’s no need to be spending $100 on a satellite radio receiver…
Or what about iTunes “podcasts”? Have some “DJs” who really know their stuff put together daily podcasts or something similar for many genres of music – $10 to be a member, integrate with iTunes so that when “Mardi Gras Mambo” is playing, you can click “BUY NOW” in the usual iTunes fashion and BAM! BAM! BAM! You are slowly filling your iTunes library at 99 cents a pop, buying music that you probably wouldn’t have bought without hearing it first. Hell, that might be a great marketing idea, forget the $10 membership, as this strategy would make iTunes a BUNCH of extra money. Put some “iTuneCasts” in the “Radio” section of the iTunes source list, somehow sync them up so that the ITMS information from the “Now Playing” track is always showing with the option to BUY NOW. Songs would be streamed so that the audio quality wouldn’t be good enough to really bother ripping the stream – but good enough for you to evaluate the song.
The current ways of finding new (to you) music all require *effort*. Click an iMix. Click a favorite artist and look at the “listeners also bought…” section and click all of them.
How about having a button on iTunes that basically says “I’m Feeling Lucky!” (heh) and streams you a song at random out of the iTunes catalog, with artist info and BUY NOW option? Like a GIANT shuffle. Life is Random, exactly! Listen to it once, buy now or it will disappear!
Subscriptions Suck & Will Never Work.
‘Nuff Said.
I’m not very intuitive when it comes to math but I began playing with some numbers to see what the economics of Napster To Go would look like.
If you downloaded 15 songs during a month where you rented them for $15, you would be better off buying them from the iTunes Music Store and retain the ability to play them as many times as you like from month two forward.
If you downloaded 150 songs during a month, you would essentially be paying a ten cents rent per song per month. The crossover point would be 10 months where paying a dollar for the song on iTMS would be equal to renting the song for 10 months.
If you downloaded 1,500 songs during the month, you would be paying rent of a penny a song and the crossover point would be 99 months (eight years, three months) versus buying the song from iTMS so it seems like NTG presents a better choice at that quantity point.
But, 1,500 songs at four minutes a song is 6,000 minutes — 100 hours — for that month’s playlist. Played continuously, you would not hear the same song again for four days, four hours. In the one month that you rented those 1,500 songs, you could hear each one about seven times — assuming you were awake and listening 24 hours a day for the 30 days and you listenend to none of the other songs already in your library (and you were able to select and download all 1,500 songs in a minute or so).
If you were *only* able to listen 10 hours a day because of sleep, work, school, or other activities, your total listening time would be 300 hours. You would hear each song in your 1,500 song, 100 hour playlist, three times. Is that enough repetitions to really enjoy the song? At three hours and 20 minutes of listening per day, you hear each and every song once before you have to pay rent on it again the next month to hear it again.
But if you keep any of the songs and start to build a rental library, you either have to choose between listening to those previously downloaded songs or listening to some of the 1,500 newly downloaded song less times in the new month. And again this does not take into account listening to any songs you already had prior to starting the subscription service.
Maybe some songs are only worth listening to once to decide if you want to keep renting it but it seems you are now listening to see if you want to keep paying for it instead of listening to enjoy it.
Without running thorugh all of the numbers, it looks like the NTG “sweet spot” would be somewhere in the hundreds of songs per month. Every month. And at some point, it seems to me that it becomes more like work to manage that sweet spot instead of simply paying for it once and enjoying the music whenever you want.
Abandon all hope ye who think ye can compete with iTunes, iPod and iTMS. Close shop and return the money you are about to criminally waste (on a futile quest) back to your investors. Investors: Demand your money back before it is fritzed away. Ah, but it’s too late already … the market has spoken: Even in the devil’s lair itself, EIGHT in TEN of Microsoft staff own iPods. What hope have ye?
“Napster To Go provides infinitely greater value and is much more exciting than the iTunes pay-per-download model”.
Much more exciting. What happens, does a hand jump out and grab you between the legs? What the hell is he talking about?
I’d rather pay $14.95 a month and buy my music (which I can own) from the iTMS, than to throw the money away owning nothing. I can listen to the radio, which is muuuch cheaper than the Napster subscription service. What a bunch of losers. They should have sticked with their Roxio products.
Let’s “Do The Math” shall we…
Listening to 3 of your favorite songs for 2 years:
Napster To Go: $360.00
iTunes Music Store: $2.97
Listening to 100 of your favorite songs for 5 years:
Napster To Go: $900.00
iTunes Music Store: $99.00
Do The Math Indeed….
Let’s suppose Gorog’s delusions become reality. How long do you think it will be until $15/month becomes $25/month, etc.
Music is a drug, and Gorog’s just pushing the standard model. Get people addicted on the cheap, and then turn the screws. Perpetuate the business by rolling out new, initially cheaper services, but only with new music to get the kids addicted. The addicts can’t switch, because the new services don’t have “their” drugs. Some bargain.
Not for me. No thanks.
Yeah, iTMS will get more expensive as everything else does. But only for future purchases, over which I have complete control.
this might work for the first few months. new user signs up and spends tons of time tracking down music he likes and looking up new stuff. fills up his mp3 players. then after a while, he’s already downloaded everything he wanted. he looks at his bill and thinks to himself “why am i paying $15 a month when i haven’t even downladed anything new in so long?” then he gets pissed that he’s paying so much just to LISTEN to his music.
someone said above that this will appeal to wal-mart consumers. i completely disagree. the typical wal-mart music listener listens to pre-packaged over-commercialized top 40 songs. those are the people this would be LEAST useful for. they can fill up their 40 gig players will all the latest eminem and hillary duff in less than a month.
the people it MIGHT appeal to are those who are always looking for something new and something different. unfortunately, these are also the people who feel the most strongly about owning their music.
if this were positioned as an “unlimited preview” service, then i can see a market for it. but napster is trying to position this as the alternative to itms and it’s going to fail miserably in that category.
Just to provide a little balance here, the figures and levels of status being thrown about here aren’t totally correct.
MDN states in their “MDN note” that iPod has 92.1% of the HD MP3 player market without stating that the figure is ONLY for the US. Apple has a much smaller share of the market globally where this battle is being played out. Yes, there is a whole world out there east of New York and West of San Francisco.
The BrandChannel survey last week that placed Apple above Google was a global placing. Apple was also top of the list for the US/Canada, but was not even in the top 5 in the Europe/Africa, Asia Pacific or the Central/Latin America results, so there is still work to do. It’s worth noting that this result was for Apple, not any individual product or service such as iPod, iTunes, iTMS, Mac or, well, you get the idea.
As for Napster’s brand recognition, a recent survey of digital music services placed Napster a few percentage points above Apple in the UK, which is the third largest market after the US/Canada and Japan. I’m not sure what their recognition is outside the UK, but it is bound to be because they’ll be lumping together people who recognise the Napster name regardless of whether it’s the original or reborn incarnation. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if Napster’s recognition is higher than that for the iTMS. Not iPod, but iTMS. Before people rush to bash out iTMS sales figures vs sales figures and subscriber numbers for other services, recognise that brand recognition won’t always translate to sales. For example, I’m aware of Napster, yet I have no intention of buying from the service in much the same was as people are aware of the PowerMac, yet continue to buy other brands.
As much as I want Apple to succeed in this market over the long term, you don’t do yourself any favours (UK spelling) by highlighting someone’s shameless spin, while doing the same thing yourself.