Napster Founders Reunite Under A New Service – AirTime

June 7, 2012 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services 

Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning, both American citizens and developers of the file-sharing platform called Napster have reunited and launched a new service for friends to video chat on the internet.

The two masterminds behind Napster launched AirTime at an event that featured Hollywood stars such as Jim Carrey, talk show host Jimmy Fallon, and TV star Joel McHale. Also making an appearance, but this time as live video chats were the rapper Snoop Dogg and actress Olivia Munn.

Due to technical difficulties video chats between some celebrities were only ten minutes long while the staff rushed to fix the problems. Parker and his partner are aiming to overcome these difficulties as soon as possible since the service will be available to Facebook in the near future. To use AirTime one must have a Facebook account.

On that subject Parker said that the service is not trying to rival established social networks, but rather act like one. Their goal is to make the internet space a fun place to be, with friends who can video chat with each other in real time, while also ensuring their anonymity. The company will focus on safety as it’s one of the prime concerns of today’s internet users.

“We’re trying to restore serendipity to the Internet,” Parker said.

“There’s never been an environment like this for live performance on the Internet.”

As for how Napster changed everything in the 90’s, both of them said that they had no idea of the impact it would have.

“We knew the product was big but we dramatically underestimated the scale,” Fanning said in an on-stage interview with Fallon.

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Napster Gets Its Own Documentary

September 2, 2011 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services 

Back in June 1999 a new type of online service would take the Internet world by storm and would change forever the way people perceive sharing of content.

Now the peer-to-peer file-sharing service that generated so much controversy and make the music industry crack up, will have its own story told in documentary form directed by Alex Winter, Bill from the Bill and Ted films.

The technology used by Napster allowed users to share their MP3 tracks among themselves, circumventing the rules imposed by the industry and which finally meant copyright infringement lawsuits and the end of the service.

The documentary about Napster follows the short life of the service created by college student Shawn Fanning over a decade ago.

In a recent interview Winter commented about this project:

“The rise and fall of Napster and the birth of peer-to-peer file-sharing technology created by Shawn Fanning when he was a college student, changed music to movies, and made possible everything from Julian Assange, WikiLeaks to the iPod and Facebook.”

“It is a fascinating human story, where this 18-year-old kid invents a peer-to-peer file-sharing system, and brings it to the world six months later,” he added.

After the success of The Social Network which told the story of Facebook, the Napster documentary is also expected to be well received by the public.

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Is It (the) Best Buy for Napster?

September 15, 2008 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services 

In a previous post we were telling you about the Napster’s ambition to stay public (read – out for sale). Well, now they got their wish.

Richfield-based Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) announced today the purchase of Los Angeles-based Napster (Nasdaq: NAPS) for $121 million through a merger agreement, under which Best Buy will acquire all outstanding Napster shares at a price of $2.65 per share in cash (about double Napster’s closing price last Friday). The proposal is awaiting approval, and is expected to close during the fourth quarter.

The promotion of a rental music service proved quite costly. When your marketing expenses rise to 85 per cent of your total spending sometimes, it’s no wonder you’re not money-spinning business. That was the case of Napster.

Thus, this acquisition may come as a gain for Napster considering that last month the company reported a loss of $4.4 million, or 10 cents per share, as revenue dropped 6 percent. According to experts its situation could easily aggravate due to the increase in popularity of Apple Inc.’s iTunes.

“This is, in our view, the optimal outcome for Napster, a music brand and online service that independently might otherwise have dissipated,” BMO Capital Markets analyst Leland Westerfeld declared to investors in a research note.

Reportedly, Napster has around 700,000 subscribers to its Web-based digital entertainment services.
Best Buy recently threw in $1bn into a joint venture with Carphone Warehouse to develop the mobile phone chain into consumer electronics.

Napster shares went up to $1.17, or 86 percent, to $2.53. For the time being, Best Buy shares fell 79 cents, or 1.8 percent, to $43.70.

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Napster Wants to Stay Public

August 29, 2008 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Downloads, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services, Movies, MP3, Digital Audio & Games 

Awaiting its annual shareholder meeting on September 18, the once digital-music pioneer, now legal service aspirant Napster announced its stakeholders in a letter Friday that it’s still employing investment bank UBS and may be planning some “strategic alternatives” in seeking a buyer.

The purpose of the letter was to determine shareholders not to give their vote to three activist candidates for the board. “The press release recently filed by the dissident group appears to imply that your board is not willing to consider a sale of the company,” the letter read. “This is not true.”

The recommendation further implied that shareholders re-elect current board members, namely Richard Royko, Philip Holthouse, and Robert Rodin and not the opposing candidates.
Napster was the first to break onto the digital music ground and the first to pay the price. The free p2p service was taken down after a high-profile trial. Since then it has perseveringly tried to make a comeback as a legitimate subscription-based music service but without too much success. Perhaps adding 6 million DRM-free MP3s would’ve made a difference, the problem was Amazon MP3 had the offer covered already.

Napster’s letter to shareholders focused on the wrong track the proposed new board members would put the company on “The dissident group’s nominees have no relevant experience in the digital-music industry, have no public-company board experience, and the dissident group has not put forth any substantive plan for how their nominees will enhance value for our stockholders, if elected to the board,” the letter read.

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Metallica Shakes Hands with Napster

August 20, 2008 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Downloads, Movies, MP3, Digital Audio & Games 

Band makes entire catalogue available to download

For those who know the history of Metallica and Napster the news today will come as a great surprise as the band has put its entire collection of songs on the service. Many will say Metallica finally figured out how huge online music has become.

To keep some objectivity, the fact that Metallica is making their songs available on a legal download site is not quite a shock as they’re already on iTunes and Amazon. However, what can’t be denied here is the symbolic significance of the deed.

Back in 2000, when Metallica was turned into the poster band for the wrangle between the music industry and its fans, the whole deal began when drummer Lars Ulrich personally delivered a huge printout of the names of those who had been sharing Metallica tracks on Napster to the company’s headquarters.

Now, Ulrich says the band might be primed for a digital release similar to those of Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails. Metallica has one record left on its Warner Music Group contract: “You know, this is our last record under contract with Warner, so we’re looking at how we can embrace everything,” confirmed Ulrich, who during a Record Store Day appearance in an interview to Rolling Stone stressed the fact that the band already allows fans to purchase MP3 and FLAC versions of recent live shows and freely download older shows.

Well, will be watching to see how this new approach of the band will be shaped up and, of course, how that intriguing looking Death Magnetic album (due on September 12) will sound like.

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