Thursday, February 19, 2004

Ars Technica: Analysts have predicted multiple casualties in the online music business by year end. Napster 2.0 may be heading for the endangered species list. [Ars Technica] What a surprise! the Napster brand was as dead as Webvan or pets.com (what, you never heard of those?) The prime demographic for free downloads, teen to college during Napster's heyday have moved on to jobs (or lack thereof), mortgages, and other preoccupations that don't leave much disposable income or time for downloading, especially for a fee. Apple's market seems very different. At my gym, most iPod users are 30 to 60 years old. As you get older, the efficiency and simplicity of iPod+iTunes are worth more (less time to waste). Napster is old and slightly ridiculous news. Even worse for them, on campus at Penn, iPods dominate. If you want to be clean, you rip your own CDs and by from iTMS. Otherwise, there are plenty of bootleg MP3 out there. Why should anyone buy from Napster? 8:57:30 PM