“Napster is claiming its Napster To Go service ‘will change the music industry forever,’ according to Chris Gorge, Napster chairman and CEO. However, research group Forrester expects the service to herald a more prosaic shift,’ Matt Whipp reports for PC Pro.
“Paul Jackson, principle analyst at Forrester said that he expects, ‘subscription services will make a slight comeback’, but added the caveat that ‘they won’t replace per-track services.’ In the case of Napster To Go, once customers stop their subscription, they DRM kicks in to prevent them from listening to any of the music they downloaded while it was still active. Jackson described the service as ‘halfway between a radio station and downloading tracks’. However, he expected that subscribers will end up with certain tracks they’ll want to keep, and will be wary of the potential of losing them. ‘That is a barrier to those that consider themselves music fans,’ he said,” Whipp reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Again, if it doesn’t work with iPod, which Napster To Go doesn’t, it’ll have a tough row to hoe.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
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
Napster tries to push music subscription service over pay-for-download iTunes-like model – February 03, 2005
Apple Computer could sell 21 million iPod shuffle units in 2005 – January 19, 2005
Cornell University’s Mac users ‘uniformly unhappy’ with Napster – January 19, 2005
Analyst: Apple’s iTunes Music Store ‘downloads could reach 474 million in calendar 2005’ – December 17, 2004
Study: Apple iTunes Music Store dominates with 70 percent market share, second place Napster holds 11 percent – October 19, 2004
Cornell University wrestles with Napster’s exclusion of Mac and iPod-using students – September 08, 2004
Why are Cornell’s Mac students being forced to pay for useless Napster? – September 07, 2004
Napster schools to Mac-using students: bend over and take it – September 04, 2004
Napster CEO: ‘it would be great’ if Apple iPod supported WMA – March 09, 2004
Napster CEO: Apple iTunes, iPod ‘consumer-unfriendly experiences’ – March 09, 2004
Microsoft tries to push WMA by propping up beleaguered Napster – February 25, 2004
