Microsoft and MTV to Launch Music Service 233
An anonymous reader writes "According to ZDNet Microsoft and MTV have joined forces to form Urge, a new online music service. From the article: 'The company said Urge would include a subscription component, as well as allowing individual song sales. A spokesman declined to discuss pricing, saying full details would be announced next month. The company gave no specifics on launch date beyond saying it would be sometime in 2006.'"
Could be big (Score:4, Insightful)
They could even put the website address beneath the song title, artist, etc. in every video.
To paraphrase Top Gun... (Score:3, Insightful)
"I feel the Urge, the urge to Purge*."
* I.e. Vomit.
Seriously, the world's biggest commercial software vendor getting it together with, possibly, the world's biggest icon of commercial music?!
It's a match made in marketing heaven, and consumer hell.
Re:Urge? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hat-pullOutRabbit() (Score:3, Insightful)
They're going to have to make this something special to compete with existing online music services. Napster has a subscription service, as well as a "Napster-to-go" scheme whereby users can put music onto compatible mobile devices. This supports WMA DRM seeing as it uses Windows Media Player 10 tech, so it's not like MS can claim exclusive compatibility with that without cutting out the whole Rhapsody range of services. The other main service at the moment is iTunes, which caters for a per-track market, and it the only thing that works with iPods as far as I know. Due to the methods iPods deal with files and DRM, Microsoft won't be able to offer music for those either.
As for the "Original Hand-Crafted content", won't that simply be MTV videos? iTunes already has "a range of music videos and television shows"
It seems to me that MS are trying to fill a hole that's already been covered...
Better than Sony (Score:2, Insightful)
On the counter-side you have a big evil software/device multinational (MS) doing a partnership with essentially a large music content provider (MTV). Despite the short term anomaly that Apple is causing it probably takes a partnership like this to actually have some threat to Sony without forcing every artist onto one label and closing the industry completely.
Another killer? (Score:2, Insightful)
Will the combination of a music network and a software company that does not make MP3 players beat this? Sounds more like massive advertising opportunities rather than building an iPod/iTunes killer.
MTV is mistaken (Score:2, Insightful)
MTV is very much mistaken. 90% of their viewers either want an iPod or have one. Hell, almost every hiphop video bling-blings an iPod around. "Urge" seems to block Macs and iPods. All very lovely, but MTV fails to recognise their target market if you ask me.
So... (Score:4, Insightful)
And of course, all of this will be sprinkled with advertisments for Mountain Dew, Microsoft, and Slim Jim.
One-stop non-shopping.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, though, it's very nostalgic to see MTV get back into the music business. I just hope they remember how it works, it's been, what, fifteen years now since they gave it up to make low-budget drama programs and reality television?
Re:Pricing (Score:2, Insightful)
No worries... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm just glad that someone here realized what the hell I was talking about in spite of the Redundant mod. Apparently, too many folks here haven't actually watched MTV since the 1980's. Oh well, can't say I blame 'em.
They'll figure it out soon enough, though. I wonder how long it will be before this new online music service only has content about pimping cars, playing jokes on people, weird people forced to share a house, and so on instead of, well, you know... music.
Stupid Unless... (Score:4, Insightful)
What MTV and Microsoft has to do to get their foot in the door is offer a service that works with iPods AND offers a different pricing model then iTunes. That is the only way they can possibly compete with iTunes. Anything short of this is going to result in them fighting every other online music company for that tiny sliver of remaining non-iPod users.
I personally would jump at an all you can eat service for my iPod. Hell, I would jump at any sort of pricing options that or ability to escapes AAC lock in for my iPod. I got my iPod as a gift. I would love it if there was a way to escape Apple's monopoly short of throwing out a $300 piece of equipment. If MTV and Microsoft, as much as I loath the both of them, can do it I'll jump. It isn't like I have any love for Apple either.
If they have a plan to defeat Apple, then this will be newsworthy. If they are just jumping in on Napster's model and hoping to sell via the shitty MTV brand, this is a yawner that no one is going to give a shit about.
Re:Stupid Unless... (Score:4, Insightful)
Something wrong with allofmp3.com?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm scared. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hat-pullOutRabbit() (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow. If you think about it, that is the best one-sentence description of Microsoft ever written.
It's true on so many levels, it's almost Zen.
Re:MTV is mistaken (Score:2, Insightful)
URGE will not be compatible with Macintosh computers or iPods.
Sorry, but URGE == DOA. Or, put another way, MSMTV will be about as successful [mediabistro.com] as MSNBC.
Re:Stupid Unless... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ask the artists whose music they sell...
