Napster Launches Web-Based Client, Heads For Facebook
Napster is re-inventing itself yet again as it attempts to compete with iTunes and others in the online music business. The new Napster 4.0 sees the company ditching its desktop application in favor of a browser-based client in an effort to expand its market.
That should be good news for Mac and Linux users who have, until 4.0, been locked out of Napster’s Windows-only model.
The web-based client will let you access your music from a wider
range of devices - at the very least, you can fire it up on any
computer desktop. As Napster chief operating officer Christopher Allen tells Reuters:
“with this new platform Napster can easily be integrated into consumer
electronics devices or integrated into other Web sites such as social
networking sites.”
Is Napster headed for your Facebook page? It certainly sounds like it, though no further details have been announced.
Napster’s service will remain subscription-based, with prices at $10 to
$15 a month. You can still listen to samples for free, but you’ll only
get 30 seconds snippets. The new web-based player sits in a pop-up
browser window and behaves more or less like clients from Last.fm or
Pandora.
Napster claims around 770,000 subscribers, but lags far behind industry leader iTunes. Now that Amazon has gotten into the digital downloads game, the market is increasingly crowded.
Napster tries to offer the best of both worlds - allowing streaming audio in the new web-client and subscription-based downloads - but clearly most people seem to prefer the iTunes/Amazon buy-single-tracks model.
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