DailyTech - Napster Still Bleeding Money While AT&T Launches First Napster Phone

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Gadgets Napster Still Bleeding Money While AT&T Launches First Napster Phone
Wolfgang Hansson (Blog) - November 20, 2007 3:57 PM

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18 comment(s) - last by HighWing.. on Nov 21 at 2:18 PM

Samsung SLM (Source: Samsung)

Napster still around and finally getting first Napster Mobile compatible phone from AT&T

Many music fans will recall Napster, which was one of the first online peer-to-peer music sharing networks and helped usher in the era of easy file swapping with all the good and bad that bought along with it.

Napster was one of first peer-to-peer networks attacked by RIAA. Eventually Napster was forced into significantly changing to its method of operation. Napster was at first a free service that allowed users to share music in their collections with other users running Napster software. After the RIAA started its legal action, Napster turned into something altogether different and became one of the first networks where you had to pay for music downloads.

Since Napster went somewhat legit, it has had a difficult time actually turning a profit. In 2006, Napster launched a bid to gain ground in the online music world by going to a monthly fee for sampling a specific number of songs each month, similar to what Rhapsody does. At the time, DailyTech reported that Napster had raised and lost in the area of $73 million USD in venture capital.

In another attempt at profitability, Napster announced in March of 2007 that it was teaming up with AT&T on a system to allow AT&T mobile users to download tunes from Napster to their mobile phones. The service, Napster to Go, promised to give mobile users access to a database of more than 3 million songs at a price of $14.95 per month.

AT&T has finally announced its very first mobile phone that is compatible with the Napster Mobile service from Samsung called the SLM. The SLM will be available via AT&T on November 23 for an introductory price of $149.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate. AT&T’s SLM phone features dual-band 3G connectivity and ships with a 512MB SD memory card for music storage.

The phone will also ship with AT&T’s mobile banking application pre-installed. With the SLM phone, the Napster service will cost $7.49 for the ability to download five tracks per month or single tracks can be downloaded for $1.99 each. Other features of the SLM include a 2-megapixel camera, advanced messaging options and stereo Bluetooth technology.

What is more interesting to many isn’t that AT&T is finally offering Napster compatible phones months after teaming up with Napster for the music service, but that Napster is still around at all.

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Umm is that price right?

By Homerboy on 11/20/2007 4:10:56 PM , Rating: 5

$7.49 for 5 songs a month? That's not much of a deal.

RE: Umm is that price right?

By Rollomite on 11/20/2007 4:12:10 PM , Rating: 5

Usually nothing that has the AT&T name on it is a deal.

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RE: Umm is that price right?

By ebakke on 11/20/2007 6:51:30 PM , Rating: 4

I want to vote you up... to infinity.

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RE: Umm is that price right?

By SLEEPER5555 on 11/20/2007 11:09:49 PM , Rating: 2

Att uverse is a great deal compared to sat and kbull

--Sleeper

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RE: Umm is that price right?

By maverick85wd on 11/20/2007 6:30:38 PM , Rating: 2

correct, especially when considering you can rip an CD to your computer and upload it to your phone from there...

And they only have one phone capable of said mobile downloads from Napster.

And, as said a few posts up, the Napster name is tainted.

What were they thinking? I can't help but think they came up with this intending it to fail, but how is that good business?

Just doesn't make cents... sorry I had to do it ;-)

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RE: Umm is that price right?

By spluurfg on 11/20/2007 10:28:15 PM , Rating: 2

$3 for a bottle of coke from a vending machine in an amusement park is a lousy deal too, but I'm guessing that they figure they can make money on the convenience/ignorance factor.

Ironically $7.50 for, say, 25mb of gprs data isn't terrible. If only one could use it for something other tunes.

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Huh?

By FITCamaro on 11/20/2007 4:22:12 PM , Rating: 3

Napster is still around?

RE: Huh?

By Rollomite on 11/20/2007 4:25:24 PM , Rating: 3

Exactly. What does the Napster name do for anyone these days other than make them cringe? Another brilliant move by the blue team.

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RE: Huh?

By Rollomite on 11/20/2007 5:05:05 PM , Rating: 1

I see Tom was in here downrating all my comments. Come on Tommy, can't we just hug it out? :P

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RE: Huh?

By Spuke on 11/20/2007 5:43:43 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Napster is still around?

Barely. Who actually uses them? ITunes has a much better selection.

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RE: Huh?

By Regs on 11/20/2007 5:58:43 PM , Rating: 1

ITunes? You mean the proprietary mp4? I rather just buy the CD.

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RE: Huh?

By Spuke on 11/20/2007 6:51:48 PM , Rating: 1

quote:
I rather just buy the CD.

I'd rather not waste gas driving to BB or wherever and then stand in line. And I RARELY buy a whole album. ITunes makes it convenient as hell to get my music. So what if I have to burn it to CD first, then rip. Better than doing it the outdated way.

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RE: Huh?

By Regs on 11/20/2007 10:30:05 PM , Rating: 2

I'm going to sound dumb, (NOTHING NEW;) ) buw how do you rip a MP4? Link?

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RE: Huh?

By StevoLincolnite on 11/21/2007 2:20:40 AM , Rating: 2

I use Bigponds music service, which is also my ISP (In Australia) - And get DVD's and CD's sent out to me for a monthly fee. (I can "Rent" as many as I want in a month, but I can only have a maximum of 7 Items at any one time).

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RE: Huh?

By glynor on 11/20/2007 8:04:46 PM , Rating: 2

MP4 is certainly not proprietary. MP4 is an open standard, and is used for much more than just music from Apple. Apple's FairPlay DRM system is proprietary of course, but so are essentially all DRM schemes. And, there are more and more DRM-free tracks available on the iTunes store every day.

Another alternative, of course, is Amazon's new MP3 store, which works pretty well, has good prices, and offers standard MP3 files.

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RE: Huh?

By HighWing on 11/21/2007 2:18:08 PM , Rating: 1

quote:
Another alternative, of course, is Amazon's new MP3 store, which works pretty well, has good prices, and offers standard MP3 files.

As much as I would love to agree with you, so far the selection at Amazon has been pretty dismal, and almost borderline "bait & switch". As much as I wanted to support the DRM free mp3 downloads, I was only able to find 1 in 5 current popular artists I was interested in. Then to further that, 2 of the 4 I did not find, DID come up with links to karaoke and/or tribute band tracks. I almost bought one of the tribute tracks before I realized it was NOT really the artists I was looking for. The only reason why I call it a "bait & switch" is because it was not overly obvious that some of these tracks were NOT the original artists.

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