Napster Flounders with Subscription Model

The Silicon Alley Insider reports that while Napster stopped the bleeding and is no longer burning through cash, it’s because they’ve given up on advertising their subscription music service.

Six months ago, Napster had 830,000 subscription customers, but now it only has 750,000. As the article points out, Napster seems to have concluded that PC-based music subscriptions aren’t a growth business — “the same conclusion that Yahoo! Music, RealNetworks and MTV have already come to.”

Instead, Napster will focus more on mobile music services, and we presume, more unprotected MP3 downloads, such as what Amazon and (to a smaller extent) Apple are experimenting with.

Napster: Needs A New Business Model [Silicon Alley Insider]

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