“Jason Hirschhorn, named global digital officer of MTV Networks in November, is leaving the Viacom-owned cable network. He will assume a transitional consulting role through the summer,” Abbey Klaassen reports for AdAge.com. “Mr. Hirschhorn has been largely credited with guiding MTV’s broadband, wireless and digital-music strategy, most recently launching Urge, a digital-music store in collaboration with Microsoft that is an ambitious challenger to Apple’s iTunes, which has largely owned the digital-music market… He plans to spend part of the summer traveling through Europe.”
Full article here.
But, wait, why not stick around to enjoy the success of MTV and Microsoft’s URGE and those Italian-designed MTV portable music players? Oh, yeah, right… sorry. Hey, good move – summer in Europe sounds like a great idea!
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Related articles:
MTV agrees to licensing deal for MP3 and MP4 portable media players (with images) – May 31, 2006
MTV URGE will have hard time competing with also-rans Rhapsody, Yahoo and Napster, let alone Apple – May 21, 2006
USA Today reviews URGE music service: crashed often, not all videos played, trouble playing music – May 18, 2006
MTV, Microsoft URGE music service begins life with a severe handicap – May 17, 2006
MTV’s and Microsoft’s URGE should concern also-rans like Real, Napster and Sony – not Apple – May 15, 2006
MTV’s and Microsoft’s iPod-incompatible URGE online music outfit faces uphill battle – May 15, 2006
EMI Music Chairman: Music subscription services like Napster and Rhapsody haven’t beeen huge – January 23, 2006
Oppenheimer downgrades RealNetworks based on Microsoft’s ‘URGE’ partnership with MTV – December 15, 2005
MTV-Microsoft URGE music service not targeting iPod, iTunes users; Real CEO PlayedForSure? – December 13, 2005
MTV and Microsoft team up for new digital music service ‘URGE’ – December 13, 2005
Apple’s vs. Microsoft’s music DRM: whose solution supports more users? – August 17, 2005
Study shows Apple iTunes Music Store pay-per-download model preferred over subscription service – April 11, 2005
Maybe he can hang out with all the ex-iRiver employees.
The sad thing is that even the most ardent Apple fan wants other services to succeed. And when I say that, I mean that we want them to succeed on the back of having great products that look good, work well and have good companion offerings. We want to have a large choice of great products, we want there to be healthy competition to drive prices down, to promote growth in the feature sets of products and to drive the market forward as a whole. Sadly the multitude of competing offerings are universally crap and thus we have no sympathy with them when they fail. Sadly it’s left to Apple to do everything pretty much on their own.
I love Apple but if someone else came along offering a kick ass music player with a kick ass store and software to synchronise them all I’d be happy – to have the choice.
LOL. That’s all I can say.
Smart guy!
How far is the nearest Apple store to Wallstreet?
MW=stock!
M.X.N.T.4.1
I love Apple but if someone else came along offering a kick ass music player with a kick ass store and software to synchronise them all I’d be happy – to have the choice.
yup… whut he said.
rats deserting a sinking ship
reminds me of the x-box launch fuck up
microsoft just have NO CLASS
I wonder if Jason Hirschhorn was URGED
to take a hike ?
loki capret it’s about a 10 minute walk from the Soho store to the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street.
Speak for yourself MXNT41. I love that Apple owns this market, and I honestly don’t think they need any fire under their butt to drive them to make a better product. The fact that nobody can even touch them gives me GREAT PLEASURE!!!
Just one more indicator: Mac will capture 17% to 23% of the market within a year.
Hmmmm? Lets see. URGE launch. BIG News.
Now the Clic is dead.
—- the head of Urge leaves – suddenly for parts unknown.
You just have to wonder when the next shoe will drop!!
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Hmmm, maybe MicroSoft will be — just so busy with Vista that they will have to — aahhhh– delay URGE for a while.
N.
I can relate to the global digital officer of URGE; when you gotta go, you GOTTA GO!
Hey fanboi M.X.N.T.4.1, I’m with you brother!
Give me insanely great products by any brand. Surely iTunes can’t be the ultimate music purchasing and sharing experience.
And surely Mac OS X isn’t the best POSSIBLE computing experience. There’s always more room at the top and I welcome it. Maybe I feel this way because I’m not an Apple stockholder.
I agree with G-Spanker,
After seeing Apple as the underdog for 19 years it’s nice to finally see them own a market.
And I feel confident that Apple will continue to add features & make improvements as they have since the inception of the iTunes store.
There is emerging competition for Apple- cell phones.
S
And you know… this isn’t Apple doing dirty tricks or bullying anybody. They’ve just made a GREAT product that has achieved a fanatical following. It’s an amazing success.
A towel is has been reported to be included in his sev. pckge.
Microsoft fills me with an URGE to defecate! – adapted from Pink Floyd The Wall
M.X.N.T.4.1: No, actually I want each and every one of these “competing” services to die a horrible expensive death.
Why?
Because success by any one of these services would mean the marginalization of the Macintosh. Music is the one area where we are guaranteed to play effortlessly with everyone else, and that’s only because Apple’s running the show.
When Google came out with their video service, it was initially reported that everything, including the pay-to-play content, would work on a Mac. I was ecstatic and wished them the best. When I learned I was wrong, that the premium stuff was Windows-only, I was furious. Now I take great pleasure in the failure of that service as I do with all the others.
I will be happy with competition when that competition plays on my choice of computing platform. Until then, I eagerly await each new report of failure.
This guy is brilliant:
Set up URGE, then walk away. When it fails to achieve its goals, your replacement is fired, and MTV looks around for a savior. You step up, explain that the concept was great, but was executed poorly by your successor, but you’re tanned, rested, ready, and confident that you can step back in and make things right.
I agree… Launch it and get out. When it fails your resume is unblemished as you were’nt piloting the ship when it sank. He ‘ain’t’ no dummy.