Rhapsody buys European Napster rump

Gigaom seems convinced that Rhapsody's purchase of the UK and German parts of Napster will allow Rhapsody to take on Spotify in Europe.

Perhaps. But, given that I don't think many people in the UK had even realised there was an on-going European Napster after the closure of the American service suggests that it's not really going to make a difference in the UK.

Napster is doing a bit better in Germany - it holds 70% of the steaming market, so it's possible that's where Rhapsody sees the value with the UK service thrown in for free.

Napster doesn't face competition from Spotify in Germany yet and its position was boosted earlier this week when Grooveshark quit the country, saying that the higher royalty rates made it impossible to run a business. (The German royalties organisation, GEMA, counters that Grooveshark had a figure of zero in mind.)

Coldplay hold off Spotify

Are you looking for Mylittle Pono on Spotify?

You are? Seriously? Really?

Let's pretend you are.

You won't find it there, as Coldplay are keeping it off:

British band Coldplay is withholding its latest album, "Mylo Xyloto," from all-you-can-listen streaming services such as Spotify and Rhapsody — making it the biggest band yet to express reservations about a system that pays artists a fraction of a penny every time someone listens to a song.

The AP's Ryan Nakashima believes this is a blow to Spotify, which almost certainly overstates the value of yet another Coldplay album to people who have subscribed a site with more music than they know what to do with.

It's probably true that Coldplay won't miss the streaming royalties for now; it'd be interesting if the streaming services decided to refuse to allow hold-out albums to come to the service later, and to see if that shifted the balance when deciding if to be on or off at launch.

Google wanted Spotify

Remember what Google did for YouTube? Now, imagine if it did that for Spotify. And it nearly did, says Business Insider, until internal strife meant the idea was dropped.

The Goog was also interested in buying the really-more-or-less-defunct Rhapsody service, too.

Instead, they're going to concentrate on their music locker service, which sounds a lot less exciting.

iTunes still miles ahead in digital music world

Another twelve months of launches of iTunes killing services in, and how is iTunes looking?

Pretty good actually. Tempo have just delivered their latest survey of consumer awareness of the digital market and while Amazon and Rhapsody have both grown a little in terms of awareness and people choosing them as the 'best' service, iTunes has also continued to grow and the prevailing wisdom of twelve months ago - that other services are fighting over small slices of second-place pie - seems just as solid today.

The 'some other' choice [pdf] as best service (excluding those three, Yahoo, Napster, WalMart and Napster) has declined over twelve months from 20% to just 9%, suggesting that small services are suffering if not an absolute decline, then at least an ability to keep pace with the big names.

The have you ever heard of... [pdf] question has some interesting results, too. Naturally, iTunes is out in front here, but Napster retains a second place position in both aided and unprompted recall and is the only brand other than Apple's to make it into double-digit unaided memory. That, presumably, is what Best Buy was paying for.

Zune is struggling - without someone saying 'have you heard of Zune', only 1% of respondents thought of it when asked about online music stores - amusingly, exactly the same proportion of respondents who offered MSN when asked. CBS might be slightly worried to discover that Last FM has fixed itself in nobody's minds at all, and even with coaxing only 6% of the survey went "oh, yeah, Last FM."

Rupert Murdoch, meanwhile, will be stroking his white cat with glee - MySpace might only have got one out of a hundred people thinking of it as a music destination - but when prompted, the brand recognition shot up to 63%. Third place.

The battle for that second place pie is getting interesting - although obviously in this context the eventual winner will be whoever pours enough money into marketing.

No mention of spiralfrog, oddly.

Kid Rock goes digital

The unabomber of pop, Kid Rock, has finally struck a deal to sell his music online - but only because Real Networks have agreed that Rhapsody customers will be forced to buy the tracks they want bundled with a bunch of filler - the "only whole albums" injunction.

