AT&T unveils mobile Napster as questions abound
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Questions filled the air Monday as the mobile industry geared up for one of its biggest U.S. trade shows on Monday by focusing on entertainment.AT&amp;T got a head start on the CTIA Wireless IT &amp; Entertainment show in San Francisco by unveiling an upcoming music service with Napster. But even AT&amp;T said the best business model for mobile entertainment is still being worked out.The market for mobile entertainment still pales in comparison to messaging, which more than half of AT&amp;T&#39;s customers use, said Mark Collins, vice president of consumer data at the nation&#39;s biggest carrier, which has about 63 million subscribers. Collins thinks mobile entertainment will catch on to that degree, but the jury is out on the best business model for getting there, he told a large crowd at a pre-show entertainment conference.On Monday, AT&amp;T announced it will let consumers download songs over the air from a Napster catalog of more than 5 million songs. The Napster Mobile service, due to become available in mid-November, will offer single songs for $1.99 each and a monthly subscription for $7.49. The subscription will let customers download five songs each month. Features for discovering new music and keeping up with favorite artists will also be included.The service is meant to complement song downloads to PCs for later &quot;sideloading&quot; to a phone, said Gregg Brown, who handles strategic marketing and business development for music at AT&amp;T. The carrier already offers that type of service but believes some consumers want to be able to buy songs immediately, he said. A copy of each song bought over the air can also be automatically delivered to the customer&#39;s PC.It&#39;s an example of the try-anything approach carriers and content makers are taking to mobile entertainment. Also at the pre-show conference, ESPN Senior Vice President for Digital Media John Zehr said the sports media company closed down its MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) business last year because it had a harder time than expected selling handsets in retail stores. It also was unfair to sports fans to make them switch service providers and phones just to get ESPN&#39;s mobile content, Zehr said.Now ESPN&#39;s content is offered through Verizon&#39;s portal. Soon the company will add social networking to help fans of certain teams keep in touch, Zehr added.ESPN&#39;s goal is to make it as easy as possible for consumers to find its content -- preferably on the &quot;idle&quot; screen of the phone whenever they look at it, Zehr said. Carriers should find a way to determine what each subscriber would want to see on that screen, or ask them, rather than making them take the initiative, he said.But ESPN has another thing coming if they hope to dictate placement, according to IDC analyst Shiv Bakhshi.&quot;The content provider never controls the environment of consumption,&quot; Bakhshi said.Clashes happen partly because the market is so young and demand is still little known, AT&amp;T&#39;s Collins said. It&#39;s hard to work out business models that satisfy carriers, content providers and advertisers, he said. Everyone wants to get into the mobile world because cell phones are ubiquitous, but carriers can&#39;t pay top dollar for content when the customer base isn&#39;t that big yet. Device makers add another layer of complexity.&quot;We can&#39;t just take the cable television or the broadcast model and superimpose it on this business,&quot; Collins said. The right model will be some mix of advertising, subscribers paying for content, and makers of programming selling it to carriers, he said.
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Napster has signed a deal with mobile phone content developer Dwango Wireless that will see &quot;Napster Mobile&quot; launched across US mobile phone operators.
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Next year, wireless operators will debut ways to share a favorite ring tone. But don't expect a Napster free-for-all.
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(InfoWorld) - Napster will launch its first mobile download service for Europe in Ireland later this month on TelefÃ³nica's O2 Ireland network. Customers will have access to Napster Mobile's catalog of 3 million songs, ring tones, and artist images. Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, which isÂ hosting and managing the serviceÂ for O2, will provide other content. The service will be available initially to O2 Ireland customers with handsets using NTT DoCoMo's I-mode mobile internet service. By January, WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) and Java-enabled handsets will also be able to use the service. By February, songs purchased on Napster Mobile will be sent to a user's PC as well as their handset, the companies said. Napster does not currently have a PC download service in Ireland. The Napster Mobile application will be shipped with some I-mode handsets by O2. The application includes features such as a recommendation engine, which can pick other songs that a user may like based on their past picks, plus abilities to search, browse and preview content. Last month, Napster agreed with TMN Portugal to launch Napster Mobile for its 5 million subscribers, but no timetable was given for the start of the service. Other European countries are expected to follow.
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MUMBAI: Napster today announced that it has forged an agreement with Dwango Wireless, a leading mobile developer and publisher of entertainment content to launch Napster Mobile across major North American carriers.
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US mobile phone giant AT&T says it will give its customers direct access to digital music service Napster.
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AT&amp;T Wireless launched this week an online music service that provides instant gratification to subscribers who hear a tune they can&#39;t wait to download.
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Targets 'price insensitive' kiddies AT&amp;T hopes to fool the youth of America into paying way too much for digital music.â¦
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LOS ANGELES - Christopher Parr won&#39;t go so far as to bring his sleeping bag to his local AT&amp;T store to be first in line for Apple&#39;s coveted iPhone when it goes on sale next week. But he will be there opening night to plunk down $599 for the combination iPod, cellphone and wireless Internet device within hours of its debut.
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Napster has unveiled a preview version of its forthcoming Napster To Go portable digital music subscription service. The offering will allow consumers to move an unlimited amount of music from Napster&#39;s catalogue
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In the first foray by a U.S. wireless carrier into the online music market, AT&T Wireless is launching a service that lets subscribers buy songs using their cell phones and later download them to a computer.
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In the first foray by a U.S. wireless carrier into the online music market, AT&T Wireless is launching a service that lets subscribers buy songs using their cell phones and later download them to a computer...
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Los Angeles-based Napster, the online music division of Roxio, announced that the company is making a foray into the downloadable ringtone market in a deal with Dwango Wireless, a publisher of mobile entertainment content.
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Touting the first service letting callers share live video between cell phones, AT&T releases its new Video Share service in three cities for $5 to $10 a month. But it's not for the iPhone, sorry.
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Analysis: AT&T now needs to deal with the fallout after it admitted it's working on a way to filter copyrighted material.
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The company has formed an agreement with mobile developer and publisher Dwango Wireless to launch the service - Napster Mobile - across the US and Canada in 2005.
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AT&T is making Napster Inc.âs entire music catalog of more than five million songs available for wireless download starting early next month.