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Best Buy Coughs Up $54 Million For Napster
MarketWatch reports that Best Buy has decided to toss $54 million into an acquisition of Napster. All told, the deal amounts to around $121 million, with about $67 million headed towards getting cash and short-term investments from Napster's balance sheet. "The deal will give Best Buy an online digital music retail outlet as well as a subscription streaming service that has about 700,000 subscribers. That could help Best Buy to compete against retail giant Wal-Mart, which has its own online digital music offering."
Good work, Best Buy. That takes effort.
That's a lot of Monster Cable money your bosses just threw away. Betcha they didn't buy a warranty, either.
Well it was either that or buy naming rights for a stadium. They may have made the wrong choice.
In your face, Steve Jobs!! You and your lame iTunes store are screwed now!
Expect all kinds of innovation from this combined entity... Like 98.9 cent downloads. Store name that ends in "ster". More.
I'm a big tall mofo.
You know, I tried hard to think of something funny here. There's just not a punch line you can add to this.
To paraphrase Hank Hill, this acquisition is the feces that is produced when shame eats too much stupidity.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
A few days ago, there was a article about Best Buy planning to have Windows Gurus to push Vista. WIth the acquisition of Napster, I am not sure what kind of monster will be created.
Can't wait for Best Buy to add the "Extended Warranty" option to my on-line music purchases... :-)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Since when was Napster a household name? It's so far off the cultural radare you couldn't hit it with a Phoenix missile.
Those crazy kids today haven't ever even used Napster. It's like talking to them about the Love Boat: they just get a blank look in their eyes, and nod accommodatingly.
As for my general thoughts on this, I'll try to be brief.
WTF?
Skot Nelson music is my saviour / i was maimed by rock and roll
Go into a store some time. They have racks of CDs. Sure, it's limited selection, but those CDs are the popular (i.e. high-selling) stuff. Everyone would love to have their CDs for sale at Wal-Mart, so yeah, they have a formidable digital music service.
And I didn't see any tapes last time I was there. I think they may be completely out of the analog market.
Is for Best Buy to hire Larz to pimp Napster. Best Buy goes down the tubes like AOL/Time Warner. Larz goes bankrupt. And Shawn Fanning buys Napster for a dollar.
LOL - totally right.
"Hey kids - remember when you used to download N'Sync off Napster? Back in 2001? When that first iPod came out with the black text screen, and Napster was synonymous with 'free' and 'rebellious?'
Good news! Napster is still cool! It's, like, 'phat' and stuff! And now we own it! So it's not free or rebellious anymore. But come on back and give us some money!"
...downloaded it for free
Suckers!!!!
"We live in a global world" - Harvey Pitt, former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman
Worst Buy and Crapster: Now that's a marriage made in hell!
How ya like dat?