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MTV Bails on Microsoft's URGE Store
Marlowe writes "MTV's once-ballyhooed partnership with Microsoft appears to be all but dead. MTV is teaming up with RealNetworks to form Rhapsody America, with Verizon handling wireless distribution. It's a big blow to Microsoft, too. 'With the creation of Rhapsody America, the writing is on the wall for MTV and Microsoft's Urge music store partnership. Although the Microsoft-MTV marriage was announced with great fanfare, it was likely headed for divorce court right from the start due to Microsoft's plans to turn PlaysForSure into a second-class citizen with the launch of the Zune — and its self-contained music ecosystem.' When asked about the future of Urge, MTV Music Group President Toffler was terse. 'We are in discussions with Microsoft now and will be on Windows Media Player 11 until further notice,' he said. While the Urge brand will ultimately disappear, Toffler said that 'a lot' of Urge's elements will live on in Rhapsody America."
Apple already won this game.
Why would any company want to partner with Microsoft? They seem to drop commitments at a whim (PlaysForSure) and do not seem to ever has their partners interest anywhere in their list of priorities.
Are there any examples of Microsoft ever participating in a mutually beneficial relationship with another company?
....That it can seriously compete with the Apple iTunes store regardless of who they are partnered with? The iTunes ecosystem has too much of a head start to be caught in the short term IMHO.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
This may be somewhat off-topic, but I can't mourn this passing. "URGE" always seemed to me to be one of the ugliest, dumbest-sounding names of all the music download services available. And its front-row presence in WMP11 has always annoyed me to no end.
Plus, who really cares about these services anymore, now that WalMart is offering EMI and Universal MP3s without DRM for cheaper than iTunes, at 256 kbps....
What does MTV have to Do with Music.... Back in the 80s it had a bunch of music videos but now it more kinda of a TV Teen magazine, that sometimes shows a music video. As for a huge loss for Microsoft probably not it might be a minor one. But I think this is the lease of Microsoft Worries. Like those billions of dollars they accidentally paid for to help support Linux.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
ballyhoo (bl'-h')
n., pl. -hoos.
Sensational or clamorous advertising or publicity.
Noisy shouting or uproar.
tr.v., -hooed, -hooing, -hoos.
To advertise or publicize by sensational methods.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
Perhaps it's time for Microsoft to bail on Ballmer.
The whole Urge thing lacked the strategic finesse and vision Microsoft would otherwise be capable of.
There's only one strategic foundation that can challenge Apple+iTunes and Urge was not it, and the Rhapsody-MTV-Verizon approach is not it either.
Hope is the currency of fools
Let's see....
Real managed to totally blow an overwhelming lead in streaming media as Realplayer was allowed to die on the vine. Add MTV to the mix. They were relevant to the music scene about 20 years ago. Now it's just reality TV plus advertising. And Verizon...a CDMA network with the highest prices in the country and a track record of disabling phone features that cut into their "buy it from us or not at all" corporate culture. Yeah, that ought to be a real powerhouse for peeing away a few hundred million of investment capital.
*yawn*
I'm not an American, so maybe I don't understand the logic of this grammar. But this 'once-ballyhooed partnership with Microsoft appears to be all but dead.'. In other words, the partnership is everything except dead. I know that in logic and implication can't be reversed by definition. But I believe you could also write 'all but dead' as 'nothing but alive' - which would mean that MTV has a healthy partnership with Microsoft. Which makes no sense with the rest of the story. It's so confusing!
Everybody thinks that they will come out ahead by dealing with MS. But MS's game is NOT tech, but marketing and legalize. The absolute best that you can expect is to come out even. Until business ppl realize that you will be screwed by dealing with them, they will continue to take this path. The interesting point on all this, is that if you pay attention, you will find that only a few ex-MS execs. will deal with MS until they are monster size themselves. While they are little or medium size, they avoid contact with MS. Shows that some of the MS execs are not idtios.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I'm not a big fan of TV and I'm not much into today's pop music so I must ask...
Does MTV count for much of anything anymore? I know when I was in high school they had a lot of pull but the last I had seen of them was that they seemed to be like a fish in it's death throws on dry land. They tried to release a few films that saw little or no profit, their music empire was reduced to 10 music videos a day and the rest of their shows were a couple of really really bad "reality" shows that were as predictable as most pre-teen dramas on Nickelodeon.
I'm just wondering if they ever got their shit together or if the modern pop scene is so bad that this passes as a "music" channel and people are forced to stew in their own misery and filth or defect to VH1 with all the Glenn Fry, Enya and Stevie Nicks videos one can tolerate.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Now when a music video comes on MTV, it'll be even easier to jump online and download the song that was just played.
That is, if MTV ever showed music videos anymore...
If MTV had 1/2 a clue, they'd convince their corporate masters at Viacom to drop the suit against YouTube, team up with YouTube as their music video section, make sure that every music video on YouTube had a link on it to an MTV online store selling DRM-Free MP'3, and then split the profits with Google. Anything else is just playing catchup with Apple. Using music videos driving music sales was their business model in the 80's, and it can be once again if they move fast enough, and any online music store that doesn't take the iPod into account is doomed to failure before it even launches.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."