Rhapsody has completed its rebranding, and is now officially Napster in all markets. The rename won’t impact any listener playlists or history, but it does come with a redesigned home screen and some other discovery tools. Continue Reading
Rhapsody is the great uncle of on-demand music subscription services. Two months ago Mike Davis took over as CEO, quickly tightening the ship with a round of layoffs. Last week came the announcement that Rhapsody would become Napster across all territories, consolidating its brand. RAIN News dialed up a conversation with Mike Davis to discuss that decision, and talk about steering a music service through a complex competitive landscape. Continue Reading
Rhapsody surprised the industry with an un-forewarned announcement that it would consolidate around its subsidiary brand Napster, which it acquired in January, 2012. Napster has been the public-facing brand of the Rhapsody on-demand music service in non-U.S. markets. The announcement is bare-bones. Napster is a trademark with a rich history. Continue Reading
Rhapsody-owned Napster launched in Canada today. The ad-free premium music service is offering subscriptions costing C$9.99 a month, but it has a launch offer of three months for just C$1. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: New gadget selects Spotify music by tempo; Napster critiques Spotify, Apple; Forbes believes in radio; Billboard reviews the web radio landscape. Continue Reading
Rhapsody and Napster have reached the 3 million subscriber milestone. It has been a year of fast growth for the streaming services, which announced 2.5 million listeners in February and 2 million listeners last July. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Will Spotify restrict free listening?; Napster and the ‘culture of free’; mobile boosts global ad revenue. Continue Reading
Napster has entered into a partnership with Audi and will be appearing in select car models starting this fall. “Connectivity has become more and more important in daily life,” said Patric Niederländer, Rhapsody International’s vice president of business development in Europe. Music Week reported that the integration was expected to expand into additional models in 2015. Continue Reading
Once a pioneer, subscription music-download site eMusic is striking out afresh with news of a change its music catalog to focus on indie labels and artists. The service will discontinue major-label recordings. In doing so, eMusic circles back to its roots as a champion of indie music, and of users who dig deeper than the hit charts. Continue Reading
Bop.fm announced the addition of several music services to its agnostic listening platform. Pandora, Xbox Music, Rhapsody, and Napster are now a part of the program. Bop.fm allows its members to share songs across platforms, and to create playlists from music. This makes the Pandora relationship particularly interesting, since it’s a lean-back service. Continue Reading
Music jukeboxes have been popular for about 90 years. Online music services and mobile technology have created a “celestial jukebox” that’s available anywhere — an astonishing marvel best appreciated by people over 35 and history students. The modern versions of the jukebox are streamlined to the consumer’s favor in every way — less money, more mobility, bigger selection. But I the attraction is essentially the same as when tabletop jukeboxes were in every New Jersey diner: Music you choose, in new places and times. Continue Reading
Updating the progress of Popcorn Time, often described as “Netflix for pirates,” illuminates differences between the movie and music industries, showing the music industry’s leadership position in cloud-delivered content, and possibly heralds a new Napster-like era of disruption in how media is consumed. Continue Reading