Napster and Best Buy Joining Forces

Ruds writes "Best Buy will market a music service co-branded with Napster. Napster will give Best Buy stock valued up to $10 million, and they'll share marketing costs. From the story: 'The retail chain will feature Napster products in its brick-and-mortar stores and demonstrate the service through interactive kiosks throughout the nation. Napster will also support Best Buy's artist promotions.'"

Comments

Napster and Best Buy Joining Forces...

[Anonymous Coward]

...to create "Best Napster".

Best Buy BAD!!!!!

[elasticwings]

So will the Metallicops be stopping by the local Best Buy to beat up fans in the near future?

...and give them a new reason to pester me.

[Muddie]

When they started doing Rhapsody, I had about 5 employees come up to me one day and try to sell me the service. I don't mean just hawk it. No. I mean trying to offer me demos, explaining to me what the service was, etc. Every time I'm in best buy, I have no less than 6 people ask me if I need help with something. While I appreciate the attentitiveness to an extent, it is a little over the top. Now, they'll be trying to hawk Napster to me. I love the store and I like shopping there but I just want to be left alone while I'm there. You have HUGE signs saying "customer service" and those distictly blue shirts. If I need you, I'll find you.

Lately it has been magazines. "Oh. You purchased a CD. You are entitled to 6 months free of Entertainment Weekly or People!"

No. No I'm not.

And am I the only one that thinks that a reciept that is no less than a foot and a half long for a single CD purchase is a little extreme? /rant

Re:...and give them a new reason to pester me.

[Epistax]

You so nailed it. I seriously avoid people in places like Best Buy. "Can I help you?" More like can I help them. The only reason they have the job is because they initiate every conversation so it looks like their working (to be fair, they are trying). One store I walked into lately (it wasn't a best buy) was very small-- about the size of say, the electronics department at walmart. There were at least eight sales reps standing around, and a couple customers. I tried to do some quick math to figure out how they could possibly make money but I lost interest (trying to get out of the store as fast as possible).

If I need help, I'll ask. If you can replace a job with a bunch of inanimate signs then from a practicality standpoint I'd say do it. I hate to say fire people who might be trying but it just seems like they try to hard. Sales reps should not be overachievers. I would rather they are bitter and hostile to me. Hell I'd rather they smell bad. Actually scratch. The majority of sales reps are already overly friendly, bitter and hostile. Also most can't afford the deodorant that they so say you need without trying to insult you (until you say no). Actually at this point I'm just rambling so if you haven't hit the back button on your browser yet we might as well have a conversation. I regret to inform you that it will be quite one way but I have a feeling you already knew this. Well anyway as some background I grew up in Maine in a small town. The university was the lifeblood of the area and because of it we had a downtown with more restaurants than our town was worth. The only fast food to speak of is Subway which isn't strictly unhealthy, but rather has the feeling of being in a dentist's office. That is, a dentist's office with roast beef and a cute petite female behind the counter. This has caught me as quite odd. Every cute petite female I knew in high school has worked at a subway and virtually every subway I go to has a cute petite female behind the counter. I don't know if they're trying to tell me that I'll turn into a cute petite female if I eat their subs. I certainly hope not because I don't have nearly enough experience putting on makeup. The extent of that being deodorant, which I see as a polish for the olfactory sense. The funny thing about that word is you wonder what factory the guy had in mind who named it. Obviously some factory smelled really bad and needed some cleaning. The problem with cleaning things is that bristles on brushes are far too weak to get any real scrubbing down except for the toilet brush. I think many people would have an aversion to using the toilet brush on anything but the toilet, however I think they could be convinced otherwise simply by buying two toilet brushes and using only one on the toilet, and using the other on everything else needed. This brings me back to the guinea pigs I used to own. I thought their cage was too small so I gave them free range over a large section of tiled floor. The floor was white before the guinea pigs were there and it's now a rich musky yellow color/smell. I can't think of any makeup that will work on that floor as bleach failed it quite easily. I used enough bleach to kill a medium sized animal. I know that this is the amount I used because I consider myself a medium sized animal and I'd be quite dead if I stayed in the room. That's why I left the room which was nice because I could go out doors. Being from Maine we have a large forest in the back and a brook to play in. It's not deep enough to swim but the rocks are there so you can sure give yourself a bad time. During the spring the water would be very strong from all the melting snow which is exactly the kind of water you do not want to fall in, and so I did. Actually twice: once in the winter, once in the spring. All I can remember about the spring incident is that I was wearing a sweater. The thing about sweaters is that chewing on them gives me chills all over. I hate it so much but I just cannot resist the urge to take a bite. It's such a horrible feeling and to top it all off my sweater might now be ripped or at the very least wet. Wet was exactly my concern after falling into the water.

Yup.

PSP

[WorkEmail]

I wonder if when you download a song you will get 1,000 pop-ups asking you to but a Performance Service plan in case your mp3's ever get erased or damaged.

Longer Checkout Times

[sjb2016]

Best Buy Clerk: Thanks for shopping with us today. Would you like to sign up for a Sports Illustrated or Entertainment Weekly Subscription with your Napster purchase? Perhaps sign up for Rhapsody as well?

Customer: I'm not interested.

Clerk: You know for just $.45 you can purchase an extended warranty on your Napster download. It cover's against damage caused by power surges, unlike Naptster's own warranty.

Customer: Not interested.

Clerk: Oh, it looks like we're actually out of that song, sorry.

best buy sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

It's so fun trying to shop there.. all you hear is *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM*, courtesy of the idiots in car audio.

Re:best buy sucks

[Bombcar]

Teh best (and I don't say I ever did it) is to make a CD that consists of 5 minutes of silence, and the something like "Bitch School" or "Hell's Bells". Or even better, grab one of their "Best Buy Demo CDs" and "edit" it.

Find the control deck. One deck is usually running all the speakers, subs, etc.

Put your CD in. You now have 5 minutes to turn up the volume, and turn on as many speakers as you can. It is possible to get more than one pair at a time to turn on with selective glue or tape application.

Now wander to the other part of the store and wait for the Audio Assault. :)

BOOM BOOM BOOM BITCH SCHOOL!

Re:Mac

[XryanX]

G5 for sale on Best Buy's website

Re:Mac

[Talking Toaster]

I guess you're stuck using the illegal p2p services like KaZaA.
Oh, wait, can't use KaZaA.
But there are fasttrack clients for Mac right?

Oh, and I suppose there is also that iMusic service.
Does anyone know much about it?
It doesn't get mentioned on slashdot much.

Re:Rhapsody?

[shadowmatter]

A Best Buy employee technically adept enough to read Slashdot?

Who are you and what did you do with the REAL Best Buy employee #519-DF-688!?!

J/k :)

- sm

Is it just me???

[gbulmash]

Every time I hear a story about Napster, I feel really sorry for the deluded marketing executives who think it has any sort of "cred" anymore.

It used to be about sharing, now it's about selling. Not that selling is a bad thing or that sharing is a good thing. It's just that the two are very opposite in consumer's minds, yet there are these dumbass MBA's who somehow think that just branding something with the Napster name will make it cool, so they bought the name.

If you could buy cool, Bill Gates would be The Fonz.

- Greg

Re:Is it just me???

[PsiPsiStar]

>If you could buy cool, Bill Gates would be The >Fonz.

An over the hill mainstream pseudo-rebel from the previous generation? Sounds more like Steve Jobs.

Would you like a service plan on that $0.99 song?

[93,000]

It covers any major repairs, including labor.

What do you mean no? What if the song goes bad --then what will you do? Huh, punk? Labor alone will cost you at least $1.25. Did I mention the lemon clause? . . . ad infinium