I'm hoping Rhapsody tries to run an ad which makes a virtue of this: "Why buy only the tracks you want? Come to Rhapsody and pay for the ones you'll never listen to, too".

“The real issue here is flexibility in terms of artists being able to do what they want,” said Ken Levitan, the singer’s manager.

Call me old fashioned, but shouldn't the people who are picking up the tab be calling the shots? Would anyone want to eat in a restaurant where the manager was saying "the waiters will bring you food according to what they think you should be eating?"

NME has a vacancy for a technology correspondent

Obviously, music journalists aren't expected to be tech journos, but the NME.com coverage of Rhapsody's new mp3 store is a little shoddy even making allowances:

An online download service, Rhapsody, has put itself into a position to potentially rival the Apple iTunes download service, by making the MP3s downloaded from the site compatible with iPods for the first time.

The website does not use digital rights software, and for the first time its MP3s will be compatible with Apple's range of MP3-playing devices, reports Brand Republic.

Rhapsody, of course, has never sold mp3s before, and mp3s have always been compatible with iPods. But other than that, it's spot on.

Rhapsody learns to love the iPod

And so the expensive sound of businesses arriving at the logical conclusion continues to echo, with Rhapsody announcing plans to open an MP3-only store in order to stop flogging to only a tiny share of the online music marketplace:

"We're no longer competing with the iPod. We're embracing it," said VP Neil Smith.

The independent observer might wonder why it's taken them so long to reach this point, and, given their late entry to the market, why they think they can command a price premium over Amazon's MP3 downloads. (Rhapsody are selling for 99c).

As is usual, this is all theoretical when viewed from the UK, as it's a US only business.

Yahoo! takeover: agreed, completed

No, not that Yahoo deal; this one is the handing over of their online music store to Real Network & MTV's Rhapsody service.

Yahoo! Music Unlimited customers - of whom there must be, ooh, many - will have their library transfered to the Rhapsody service, and "for a time" pay the same as they're used to. Which is business talk for "will find their prices going up in the midterm."

Meanwhile, Yahoo has swallowed FoxyTunes, the Firefox plug-in business which combines a web-browser remote control for your iTunes with some Last FM-esque sharing-and-community gubbins.

Rhapsody fades

One of the many touted iTunes killers, RealNetwork's Rhapsody service has been finding the battle against Apple something of a struggle; it's merging with MTV's Urge and, as a result, is laying off staff. Rhapsody America, the service which will emerge from the merger, doesn't look likely to have any more impact than the two from which it is hewn.

Urge to merge

It seems like just minutes since we were detailing the last iPod/iTunes killer service, and yet here we are with another one. Or, rather, three failed services hoping to pool their - uh - expertise to beat the heck out of iTunes and iPod. Unless it's already been defeated by GBox, in which case, they'll take on that and Zune.

The three partners are MTV and Real, who are merging MTV's unloved Urge and Real's solid-but-sidelined Rhapsody in a deal Verizon Wireless. VW is co-owned by Vodaphone, whose expensive Vodaphone Live content delivery flopped like a sky-diving whale back before we even knew there was an iPod to kill.

The hope is that heavy promotion by MTV will drive take-up, but why MTV's muscle should be able to drive sales to this new venture when it couldn't persuade people to feel the Urge isn't clear. Although since MTV doesn't actually carry much music, it's probably not the best platform to try and connect with music lovers on. If they were selling drawings of dwarves setting fire to themselves, they'd be counting the bucks.

Meanwhile, UK mobile phone companies will be casting a nervous eye at the FT's reports of a deal to bring the iPhone to Europe. In the UK, it's definitely going to be on the O2 network.

Radio silence after dark

The excessive rates being demanded from American internet broadcasters from next month has generated a protest campaign - SaveNetRadio - who are co-ordinating a day of online radio silence on June 26th. Yahoo, Rhapsody and NPR are on board, dozens of smaller stations are also pledging to take part in the cultural strike.