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Internet Napster Back to the Basics
Samad Khan (Blog) - May 2, 2006 1:44 AM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 19 comment(s) - last by drxploder.. on May 2 at 3:35 PM
In a bid to gain ground in the Online Music business, Napster is offering songs for free... again

Napster has come full circle for the third time, and is offering free music.  There is one big catch though; you can only listen to a song five times. After the five times you will need to either buy the title or sign up for a monthly subscription to listen to that song. Napster has 2 million tunes in its collection that users will be able to listen to without having to use their credit card or download the Napster software.

This marketing driven new model is similar to its competitor RealNetworks' Rhapsody service which allows its users to sample 25 songs a month. Napster offers a plan for $9.95 a month that offers its users unlimited online listening, or $14.95 for a plan that lets its users transfer songs to certain portable devices that does not include the most popular music player iPod.

All is not beer and Skittles at Napster.  The new Napster, relaunched in 200,3 has lost more than $73M USD in venture capital over the last two years, according to equity firm American Technology Research.

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Not a good service
By George Powell on 5/2/2006 3:36:14 AM , Rating: 2
I used Napster for about a year as a subscriber, but the poorly performing software, stability issues, endless errors during playback, along with the limitation of which players you could use with it drove me to iPods and iTunes, since then I haven't looked back.




RE: Not a good service
By phaxmohdem on 5/2/2006 3:42:36 AM , Rating: 2
because itunes doesn't limit your choice of playback devices at all :P

iTunes + SoundForge = F.U. DRM :)


RE: Not a good service
By George Powell on 5/2/2006 4:48:49 AM , Rating: 2
Not quite what I meant, iTunes does very much limit your choice of player, but the iPod in my experience is far superior to the Creative Zen Micro that I had before with Napster.



RE: Not a good service
By Quiksel on 5/2/2006 9:13:57 AM , Rating: 2
umm, he was being a little tongue-in-cheek, btw.

of course iTunes only wants you to use an iPod. But it's not the ONLY way to listen to your Library. Hell, even the DRM in the purchased tracks can easily be circumvented by burning a CD of the purchased tracks, and then just re-ripping to the Library. Dragging tracks out of your Library into another folder on the Desktop, MP3 player, etc., make it easy for me to listen to my iTunes music on my PSP, for example.

I've owned three iPods, and I do love the integration, but there are ways to use other devices without too much fuss. I still prefer the iPod interface, though. :)


RE: Not a good service
By jkostans on 5/2/2006 12:07:42 PM , Rating: 2
Not to mention the rediculous compression these "free" songs have. I still Don't understand why FLAC or a similar lossless codec isn't used, no way I'm buying compressed music. 192kbps? Ok for portables, but for real listening it should be 5 times that.


RE: Not a good service
By RDGadz on 5/2/2006 12:47:56 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
192kbps? Ok for portables, but for real listening it should be 5 times that.


You do realize that 192kbit/s is the point where most people can't really hear a difference even on the best sound systems...

I have a couple of $1500+ sound systems properly calibrated and I can't distinguish between 192 mp3 and a regular CD. DVD music only sounds better because its 5.1 or higher.

Many online music stores, mainly Yahoo, have subscription based music lower than 128kbps. Many people who hear the best quality come out of their car stereo, tend not to care.


RE: Not a good service
By EidolWays on 5/2/2006 9:24:23 AM , Rating: 2
I purchased an iPod earlier this year. I got the 60 GB video iPod model. I couldn't stand it. With my Sennheiser HD555 headphones, the low end would distort in the player. I know it wasn't the headphones because I could play the same material through my three-year-old Archos player and the headphones would tangibly vibrate on my head whilst still delivering crisp, clean playback. So, for the time being, I stick with my Archos, even though it's dying a slow death. The unfortunate dearth of iPod clones on the market also means there's no suitably well-built player available to replace said Archos.

