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Napster To Be Acquired by Google?
YesSir writes "The New York Post claims that Google is considering an alliance or possibly an acquisition of Napster. Rather then starting their own, Google could jump start their music service with the help of Napster. Napster's share price soared more than 30 percent as a result of the report that they are in discussions with Google." From the article: " The company in January told Reuters that it was not on the block. 'The company is not looking to be sold, the management is not looking to step out. It's simply not true,' a Napster spokesman said on Jan. 23. Last week, Napster, founded by college student Shawn Fanning and was once synonymous with the pirating of music, laid off 10 managers." More information available from C|Net. Update: 01/31 19:16 GMT by Z : A Reuters article has Google denying that it has plans to acquire Napster or start a music store anytime soon.
Napster, founded by college student Shawn Fanning, as far as I can tell doesn't really exist any more. AFAIR Roxio bought it because they had a brand that meant "mediocre software" and wanted a brand/name that meant "cool".
Coming to a GNu world gnear you! You can google your songs, google your bands, you can even joing mygooglespace to talk to people and we will watch everything you do so we can recommend gnew music to you as well!
We gnow what you gneed
This "Napster" is not the company founded by Shawn Fanning. This is the company that was formerly known as Roxio that sold off all of their software assets to Sonic and then hired Shawn Fanning and bought the name Napster.
This company has been mismanaged from the moment it was spun off from Adaptec. This would not surprise me in the least, but unfortunately it is probably a really good move for the current Napster folks. They will make out like bandits.
Google already came out and denied any involvement with napster, according to this
Is it just me, or can you not go a day on Slashdot without hearing that google is trying to reach into a new market?
I'm already ahead of the curve; I have faced the inevitable and sewn "Google" into the tag on my underwear.
So what will this new service be named. Noogle? Gnapster? Goopster? Goosic(As in Google Music)? Or the best combination og Music+Google: Moogle!
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
Remember earlier this month, we had this: this. I've even heard people rumor that Google will be building a Space Elevator. Where do these people come up with this stuff? Who knows, this one could be right, but there's still a lot of these out there.
No Sigs!
The napster acquisition is further down the list. Next up is Cisco after they've acquired Nintendo. The whole shebang will be paid for after the Goobuntu Vista project comes to fruition.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
From Reuters: A spokesman at Google's Mountain View, California headquarters was not immediately available to comment. However, a spokeswoman in Google's U.K. office told Reuters, "I can completely deny the report." "No, we have no plans at this time to develop a music store, or to compete with existing online and offline music retailers," the spokeswoman said in a prepared statement."
This is not a sig.
Google said: "We have no plans to acquire Napster, nor do we have plans to develop a music store at this time." 13:01 EST
Is this only news because Google is supposedly not buying Napster?
How is Napster even relevant anymore?
Raise your hand if you use Napster's service.
Now everyone who has iTunes, raise your hand.
Napster was the first on the market with a pay-for-music service and they still couldn't turn that into a leading position.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
This reminds me of the spending spree done by tech companies during the stock price boom of the late 90's. Google has now found themselves with a shit load of cash, and they figure they better do something with it before people realise how overvalued the stock is.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
Napster, founded by college student Shawn Fanning...
He must be having trouble chossing a major. I suggest something involving computers.
Seems google is about to buy everything.
Google CEO visits Vatican. Share price in Catholicism rocket.
It's been, like, thirty minutes since the last Google story and I was really starting to Jones out.
Thanks for the Google fix.
Hey editors...if you're going to insist on a news story every time someone from Google gets up and makes a peanut butter sandwich, can you at least give us a Digest version?
You know...instead of 3 (or more- it's only lunchtime so far) stories a day about Google, ONE Googleback?
If you think I'm joking, you're right. What I really want is a section for just Google, so that I can click the "NOT ON MY HOMEPAGE" checkbox.
While you're at it, I'd also like a "web logs" section, so that I can block crap like "Boing-Boing gets a scary letter from a 15 year old kid who 'called the FBI on them for harassment on the intar-web'".
Please help metamoderate.
I think what gave google the initial boost was just how it came up with its own way of doing things and how it tried to be unique. Goodle products were made by google people, and many of them were a result of employees just thinking up new ways to do things. Sure not always it was ground breaking, but they tried approaching challenges with a different perspective. If google starts buying up areas that it wants to expand to it will loose its charm. I think they are already beginning to face this challenge and loose some popularity because of their actions. Google wake up, every thing you do now is going to be scrutinized.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
Unclear strategy.
Heh. If it's unclear, it's because they want it to be unclear.
