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Napster Going Back to Free Downloads
conq writes "BusinessWeek reports on Napster's latest move to allow the download of free music. This time the service will be supported by online ads." From the article: "With Napster's new free service, 'we'll be able to help millions of people get out of the world of 30-second clips and of having to buy individual songs,' Gorog says. 'I don't think there's anything better we could do to turn people onto the pleasures of unlimited, legal access to music.'"
Isn't this the sort of business practice that led to the dot com boom in the first place? They're going to give everything away and hope that advertising money eventually catches up. Something tells me this isn't going to work. Maybe they'll ad a feature where they pay you for each advertiser's banner you click on.
I've been using it quite a bit today. While you cannot download with the free service, streaming seems to work quite well. I even listened to an album, and the intersitial ads (which had no audio) only came up four times while listening to a 13 track album. Plus, it's great to be able to put a link into a message board or email when talking about a certain track.
I think it's a good thing. Now, if they can keep it from being annoying even after they have some advertisers, it will be amazing.
Tech bubbles are awesome.
I hear a lot of people lamenting the current growth of a new tech bubble. While there are many bad things that come from tech bubbles, I think everybody's forgetting the good stuff that comes as well. In particular I'm thinking of all the stuff that companies start giving away for free or for supercheap, whether its because they think they can cover their costs with ad revenues, because they want to build users or just because they've got VC to burn and no business plan, tech startups just love to give people free shit and I think that's awesome.
Assuming an average song length of 3 minutes:
10 million x 3 minutes = 57 years
It's going to be a long, long time before it becomes "useless".
You can't go back to something that you never did.
The company that wears the napster costume isn't the original napters any more than I am.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Here's an idea: lose the Napster brand
Six years ago Napster was hot. Everyone who matters (to the music industry) used it. The brand was synonymous with "listen to whatever you want whenever you want". However, the digital music market changes quickly. Napster is now synonymous with "shitty overpriced service". If they can come up with a truly great service they are better off starting from scratch than slapping a Napster label on it. If they succeed it will be despite the brand.
By somehow, I'm betting that it still won't be what Napster was in the glory days: a way to get old niche music that was out of publication and liked by me but not that many other people.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
"BOOHOOS! The bad nasty manses don't wants me twos save teh muzak I listen 2 online. OH NOS!"
Look, it's not exactly rocket surgery:
Use a simple application to record the sound output of your PC sound card. Click "record" just before playback starts and click "stop" when the song ends.
Most of these apps let you name the file after you click STOP. You can usually set the quality to your preference - but if it's dished out at 192Kb/s then you'd obviously want to record at no greater than 192Kb/s.
This would be just the same as recording from the radio - sans the stupid cassette tapes. It takes like an additional 5 seconds to name the song, and specify where to save it.
Good Lord - stop bitching!
How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"