« It's Like Model Railroading For Gambling Junkies | Main | Acorn-Shaped Light Fixtures??? »
October 29, 2003
Dead Cat Bounce?
Here's your high-tech prediction for today: Napster 2.0 is going to be an utterly spectacular failure.
In case you haven't followed along, Roxio bought the smoking wreckage of the original Napster after the recording industry's lawyers finished pissing on the flames. You might remember Roxio as the company that makes the software used by millions of Netizens to burn pirated software to CD. Roxio is now relaunching Napster as a pay service that sells songs and albums for download.
The notion that Napster has any sort of brand equity is laughable. It's like saying that people who used to shop-lift from a five-and-dime will feel compelled to buy something at the 7-Eleven that somebody built on the same site two years after the five-and-dime went out of business. Napster had the same basic appeal as a flea market. People are willing to spend time wading through an ocean of useless junk (poor quality, frequently mislabeled MP3 files) in order to find a great deal on something (and what deal is better than free?). If you move the flea market indoors, label and organize everything, and charge as much for stuff as Target charges, people might as well just go to Target (or the musical equivalent thereof).
Posted by Dan at October 29, 2003 02:00 PM
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)