“Napster has revealed that it’s planning an aggressive marketing campaign again Apple’s iPod as part of its plans for a full launch of the Napster To Go portable subscription service later this quarter,” Yinka Adegoke reports for New Media Age. “The service, which soft-launched in the US in November, is likely to roll out in the UK in March. It’s one of the first services enabled by Microsoft’s Janus technology, which for the first time allows music files bought via subscription services to be transferred from a PC to a portable device.”
Adegoke reports, “According to Napster CEO Chris Gorog, speaking to NMA at MidemNet this week, his company is betting heavily that the monthly ‘all you can eat’ subscription model will win the battle of the digital services, rather than the download strategy currently pursued by Apple’s iTunes, which has around 70% of legal download sales. He believes the best way to market the new service is to emphasise its advantages over iTunes. He’s particularly keen to highlight iTunes’ iPod-only compatibility. ‘We’re going to be communicating to people that it’s stupid to buy an iPod.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If you bought or are considering buying an iPod, you’re stupid and you should rent music from us instead? That’s Napster’s marketing concept? Is that the proper way for “the biggest brand in digital music” to act? Napster is doomed.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Report: Napster faces uphill fight to gain share, Apple prepared to run iTunes at a loss – February 10, 2005
Napster’s ‘iPodlessness’ doesn’t bode well for its future – February 10, 2005
$10,000 to fill an iPod? Napster’s going to end up with egg on their face – February 04, 2005
Why ‘Napster To Go’ will flop – February 03, 2005
Napster CEO: We’re ‘the biggest brand in digital music, much more exciting than Apple’s iTunes’ – February 03, 2005
