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Microsoft and MTV to Launch Music Service
An anonymous reader writes "According to ZDNet Microsoft and MTV have joined forces to form Urge, a new online music service. From the article: 'The company said Urge would include a subscription component, as well as allowing individual song sales. A spokesman declined to discuss pricing, saying full details would be announced next month. The company gave no specifics on launch date beyond saying it would be sometime in 2006.'"
I don't live in the states anymore. I'm not 'with it' anymore either. Is MTV still the main way that the kids see their videos? 'Cause if so, a whole 24 hour a day channel that's already popular is much better advertisment than any other music download service could buy.
They could even put the website address beneath the song title, artist, etc. in every video.
That's not too far from the truth. Have you seen the newest music videos. I'd say at least 25% have quite erotic scenes in them.
HD Trailers
They're going to have to make this something special to compete with existing online music services. Napster has a subscription service, as well as a "Napster-to-go" scheme whereby users can put music onto compatible mobile devices. This supports WMA DRM seeing as it uses Windows Media Player 10 tech, so it's not like MS can claim exclusive compatibility with that without cutting out the whole Rhapsody range of services. The other main service at the moment is iTunes, which caters for a per-track market, and it the only thing that works with iPods as far as I know. Due to the methods iPods deal with files and DRM, Microsoft won't be able to offer music for those either.
As for the "Original Hand-Crafted content", won't that simply be MTV videos? iTunes already has "a range of music videos and television shows"
It seems to me that MS are trying to fill a hole that's already been covered...
And of course, all of this will be sprinkled with advertisments for Mountain Dew, Microsoft, and Slim Jim.
I'm not fat, just big boned...
I'm psyched about this. Microsoft and MTV are two of the high-profile music-industry players that I have the least interest in doing business with. If they can partner with Sony and its DRM suppliers and hire a few RIAA execs I can have all the big players I want to avoid in one place for convenient one-stop non-shopping.. Obviously they've hired one of more of the naming & branding consultants whose work I despise, that's a nice bonus..
Seriously, though, it's very nostalgic to see MTV get back into the music business. I just hope they remember how it works, it's been, what, fifteen years now since they gave it up to make low-budget drama programs and reality television?
I'm just glad that someone here realized what the hell I was talking about in spite of the Redundant mod. Apparently, too many folks here haven't actually watched MTV since the 1980's. Oh well, can't say I blame 'em.
They'll figure it out soon enough, though. I wonder how long it will be before this new online music service only has content about pimping cars, playing jokes on people, weird people forced to share a house, and so on instead of, well, you know... music.
This is going to be a failed experiment by MTV and Microsoft unless they realize what Apple has that no one else does. Appple has control of the iPod. If you have an iPod, you can't use DRMed WMA. If MTV and Microsoft think that they are going to make a substantial profit off in the saturated field of non-iPod MP3 players, they are insane. The money is in a service that can compete for the iPod, in addition to other MP3 players.
What MTV and Microsoft has to do to get their foot in the door is offer a service that works with iPods AND offers a different pricing model then iTunes. That is the only way they can possibly compete with iTunes. Anything short of this is going to result in them fighting every other online music company for that tiny sliver of remaining non-iPod users.
I personally would jump at an all you can eat service for my iPod. Hell, I would jump at any sort of pricing options that or ability to escapes AAC lock in for my iPod. I got my iPod as a gift. I would love it if there was a way to escape Apple's monopoly short of throwing out a $300 piece of equipment. If MTV and Microsoft, as much as I loath the both of them, can do it I'll jump. It isn't like I have any love for Apple either.
If they have a plan to defeat Apple, then this will be newsworthy. If they are just jumping in on Napster's model and hoping to sell via the shitty MTV brand, this is a yawner that no one is going to give a shit about.
I really fear for modern music. Not sure how well the /. community is familiar with guitar tabbing, but it's essentially an ASCII way of rendering guitar music that even AOLers can understand. Now all the major tab sites are being forced to close or remove all tabs for signed artists due to a new music industry function. It's insane; how are such things possibly hurting the bands?
Similarly, Microsoft and MTV are two corporations (a word that has nothing to do with music) that really don't appear to understand music as anything more than a marketable economy, which is just sad. Just like Orwell said the hope is in the Proles, for music, the hope is in the indies.