MTV, Real, and Verizon Wireless have 'formed Voltron' in an effort to take on the iTunes behemoth.
(Credit: TV Tokyo)With their new joint digital music initiative, MTV Networks, RealNetworks and Verizon Wireless are taking a direct aim at Apple's iTunes powerhouse.
Called Rhapsody America, the yet-to-launch collaboration among the three companies will combine MTV's relatively unsuccessful Urge music store, the Real-owned Rhapsody subscription download service, and Verizon's V Cast mobile media service to create a music store that reaches across the PC, digital music player, and mobile phone platforms.
The new Rhapsody America company is officially a joint venture between MTV Networks and Real Networks, with Verizon Wireless as its exclusive mobile partner. Urge as a brand will cease to exist, with Rhapsody becoming the service of choice for MTV Networks' MTV, VH1, and CMT music brands. Michael Bloom, general manager of MTV's Urge, has been appointed head of the new company, and the company's offices will be located in New York, San Francisco and Seattle.
Urge had been launched as a music store in conjunction with MTV Networks' music brands, but its highly publicized deal with Microsoft had fallen by the wayside as the software company launched its Zune music player and accompanying music store.
Executives from MTV, Real, and Verizon held a joint conference call on Tuesday morning, filled with talk of "alliances" and "joining forces" that evoked superhero Captain Planet or Voltron. "The collaboration of these three companies is like a perfect storm," said Van Toffler, president of MTV Networks' Music/Logo/Films group, who added that they're striving to make Rhapsody America "the best service out there, hands-down."
"The notion of combining with these two marketing behemoths is very, very exciting from our standpoint," said Rob Glaser, chairman and CEO of RealNetworks. "This is a relationship that we spent a long time putting together." RealNetworks, which holds the larger stake in Rhapsody America, has been trying to expand its footprint in the music sales world for some time now through high-profile partnerships.
Few details about the revamped Rhapsody were actually disclosed--pricing, for example, or details regarding finances--but the executives hinted that Rhapsody tie-ins will start to appear as part of the MTV Video Music Awards, which will be broadcast from Las Vegas on September 9.
The executives from all three companies talked up the Verizon deal as crucial to the nature of Rhapsody America. "Our audiences have made it crystal clear that they really want their music accessible wherever they might be," Toffler said. Glaser added that over-the-air downloads through V Cast epitomize Real's goal of a "jukebox in the sky," which he said has been the company's aim since it launched the first RealPlayer in 1995.
More importantly, it's a potential arsenal in the fight to catch up with Apple's iTunes store, the inarguable leader in the digital music sales industry: iTunes offers no mobile download capabilities. John Stratton, Verizon's executive vice president and chief marketing officer, reminded those listening to the conference call that V Cast mobile phones now support 4GB of storage and will support eight by the end of the year--an underhanded nod to the storage capacity of Apple's own iPhone.
The formation of Rhapsody America is the latest move in a music industry trend to prime new strategies for an assault on iTunes. Most recently, Universal Music Group announced that it would not be renewing its contract with Apple's music store and that it would be making portions of its catalog available without digital rights management protection to a number of non-iTunes outlets, one of which is Rhapsody.
YouTube's mobile site has been live and available as of a few days ago. The service offers a hand-picked selection of videos users can watch on their mobile devices. Users have access to just the bare essentials, such as running time, rating, and a link to a video's page with more details. There is, however, no community aspect--no user comments, ratings, or video responses--the kind of things that make YouTube so interesting. Also missing is a dedicated video uploader, as mobile users are still required to submit their mobile videos via MMS messaging.
Instead of running in Flash, like regular YouTube videos, the clips have been downscaled and converted to the 3GP format for streaming. Despite this, I've had a heck of a time trying to get them to run on two of our test phones. It seems that instead of playing right in your browser, the service will simply piggy back on to your phone's built-in media player.
YouTube mobile was previously relegated to Verizon V Cast subscribers in the United States under the guise of an exclusivity deal between the two companies. Considering there are no ads in the mobile version (yet), any kind of money being made is likely on the carrier side from cellular subscribers who are paying for premium data plans.
You can give it a spin in your browser at m.Youtube.com, although the videos won't play.
Anyone can now access the mobile version of YouTube, although you might stumble into a few problems along the way.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
- UPS re-direct service goes live. Ever missed a package because it got delivered to your house or apartment while you were at work? UPS has introduced a new service called Delivery Intercept that lets you redirect, hold, and return a package en route, avoiding such mishaps. (CNET News.com)
- YouTube to launch mobile site. The popular video-sharing site is readying a version of its site optimized for mobile viewers. The only reason there hasn't been one sooner is an exclusivity clause with Verizon, from a deal inked last November for Verizon's V Cast service. (via GigaOm)
- Google Pack expanded. Google Pack, the bundled group of Google and partnered applications has a few new additions today. For security, Symantec's Norton Security Scan and PC Tools' Spyware Doctor Starter Edition have been added. For photo nuts, there's also a slick new photo screensaver that pulls in photos from RSS feeds from sites such as 23HQ and Flickr.
- McCain's MySpace page pranked. Republican presidential candidate and United States Senator John McCain had his MySpace profile page pranked this morning for using a MySpace theme designed by NewsVine CEO and founder Mike Davidson without giving credit and hot-linking the images. Davidson was alerted to the fact and swapped out one of the hosted images with a political message about gay marriage. The image has since been pulled. (via TechCrunch)
- FoxyTunes Planet goes live. FoxyTunes Planet, the media-aggregation tool we profiled last month launched publicly this morning. The service allows users with the FoxyTunes toolbar installed on their browser (both IE and Firefox) to pull up various information about the song and artist they're currently listening to.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
>> Microsoft sticks with Hotmail name. First it was Hotmail, then it was Windows Live Mail. Now it's Windows Live Hotmail. Will people still call it plain ol' Hotmail? Probably. The name change is reminiscent of the Cingular/AT&T debacle of late. Microsoft is choosing to keep the Hotmail moniker in its upgraded e-mail service, despite the vastly different interface.
>> Verizon breathing new life into Mobile ESPN. The Web-to-phone service that was originally offered as an MVNO and got axed less than a year later has been resurrected by Verizon as a part of its V Cast service. The Mobile ESPN service had less than a quarter million users at its peak. Verizon has more than 20 million phones in use that are capable of running the V Cast app.
>> Last.fm to get Warner catalog. Good news for Last.fm users: Warner Music signed a deal on Tuesday that provides Last.fm with the entire Warner catalog. This includes over 20 popular music labels, making the music discovery service quite a bit more diverse in its offerings.
>> Jobster partners with Facebook. Jobster does jobs, Facebook does college students. It's a match made in heaven. Hear that clicking noise? It's the frantic removal of drunken party pics and other potentially non-boss-safe profile content from Facebook's 7+ million users.
[All stories from CNET News.com]
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