An SEC filing made by RealNetworks states that MTV and RealNetworks are in talks about restructuring their joint venture participation in the music service Rhapsody, “to enable Rhapsody to operate more independently of either party.” The statement suggests that the pair might seek either a new investor or a buyer for Rhapsody. While services like Spotify get more press coverage and of course iTunes remains the giant of digital music, Rhapsody – launched in 2001 – is the most comprehensive music service from the point of view of editorial and categorisation. It has 750,000 subscribers paying between $12.99 and $14.99 per month but many of these are music fans using the service a lot – and therefore costing Rhapsody money. If Apple was to introduce a subscription service it would wipe out much of Rhapsody’s remaining appeal, whcih is why finding a new owner for it could make sense.
The speculation last week about Google’s music search plans was pretty much on the money. Announced officially last night, the company’s new search features will provide streaming previews when people search for song titles or artists – or even specific lyrics. iLike and Lala are the two main partners as previously reported, although the iLike element will be branded as MySpace. However, Pandora, Imeem and Rhapsody are also on board, providing links to “music related to your queries as well” – a recommendation element, in other words. The new feature is only available in the US for now. So how does Google decide which partner to serve links up for each query? A virtual coin toss, apparently.
RealNetworks has announced that its Rhapsody iPhone app has been downloaded more than 200,000 times in its first 20 days of availability on the App Store. That’’s impressive, although it’’s a bit early to crack open the champagne at Real HQ, since the app allows users a seven-day free trial – in other words, its success will be proved not by overall downloads, but by how many new users start paying $14.99 a month for a Rhapsody To Go subscription. Meanwhile, RealNetworks has unveiled an Android version of the app too.
While Spotify’s iPhone app languishes in Apple’s approval process, rival RealNetworks has announced that it’s just submitted its own iPhone app for Rhapsody.
It’s an on-demand streaming application that’s free for existing Rhapsody subscribers – others get a free trial period before having to stump up. It’ll offer an eight million song catalogue, and iPhone isn’t the only platform being targeted. “We are working diligently on an Android app and once we’re done there, we plan to turn our sights on more mobile platform and carrier app stores,” says the blog post announcing the news.
However, the iPhone version is being submitted now – the next question is whether Apple approves it. I’m fairly sure there’s some kind of App Store rule about free apps not being allowed to be ‘trials’ or ‘demos’, in a time-limited sense. So it’ll be interesting to see how that aspect goes.
It may be the most successful Facebook music application ever, with more than 12.7 million installs, but until now iLike has only offered 30-second samples of tracks to its users. That’s changing though: the company has signed a deal with Rhapsody to offer full song streams, with users able to listen to up to 25 of them per month, before being directed to subscribe to Rhapsody. (more…)
We wrote yesterday about Rhapsody America’s launch of a DRM-free digital music store, but simultaneously the company was striking a deal with US mobile operator Verizon Wireless, which will be offering Rhapsody to its customers as a PC and mobile subscription service. It’ll cost them $14.99 a month, which covers three PCs and three mobile phones. The Rhapsody mobile app will be preloaded on several of Verizon’s phones, starting with LG’s Chocolate 3. However, Verizon will continue to sell over-the-air downloads separately through its own store.
Rhapsody America has become the latest digital music store to launch a DRM-free option, with all four major labels signed up. Pricing is 99 cents per track and (mostly) $9.99 per album, with more than five million 256kbps MP3s available at launch. The new MP3 Store is integrated with the Rhapsody subscription service, so that users can easily download songs they’ve listened to on that for transfer to portable devices. Meanwhile, Rhapsody is also providing a download manager app that can automatically import purchases into iTunes.
An SEC filing made by RealNetworks states that MTV and RealNetworks are in talks about restructuring their joint venture participation in the music service Rhapsody, “to enable Rhapsody to operate more independently of either party.” The statement suggests that the pair might seek either a new investor or a buyer for Rhapsody. While services like Spotify get more press coverage and of course iTunes remains the giant of digital music, Rhapsody – launched in 2001 – is the most comprehensive music service from the point of view of editorial and categorisation. It has 750,000 subscribers paying between $12.99 and $14.99 per month but many of these are music fans using the service a lot – and therefore costing Rhapsody money. If Apple was to introduce a subscription service it would wipe out much of Rhapsody’s remaining appeal, whcih is why finding a new owner for it could make sense.
