Napster Markets Paid Service with Free Listens

[Chris Gohlke]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-6066848.html?part=rss&tag=6066848&sub' target='_blank'>http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-6066848.html?part=rss&tag=6066848&sub</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Napster unveiled a free ad-supported version of its online music service that allows users to listen to any song in its library as many as five times. The move is designed to steer listeners to Napster's fee-based services once they have reached their five-play limit. Napster's announcement marks the latest incarnation of the popular music site, which endured legal challenges from record labels over Napster file-swapping software that allowed people to share and copy each other's music without purchasing it. "</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/51napsterfree550x410.jpg" /><br /><br />Unfortunately after having the ultimate "free" service, anything else offered up under the Napster name just seems to fall short. This service seems OK for browsing, but why don't they come up with a better free service. I'm thinking of something like customize radio. You choose from their complete library to make your perfect rotation and they stream it to you with the insertion of commercials. Even better would be to download an entire stream (maybe a few hours worth) and use the DRM so that you can't fast forward through the commercials. Basically, make it just like radio except you get to pick exactly what you want to hear. Seems that if implemented properly, the broadcast radio business model could be successful in this realm.

[The Yaz]

Yahoo has something simlar to what you are suggesting. In Yahoo Music, you can create an account and select genres of music. Then as they play songs at random from their collection you get to rate them. The ones you say no to are never played again, the ones most highly rated tend to show up daily.

On the free service, there are commercials every 4-5 songs. You can also fast forward through the songs you don't like, but there is a limit of 400 songs listened to in a month. Once the threshold is reached, you can no longer use the fast forward feature.

If you want more control, you can pay a monthly fee to have unlimited songs and no commercials.

Of course you can always click on the album art when a song is being played and go to a page to purchase, but why would you want to do something so easy?

Steve 8)