I also couldn't stand the iPod's interface. For those who put together playlists, I'm sure it works fine. What I like to do, though, is find a song in an album I like and then set the player to repeat that song. After I get tired of that song, I might set it to play through the rest of the album or I might skip to another song. So, for me, the iPod's interface became an enormous pain because the only way to change the repeat mode is to navigate down several menus to the settings menu from the artist->album folder. Then, if I wanted to change the song after changing the repeat mode, I'd have to browse back up another couple levels to get to that artist folder again. This got old reeeally quickly.

Third, I can't stand iTunes. On the PC platform, it's slow and it's clunky. Furthermore, it installs one or two needless services in the background, which I hate more than words can describe.

So, needless to say, I stay away from the iTunes+iPod combo. Given that I don't have a player that supports DRM, and given that I don't want to have to deal with DRM for songs that I've PAID for, I stay away from online music stores and just use plain ol' CD's. It's much simpler.


RE: Not a good service
By bobobeastie on 5/2/2006 9:46:41 AM , Rating: 2
Have you thought about getting a Creative mp3 player? While certianly not perfect they have a couple of things going for them. Sound quality is the main point. On my Nomad Jukebox 3 the repeat/ shuffle options are within 3 buttons away. Another upside for some people is that it isn't an iPod. Personaly I have had my eye on the Vision:M as it plays many types of video files natively, and becasue my battery lasts only a couple of hours three years after I bought it.


RE: Not a good service
By drxploder on 5/2/2006 3:33:32 PM , Rating: 2
Vision M is pure greatness. I watched 5 hours of video in one day (Standardized testing day) and drove around with it playing and never ran out of battery power. And yes the format support is amazing. You can pratically put anything on it videowise.


RE: Not a good service
By nwyman on 5/2/2006 9:06:25 AM , Rating: 2
what is soundforge, and where do i get it??


RE: Not a good service
By zeroslugfm on 5/2/2006 10:29:22 AM , Rating: 2
:P it was indeed tongue in cheek. However the simplest way to combat any type of DRM best music security would be to re-record the entire song via a 3rd party application. Soundforge is an open source collection of such things, but of course doing so is considered piracy. It does require some proper hardware to work properly (decent recordings), and it does seem a bit drastic to save less than a dollar...but it's perfect for ringtones (why tones are $5 is beyond me).


RE: Not a good service
By UNCjigga on 5/2/2006 11:02:23 AM , Rating: 2
LOL, I use Audacity + iTunes Music Store's 30 second song preview to make ringtones...don't even have to buy the song!


too bad..
By ksherman on 5/2/2006 3:41:38 AM , Rating: 2
That Napster is losing so much... I use it quite a lot now, though I use TuneBite to make the files "useful" ;-)




RE: too bad..
By drxploder on 5/2/2006 9:09:31 AM , Rating: 2
I do the same but I still subscribe because buying a $40 card every 3 months is way way more cost effective. And if drm gives me a hassle I can just tunebite it


What about the RIAA?
By Orpheus333 on 5/2/2006 3:18:03 PM , Rating: 3
As people begin to download more, record companies will blame their low CD sales on pirating.

*sigh* fuel for their agenda.

Or maybe if record companies didn't release complete CRAP they would get better sales- "My Humps" for example. >_<

Yarr har!




Oh, well...
By redbone75 on 5/2/2006 3:21:41 AM , Rating: 2
Napster will never be Napster again. Correction: Napster will never be Napster. Period.




MS + MTV = URGE
By RDGadz on 5/2/06, Rating: 0
RE: MS + MTV = URGE
By drxploder on 5/2/2006 3:35:02 PM , Rating: 2
I've been using Napster integrated into WMP 10 and I've never had a problem. I rarely use the standalone because WMP 10 has better overall functionality.


Interesting idea
By Mudvillager on 5/2/2006 2:06:23 PM , Rating: 2
This sounds like a really good business model to me.
I never, NEVER buy music before I know it's good. I mean, do you really wanna end up with something as crappy as Madonna's latest record?
Listening through a record 5 times is enough for most of us to get an opinion of whether or not to buy it.

...Although, I might be the only one who works this way when it comes to buying records (and I buy a lot of them)




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