<tin foil hat>It's all part of the plan to Take Over the World!!</hat>
Seriously, tho - Google doesn't want ppl to know what their plans are. Never have.
--LWM
The company in January told Reuters that it was not on the block. "The company is not looking to be sold, the management is not looking to step out. It's simply not true," a Napster spokesman said on Jan. 23.
NAPSTER HQ
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES
January 31, 2006
We are sad to report that the same spokesman was seen earlier today being taken out by stretcher crying,
"It can't be...it's simply not true! It's not truuuuuueeee!!"
Napster will neither confirm or deny anything until the stock price hits double digits.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Just uncheck YRO. If I wanted to see fake lawyers yelling at each other I'd watch The People's Court.
For more information, click here.
I don't know how this all got mixed up, but I am closely involved in Google's next acquisition. To bring all of these silly rumors to rest I am proud to formally announce that Google is going to buy my WANG.
That's right, it will be by invite only in it's beta stage next week.
It almost looks like Google's chief contribution to the world will be the invention of the single-company bubble.
When the iTunes store first opened, a lot of people at /. bitched and moaned about how terrible it was that you were forced to buy individual songs or albums. Who would want to do that when you can pay a monthly fee and listen to everything in the catalog with a subscription service?
As it turns out, a lot of people actually.
The "all you can eat" method sounds great in theory, but the tracks from the major subscription services are often saddled with layers of rules and restrictions well beyond those you find with iTunes. Extra fees for moving them to portable music devices, extra fees for burning them to CDs and oh yeah...when you stop paying your monthly fee, everything goes away. Hundreds of dollars over years gone with one missed payment. All that money and you own absolutely *nothing*.
iTunes is not perfect, iTunes has problems. The artists do get far, far less than they should, but that is due to the way the contracts are written between the labels and the artists. Yes, you are restricted to playing (but not storing) the songs to any 5 computers at once (which you can change as often as you like). No, Steve Jobs can't lower the prices to 10 cents a track like you so often hear the uninformed claim. Yes, you can put the songs on as many iPods as you want without restriction. No, you can't get higher-bitrate tracks even though that should be an option. Etc.
At the end of the day, however...you can buy one song for 99 cents and that song will be there for you to play today, tomorrow and next year, the year after, etc. Wherever you want, whenever you want. You can buy that one song, buy 1,000 songs it doesn't matter. You only pay when you want to pay, and you don't feel compelled to justify what you spend each month, because unlike Napster and the Yahoo! Music Store, you only get what you pay for, and you only pay for what you get.
The dominance of the iPod, and its incompatibility with the other services is only part of the reason iTunes' competition is withering on the vine. People want to feel like they are left with something at the end of the day, and iTunes delivers that better than anyone else.
What hurts Linux is the success of DRM'd media rentals and sales. When one click synchronizes your downloads to multiple devices, high-def for your plasma TV, low-def for the backseat of your SUV, the list grows to millions of tracks and titles, perhaps the entire RIAA and MPAA catalog, and the monthly fees remain within budget, no one will give a damn about "freedom."
Google buys the Library of Congress. They change the name to glibc.
No clear stategy... HAHA. Which if funnier- business people talking about tech, or tech people talking about business.... I think it is the latter.
Grow up. Google isn't your internet based teddy bear.
/.ers) refer to Google as some evil corperation who is going to take over the world. They may. Maybe they have plans to do so. I don't know but honestly how can anyone on this website claim to know their plan?
Google is like every other company. They want to make money. They are out to make money and they'd better make a lot since they've just hired tons of new people.
I am so sick of hearing tons of people (not just
Everyone is complaining that Google is bowing to some evil government. Well you know what I would have done the same. Better to have censored searching rather than no searching. I mean a lot of places have chinese versions of their site. Are they not censoring? Are they evil? Google seems to be a company who a lot of people like (and look up to) and since a lot of people like them they are expected to be angels and turn down everything that makes money. If half of you got the chance you'd sell a censored version of your own software to china if it made a buck. Not even to mention you'd be doing it 100% out of profit, not to open the doors a little.
Google may not be the most wonderful company but on the list of good corperations they're still on the top of my list. I think people need to give them a little slack and let things play out. When Google does something they do it well (after it is out of beta). I think that before pointing fingers you all should look at yourselves. We all have our pricetag and I don't think anyone has found Google's. They haven't been bought and they haven't done enough bad to destroy all the good they've done.</opinion>
Firefox 2.0 - Spell Rightly.
That may be the case, but based on the hammering their share price took about a week ago it is possible that the GOOG bubble is in the process of bursting. Having broken downwards through the 400 mark that is no longer a level of support. Will be interesting what happens over the coming weeks.