A few days ago I blogged about Napster's improved bottom line, in the form of narrowed losses over the same quarter last year. Turns out that's only half the story. Napster's subscription service also lost 7 percent of subscribers, down to 512,000 users in total. And now there's growing rumor that Napster is looking for a sugar daddy.
This quote from company CEO Chris Gorog "We continue to receive a lot of interest in the company and would like to assure our investors that we will always carefully weigh any value creation alternatives against the opportunity and risk associated with continuing as a stand-alone company," sounds more like a sales pitch than reassurance that Napster will stay a "stand-alone company."
There is so much hype around the subscription models, but where is the subscription model that's actually working? Yahoo! Music, an innovative hybrid, may be your closest example.
1. Somehow I think companies like Napster etc will simply fade into the past with Apples amazingly fast increasing market share.
iTunes is doing it for everyone. Literally.
Once you've tried it, your not going to want to go back.
Seriously.
Posted at 4:27AM on Aug 9th 2006 by Alex Schides