Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Napster 2.0 lost 15 million dollars in the first 2 months.

Holo · 02-20-2004, 09:48 PM

Linkay

According to an article on Mercury News, Roxio is in some serious problems with it's legal music download service Napster. Napster has lost 15 million dollars in the first 2 months of this year. Top executives such as the president, the chief financial officer, the vice president of programming and the head of corporate communications are leaving the boat. Also, HP surprisingly canceled the agreement to install a link to Napster's online music service on its computers. Instead HP made an agreement with Napster rival Apple to feature it's iTunes store on HP computers and sell Hewlett-Packard branded iPod music players.

On Wednesday, Roxio began laying off people at its Napster division. A Roxio spokeswoman said the company was "eliminating redundancies in the organization'' but declined to say how many people lost their jobs.

"I think it's a very competitive market with very ugly economics and there's just no money in the download business,'' said Steven B. Frankel, managing director of Adams, Harkness and Hill, a Boston investment bank.

Napster declined to provide specific subscriber numbers for its service, aside from noting that downloads and subscriptions each contributed equally to Napster's .6 million in revenue for the last three months of 2003.

That means Napster has attracted about 90,000 subscribers in its first two months -- ranking it fourth, behind RealNetworks' Rhapsody service, America Online's MusicNet and MusicMatch.

Still, Gorog, chairman and chief executive of Napster, is positive as he expects the business will mature when users realize, that it's cheaper to pay a flat fee for access to 500,000 tracks than to pay $ 1 for one song.

I love this...Napster has had more owners in 3 years than my van has had in 12. They all thought they would make a pile of $ from the Nappy name, but these millionaires never got it thru their thick skulls that Napster was built by it's users, and the content was free. I really don't see online music services being worth a damn as I believe the majority of internet users don't listen to top 40 and major label stuff all the time, and no service can provide the range of music on their own without labels sticking their fat greasy hands out for a piece. When will they learn? PPl are sick of their "Trick with no treat" business models and taking on a former P2P filesharing outlet's name will not fool anyone. I knew this was dumb the minute I heard about it...Either I'm psychic or just not as stupid as ppl who have $15 million to lose. You can't expect ppl to pay 9.95 an album for secured content. If I can't play it in anything or make it playable ala rip to WAV I don't wanna pay $10 for it when I can get the album used for a buck less most times!!

Can anyone figure this out? I'm at a loss.

02-20-2004, 09:48 PM	#1 (permalink)
Holo A Real American	Napster 2.0 lost 15 million dollars in the first 2 months. Linkay According to an article on Mercury News, Roxio is in some serious problems with it's legal music download service Napster. Napster has lost 15 million dollars in the first 2 months of this year. Top executives such as the president, the chief financial officer, the vice president of programming and the head of corporate communications are leaving the boat. Also, HP surprisingly canceled the agreement to install a link to Napster's online music service on its computers. Instead HP made an agreement with Napster rival Apple to feature it's iTunes store on HP computers and sell Hewlett-Packard branded iPod music players. On Wednesday, Roxio began laying off people at its Napster division. A Roxio spokeswoman said the company was "eliminating redundancies in the organization'' but declined to say how many people lost their jobs. "I think it's a very competitive market with very ugly economics and there's just no money in the download business,'' said Steven B. Frankel, managing director of Adams, Harkness and Hill, a Boston investment bank. Napster declined to provide specific subscriber numbers for its service, aside from noting that downloads and subscriptions each contributed equally to Napster's .6 million in revenue for the last three months of 2003. That means Napster has attracted about 90,000 subscribers in its first two months -- ranking it fourth, behind RealNetworks' Rhapsody service, America Online's MusicNet and MusicMatch. Still, Gorog, chairman and chief executive of Napster, is positive as he expects the business will mature when users realize, that it's cheaper to pay a flat fee for access to 500,000 tracks than to pay $ 1 for one song. I love this...Napster has had more owners in 3 years than my van has had in 12. They all thought they would make a pile of $ from the Nappy name, but these millionaires never got it thru their thick skulls that Napster was built by it's users, and the content was free. I really don't see online music services being worth a damn as I believe the majority of internet users don't listen to top 40 and major label stuff all the time, and no service can provide the range of music on their own without labels sticking their fat greasy hands out for a piece. When will they learn? PPl are sick of their "Trick with no treat" business models and taking on a former P2P filesharing outlet's name will not fool anyone. I knew this was dumb the minute I heard about it...Either I'm psychic or just not as stupid as ppl who have $15 million to lose. You can't expect ppl to pay 9.95 an album for secured content. If I can't play it in anything or make it playable ala rip to WAV I don't wanna pay $10 for it when I can get the album used for a buck less most times!! Can anyone figure this out? I'm at a loss. __________________ I happen to like the words "fuck", "cock", "pussy", "tits", "cunt", "twat", "shit" and even "bitch". As long as I am not using them to describe you, don't go telling me whether or not I can/should use them...that is, if you want me to continue refraining from using them to describe you. ~Prince