Wise Startup Blog

Napster recently released their 6 million catalog MP3 store and the world hit the snooze button. I mean, who really cares about Napster; their mp3 player sucks (ie it’s not an iPod), I can get better content from the illegal networks, they don’t really differentiate themselves from Rhapsody, and at the end of my contract, all my music is gone.

Napster Learns How to do Subscriptions

Why don’t the Napster folks focus on building their business around other already popular subscription-based offerings. The cable industry manages to bilk you for $100 a month, even though you only watch 20% or less of your total channels. Sirius gets you to pay for radio that you get for free in your car –

If Napster worked on developing better hardware relationships they could really build a killer product. Imagine if Napster created a head-unit for cars, you could listen to any of the music from their catalog on-demand, right from your car. Then, when you want to load up your mp3 player, you simply “star” each song you hear on the radio, and it automatically downloads to your napster player. That’s a pretty cool value I wouldn’t mind paying for, but right now what they are doing is trying to get you to pay for something that you can already get for free, in a better format, higher quality, and from a larger selection — it’s amazing they have any subscribers at all..