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Failures

by Mike Masnick

Fri, Jan 30th 2004 2:23am





Napster 2.0 In Trouble

from the no-surprise-there dept

Earlier this week Forrester was predicting that many of the current crop of music download stores wouldn't survive the year. It looks like that process may already be beginning. Despite massive amounts of hype, the "new" Napster service looks to be in trouble, and the guy in charge has been pushed out just a few months after the service launched. This isn't a huge surprise, of course. Many people told them not just be a "me too" music download store, but they stuck with it, believing that name recognition could carry them through. Of course, the name hadn't been used in two years and it was associated with the ability to get free music that didn't come with any restrictions. The new Napster was the opposite of all that, and offered nothing special compared to any other music download store out there.

6 Comments | Leave a Comment

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  1.  
    identicon
    Galley, Jan 30th, 2004 @ 5:58am

    It's the interface, stpid!

    Perhaps Napster should NOT have taken PressPlay's poor interface and made it worse! When it comes to ease-of-use, Real Music Store is the best, followed closely by ITMS.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  
    identicon
    Joe Schmoe, Jan 30th, 2004 @ 8:01am

    No Subject Given

    Beyond the differences - what Napster was and is now - I have no desire at all (!)) going near something associated even by name that was so fraught with illegitamcy, spy, and adware.

    If you want to attract honest people willing to actually buy music, you must first invest in a clue...

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  
    identicon
    suzi, Jan 30th, 2004 @ 11:10pm

    No Subject Given

    I downloaded Napster 2 and signed up with an email address I'd never used before. I immediately started getting spam at that email address. I sent questions to privacy@napster.com and never received a response, so then I sent one to their support email and got the lamest replies. Just excuses. Napster never got any business from me after that.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  
    identicon
    Adam, Jan 31st, 2004 @ 4:17am

    Not fair to blame Napster for spam

    I've created new e-mail addresses on both Hotmail and Earthlink, and WITHIN 24 HOURS I had spam on both addresses, despite not having yet used them at all for posting or for sending e-mail.

    How? Spammer dictionary / brute force attacks. aaaaa@hotmail.com aaaaab@hotmail.com aaaaaac@hotmail.com, etc. Doesn't cost the spammer anything to try a few million combinations, right? So what if it slams Hotmail's servers and delays mail delivery for everyone?

    So in short, I wouldn't go about blaming Napster for your spam. It's highly, highly unlikely that they were in any way responsible for it.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  
    identicon
    Sammy Moz, Feb 2nd, 2004 @ 9:39am

    No Subject Given

    Yep, I registered a new domain name awhile back, and started getting spam for it almost immediately. This domain had never existed before, so it is impossible that it could have been from a previous owner, yet still, spam, and more spam. The spammers are getting better at making messages get through. There is one method where they have a robot go through the whois record on your domain, and then take the registrant name and mix it up in three or four ways in an attempt to get a valid email address. Another method they use is throwing dictionary word combinations at popular domains like hotmail and earthlink. It's a drain on resources for everyone, which is why ISP's have been in such a huffy about it of late. I wouldn't blame Napster. Blame those damn ingenius spammers...

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  6.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Feb 4th, 2004 @ 9:17pm

    Re: It's the interface, stpid!

    I like more eMusic (www.emusic.com). ¿Who else gives you the 192Kbps MP3 for less than half the price anywhere on the net?

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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