Friday, September 02, 2005

Napster is back. And it's hungry for a bite of Apple. In little over a year, the music sharing application has resurfaced to become iTunes' closest contender for the music download crown.

Roxio wasn't just buying a name when it bought Napster. It bought instant awareness and a shortcut to Apple's lead. According to Adam Howorth, European communications director of Napster, Roxio bought the name "because it is the biggest name in digital music with a 92 percent recognition rate among Internet users." But Roxio was also buying into Napster's infamous past.

Napster's fortunes began to turn around when it introduced a "Napster to go" alternative. The model works like this: customers can download an unlimited amount of songs from Napster's library for US$ 10 a month. In the words of Napster's latest ad campaign, users can "try before they buy."

But the model has a hefty catch: users don't own the tracks they download. If customers don't renew their subscription every 30 days, they lose their music. The system uses "Janus" technology-software developed by Microsoft to control the distribution and consumption of music. The Janus technology is undeniably clever but it's not without its idiosyncrasies. Perhaps not surprisingly, it's not compatible with the iPod.

Fifty-six thousand of its 410,000 users are university subscribers.