Virgin Digital has quietly backed away from the operation of it's Virgin Digital subscription service in the US, striking a deal to allow Napster to take over its existing customer base. Virgin Digital charged a standard monthly charge of $7.99 for access to its library of around 2 million tracks, however in the face of competition from iTunes and problems with awareness of music subscription services Virgin Digital hasn't proved successful in the US.
Customers wanting to use the US Virgin Digital service Web site are now met with a message pointing out Virgin's new alliance and linking through to Napster. The move is further proof of problems trying to compete with the near monopoly power of iTunes but also demonstrates that subscription services have to do more to generate awareness of how their model works.
[Via The Times]
1. I've had a stupid amount of bother with Virgin Digital here in the UK. Can't even download a single track to completion (have a look at my blog for the sorry story).
Their subcription over here costs way more than $8 a month (roughly £4.50 at the current exchange rate), and if its the same quality as their download service then beware!
Posted at 3:30PM on Jan 19th 2007 by Simon