Online Music Market Gets Hot

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

Plus Napster does not have a signifigantly larger catalog, apple has 400000 songs Napster has 500000 thats a drop in the music bucket and moot because apple has been steadily adding songs since it was introduced for Mac (50,000+ a month or so)
Apple has books, napster doesn't, Apple hasn't added its independent music yet although they do have hundreds of independent labels signed up now. so when all the new songs are added I see apple having about the same amount of content. And the all you can download for under 20 bucks will bite Napster in its ass if they dont make the cash thats expected and apple does (which its already doing) then the lables will pull their music and napster will fold.

[Mistress of Darkness]

I doubt the labels will pull their music. I'm pretty sure that any way to make a buck is viewed as good to the labels.

I really disagree with the Napster $1 for anything you want to do with the song deal. And it looks like Apple is using "mp4" technology, is Napster really using anything higher than that?

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

they will if the new napster allows users to have unlimited downloading for 9.95 like they want. Why because they will lose money.
How much music could a kid with a cablemodem download in a day?  Way more than $9 buck worth of product I can tell you. Even the casual user on a dial up connection could download tons of songs in a month.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

What is the actual value of the music though:

There is little material cost. You don't have to have a disc and a jewel case for every kid making a buy. You don't actually "lose" anything when you make a sale. If the extremely low price summons LOTS more users, they making money yet. Their biggest problem right now is actually branding. Apple has a more legit appearance and is bigger in the news.

I think this still has to be played out.

[wolverine_men]

I have no complaints to register against Kazaa lite. It has given me so many good books to read, songs to listen to, games to play.....the list is endless.

[JP Dogberry]

Bandwidth isn't cheap. A while ago there was a site, gamingforce audio, which had full videogame albums for download. In three days, they transferred 4 terrabytes of data, and had to shut down. They wern't making money, but a lot of songs can be downloaded in a month. On dialup, I've collected 11 CD's of Mp3 music from various sources, mostly OverClocked ReMix. There's about 200 tracks on each one, and it took 2 years.  Multiply that by Cable...

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

true, it's not, but shutting down over it is primarily a problem with poor planners who have no idea what they need. I think that iTunes and Napster know what they need, having a lot of experience. Plus, it's cheaper than maintaining a merchant web site AND a warehouse AND sales staff. And it's MUCH cheaper than maintain ing an actual store.

[wolverine_men]

I think the major players in the online music market don't have to worry about bandwidth problems. These problems are typically faced by unexperienced start-ups who do not accomodate adequate planning into their vision. All these players are like the big fish whose only competition is each other- not the bandwidth.

[Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock]

I calmly and quitely walked into my Yahoo! mail and what ad was I presented with today? Not the one of the little car turning right all the time that I could watch for hours, no my friends. It was of Napster. And it said Napster 2.0 is here. And like anything else thats so persuasive I decided to download, and now, now I install it to the forbidden zone upon my hard disk. And now I wait for it to do something.

It is riddled with stuff. I tried making a username and such and said I need Java turned on. And I do believe it is. So I can go no further. The layout is riddled with marks of Roxio, since that is who helped make it I guess. And there is a disgustingly similar feel to Apples iTunes. So turn your head, and continue to watch that car volcano cowboys.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

you didn't know that Roxio bought the Napster name...
yeah thats right the owners of Napster sold it to Roxio a while ago. dont confuse this service with the older cooler one.

[Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock]

I knew Napster wasn't going to be the cool toy it was a few years ago. I just don't remember ever hearing that Roxio bought it. But whatever. It isn't that great.

[wolverine_men]

Read the first post gem. Roxio owns their ***

[EUOL]

Mod:  Apple is using what they call 'Mp4's,' but it's just a gimmic.  The encoding style is an old familiar form, called 'AAC,' which actually creates music of a slightly lower quality than an MP3.  However, to the average person, it's apperantly not that noticeable.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

its not really a gimmick since they said it was acc from the start (every place you see mp4 theres a slash and ACC after it)

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

it's still basically a gimmick. How many people do you think know what ACC is?