Posts Tagged ‘Napster’

Will we miss the iconic site? Some former users may have forgotten that it was still around. Some users may not be surprise that Napster is being gobbled up by Rhapsody.

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Who would’ve thought, all those years ago, that Napster would go on to change hands more than a well-worn penny over the years. Well, maybe a lot of people with astounding foresight into the music industry’s future would have  . . . but that’s besides the point. The latest news regarding Shawn Fanning’s baby is Rhapsody‘s impending acquisition of Napster, a business deal that will see the Headphoned Kitten sharing its customers with the notable social music site.

The recently signed agreement between Napster and Rhapsody will give the latter company access to the former’s subscribers and “certain other assets”. In return, Best Buy (which Napster is considered a unit of) will receive a minority stake in Rhapsody — something that could lead to substantial changes for the music service and its users in the near future.

Jon Irwin, Rhapsody’s president, expects the deal to “further Rhapsody’s lead over [its] competitors in the growing on-demand music market.”

It could very well do just that.

Rhapsody’s acquistion will give both company’s access to Napster’s existing subscriber base and the ability to bring together vastly different lessons for achieving success in the digital music marketplace. Rhapsody and Napster users can expect to see a big difference in the way they experience their services of choice later this fall as the companies begin to implement new business practices that take advantage of one another’s respective strengths. Whatever the result of the acquisition, observers can look forward to a substantial shake-up from two key industry players before long.

The agreement was announced today (Monday, October 3rd) with the actual deal expected to close at the end of November of this year.

Listening to Sean Parker’s advice is a bit like trying to take life lessons from your parents seriously. Sure, they have experience and probably know what they’re talking about, but you always have the sneaking suspicion that their viewpoint may not be entirely relevant anymore. Just the same, let’s talk about the Napster founder’s recent decree that social music has finally reached its proper level of, umm, social-ness.

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“Who are the Seans?” one might ask. Well, they may not officially be ‘The Seans’ just yet, but if their most recent venture blows up, they may well achieve that single name, ‘Winkelvii’ type status (without the d-bag-y conotations). Individually, you just may have heard of them though. Sean Parker? You know – that guy played by the pop star in one of last year’s biggest movies, Founding President of Facebook; the one that seems to have the Midas Touch with any tech startup? That Sean. Then there’s Shawn Fanning (sorry buddy, the ‘Sean’ spelling is more popular). In creating Napster, he almost single-handedly changed (Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich would write that as ‘destroyed’) the music industry. Yeah, they’ve done stuff.

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One of the more popular ways for Facebook application developers to drive traffic to their applications is through the use of Facebook advertisements. With relatively low CPMs, it’s often more cost effective than traditional cost per install campaigns as the users are also targeted based on profile data. Today TBG, the company behind the ONE Media Manager, is announcing two new clients: Playdom and Napster.
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