Napster just became relevant again, with dirt cheap music plan
It wasn't that long ago that Napster was the dominant force in online music distribution. Of course, at that point, Napster didn't have a business model, nobody (including the record companies) was making any money off the service, and while the peer to peer network was extraordinarily popular with users, it was soon sued into oblivion. The Napster music service that eventually emerged out of the ashes was never quite as compelling, even after launching a DRM-free MP3 store last year. But a funny thing happened today. Best Buy (which snapped up Napster last year for $121 million) came up with a business model that actually sounds pretty good. Here's how it works. For $5 a month, you can download and keep five DRM-free MP3 tracks a month. That might not sound that impressive, but here's where it gets interesting: On top of those free downloads, you get unlimited streaming access to Napster's library of 7 million tracks.
In other words, if you subscribe for a year and pay $60, you get a year's subscription to a pretty decent on-demand music service. You also get access to 60 commercial-free internet radio stations and 1,400 "expertly programmed playlists." And when you cancel the service, you'll get to keep 60 songs... which probably would have cost you about $60 anyway if you'd purchased them from Amazon, iTunes, or another online music store.
The only down side is that the streaming music service is no use on the go. You'll need a computer, not an MP3 player to listen to the streaming audio. But if the model proves successful, I wouldn't be surprised to see mobile Napster apps for iPhone, Windows Mobile, or Google Android show up. in the meantime, you can still sign up to Napster's older "Napster To Go" service which lets you download DRMed tracks to portable devices.
[via Engadget]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ervserver said 12:21PM on 5-18-2009
doesn't seem like that great of a deal to me
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Matt said 1:41PM on 5-18-2009
I don't see the new offer on their site yet.
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Wowo said 2:30PM on 5-18-2009
I'm using an iphone app called KKBox made by KKBox company in Taiwan. They are exactly like Napster except their music database includes more countries like Chinese, Japanese, Korean, English, French, Spanish...etc. I'm paying $3/month and I can stream the music directly on iphone. Too bad they only allow people who live in Taiwan to sign up. I signed up last time I visited there and been using it on AT&T network since then. I already ditched the iTune and iPod app, they are useless. Maybe that's why Apple doesn't want Napster to come on board for iPhone because they know no one will buy any music from iTune anymore!
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ds said 3:54PM on 5-18-2009
One word: imeem.com
(well, ok, that's three)
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Mysterius said 6:55PM on 5-18-2009
Hmm, that actually makes sense. We'll just have to see if it catches on, then.
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Quikboy said 8:22PM on 5-18-2009
I think in comparison to the Zune Pass, the Napster deal just isn't good because:
1. Not portable on PMP - I can already listen to a lot of free tracks on the computer, through Pandora and other services, but I don't really have a laptop for on the go. With the Zune Pass, you can hook up 3 Zunes to one Zune Pass.
2. Library isn't as big as Zune Marketplace.
3. The company itself - a company that shut down even for awhile, doesn't seem to be a stable service that you can depend on.
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