Napster Goes Ringtone
Napster entering the ringtone market.
Napster tunes into mobile ringtones
By Tony Smith
Published Thursday 9th December 2004 15:33 GMT
Napster is to enter the mobile phone ringtone market next year, launching an own-brand service on the back of mobile content delivery company Dwango Mobile.
The announcement comes after US market watcher PJ McNealy of American Technology Research (ATR) downgraded parent company Roxio's stock from Hold to Sell.
The Dwango deal will see the formation next year of Napster Mobile, a service pitched at North American consumers, initially selling ringtones, but presumably with music downloads in mind when the bandwidth's there to make it practical.
The more ringtones punters buy through the Napster-branded service, the more points they earn which can be used to offset the cost of PC- or music player-based track downloads. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, so it's not yet clear to what extent the deal will earn Napster revenue directly or whether it's more about getting mobile phone owners to buy song downloads or subscriptions from the company.
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Posted by Craig at December 9, 2004 05:26 PM