RealNetworks To Acquire Listen.com

from the consolidation-in-the-legit-music-biz dept

This was just announced, so there are only press releases to go on (no news stories yet), but it turns out that Real Networks has bought Listen.com for just $36 million as they look to increase the content they offer and move further and further away from being a technology provider who needs to compete with Microsoft. Listen.com, creators of the Rhapsody music listening service, was one of the few companies that seemed to create a music service that at least a few customers actually liked. It certainly wasn't a huge success, but it seemed to have more fans than any of the music lable owned operations like Pressplay. It'll be interesting to see what Real does with Listen, as they'll likely bundle it into their RealOne content service. As the "legitimate" music services continue to struggle, it wouldn't be surprising to see more consolidation - not that it's likely to convince many more users to drop their Kazaa usage.

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