TAG | iTunes battle gets hotter as Real, MTV and Verizon get rhythm |
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| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Wednesday, 22 August 2007 | |
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Page 2 of 2 Well, before we get onto what could save Rhapsody America, another minus is that the service is only available to US customers, meaning the service will miss out on sales from the rest of the world, despite MTV, VH1 and CMT being global TV brands. Featured Whitepaper
5 Best Practices for Smartphone Support
To appeal to cell phone users, Verizon will be Rhapsody America’s cell phone partner, with Verizon customers able to download music to their phones from the service. While that’s a nice feature to have, it’s not hard to download a compatible track from another music download service, or even these days, download a legal DRM-free MP3 or AAC version from iTunes, Wal-Mart’s new store and others who are also experimenting with DRM-free tracks and albums. Partnering with Verizon also doesn’t help users of other cell phone networks in the US to take advantage of the Rhapsody America partnership, but then phone networks all seem to have their own music offerings anyway, none of which has had much of an impact against iTunes. This, however, will clearly change, especially as more phones come equipped with 1GB or more of storage space as standard, and likely an expandable memory socket to add more still. After all, Nokia N91 has come with an 8GB hard drive for some time now, and Apple's iPhone comes in 4GB and 8GB capacities - similarly equipped smartphones from all the major players are sure to come to market either late this year or throughout 2008. While music and other content can be uploaded onto phones through their owner’s computer, as high speed data networks get ever faster and handheld devices ever more capable, plenty of content will be downloaded from the network directly to smart cell phones, bypassing the PC altogether, an experience which gets better with every new high-end smart phone. That’s why we’re seeing the iPhone from Apple, as they seek to fight back against phone companies, mp3 playing phones, and other brands of mp3 players, and continue owning the space with their signature design differences and ease of use which still trumps the competition. Dumping Microsoft to co-own their own service helps put the MTV brand to better use as a vehicle to sell music and artists, and to share lots of related information inside a music subscription service, especially as the Viacom owned TV channels of MTV, VH1 and CMT remain popular global TV channels. But beyond what will likely be a lot of extra branding for the service to come on the MTV channel, customers still don’t seem to be fully convinced by the idea of music subscriptions despite it actually being an idea that most people accept with the cable TV subscriptions, except without the on-demand and immediate download capabilities that a catalog of millions of songs offers. DRM-free music in MP3 or AAC format seems to be where all the action is at. Perhaps if Rhapsody America adds DRM-free music sales to its music subscription business, meaning they’ll also be able to sell music for the iPod, iPhone and even Microsoft’s Zune, and make a lot of noise about that, in addition to their music subscription business, can they have any real chance of knocking iTunes off its lofty aural perch. While Real, MTV and Verizon’s orchestra of assembled musical interests and offerings seems like it could have some impressive rhythmic potential, it is, for now, being soundly drowned out by the iTunes, iPod and iPhone chorus that keeps on getting louder and louder. The real winner in this deal seems to be RealNetworks, who get a major new partner to help them inject life into the Rhapsody music download business with great TV exposure and advertising available. So, while RealNetworks may well be whistling all the way to the bank at the moment, there’s tough work ahead of them in the future if they want customers to be singing to their tune, instead of to their crunchy Apple iTune, as the vast majority currently do. |
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