Re:Could be big (Score:4, Insightful)
Back when MTV first started sucking (by sucking I mean not playing videos), I could easily move to MTV2 for a metal fix, or VH1 for a classic rock fix, or CTN for the latest in alternative. Now they're all the same blathering crap that has little to do with music, and what's left is, as has been mentioned, hip hop and rap. Even VH1's music-based TV shows like "My Generation" and "Pop Up Video" have disappared in favor of "I Love the 80's". I think CMT is the only station they haven't fully corrupted yet, and you know it's only a matter of time.
* Owned by Viacom!
Re:Pricing (Score:3, Insightful)
I didn't RTFA, but I'm sure they'll release a specialized "MSTV" player or some junk with a snazzy interface that will just use Windows Media Player on the back end. You'll only be able to use that piece of software to upload to your
Eventually - maybe 6 months from now or maybe a year from now - they'll follow along in Apple's footsteps and release music videos for sale on the service. However, this is MTV we're talking about, so the release of music videos on the service will be followed shortly by downloadable versions of all of MTV's popular shows. They'll make it very easy for you to download the latest Real World and Pimp My Ride programs to your "MSTV" Portable Windows Media Player. Eventually they'll follow up the release of MTV programs with other programs produced and/or owned by Viacom. This means Nickalodean, Comedy Central, and yes, even CBS.
In the end, the service will win becuase Microsoft is the 800 lb. technology gorilla, and a partnership with MTV means gaining the mind share of the young & pre-teen demographic -- a demographic that is most likely very important to the online content distribution industry. This is a partnership that could very well challenge the dominance of Apple's iTMS in the market.
I would like to say that I welcome our new digital content delivery overlords, but I don't. A merger like this one will mean that we'll probably have even less choice. I'm 95% certain that Urge (urge to what? choke myself?) will offer downloads and a variable price scheme carefully computed to maximize profit, especially in light of the surprising amount of purchasing power weilded by MTV's chosen demographic. And with the service "getting 'em while their young" we'll have a whole new generation of consumers who won't know anything about the advantages of
For the record, I predicted this would happen not too long after iTunes was released. It's simply natural. I'd like to say that I'm proud to have predicted such an unholy partnership between two large corporate giants, but I'm not.
You can just call me Cassandra from now on.
Re:I hope that makes you sleep better at night (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, let's assume that, yes, allofmp3 is owned (presumably via front organisations) by the Russian mafia.
Ethical problem: the Russian mafia is a criminal organisation, which kills people. Is it, therefore, wrong to buy music from allofmp3.com?
Well, we should ask:
- does the Russian mafia kill or threaten to kill people for reasons connected with allofmp3.com? Perhaps they issued death threats to record company executives to obtain their incredibly good deal?
I doubt that they did. It's not something you do if you can avoid it, not if you want to look like a legitimate operation. I'd bet that they got their surprisingly good deal by bribery. Once that's done, you needn't worry about having to kill people to prevent competition, either: you've already bribed the licensing organisation, so they won't license anyone else!
- given that the Russian mafia kills people, do revenues from allofmp3.com help them do so more effectively?
Perhaps. But it's a strange way to behave. Let's suppose they're killing someone for reasons connected with, say, a drug deal. Suppose that they fund the hit with revenues from allofmp3.com. That's weird for two reasons.
1: you're using your mp3 business to subsidise drug dealing. What? Drug dealing not profitable enough for you?
2: Since allofmp3.com is acting as a legitimate business, it has financial records, from which missing cash might get noticed. Far better to use drug money for drug-related murder - that stuff's harder to trace.
I really can't see any particular reason to think that buying stuff from allofmp3 is likely to get anyone killed. If anything, the more profitable allofmp3 becomes, the less likely any mafia behind it is to kill anybody. Once the Mob goes legitimate, there's suddenly a lot less reason to go about murdering.
Vote with your dollars! Make the Mafia's mp3 business so profitable that the drugs and vice rackets aren't worth the hassle! Help the Russian mafia become a legitimate entrepreneurial middle-class - God knows that country needs one, AFAIK as it is there are a few oligarchs owning damn near everything, a massive population of poor workers, and in between not very much.
Furthermore, to the best of my knowledge there is no actual evidence that allofmp3 is run by the Russian Mafia. It just seems to be a widespread assumption based on a stereotype. They're a Russian business -> they're run by the Russian Mafia.
Viewing things from a more abstracted perspective: I could buy from the Russian Mafia. They may then use the money to kill people. Ethical problem? Perhaps. I could instead buy from Microsoft. They may then pay the money in taxes to the United States Government, which may then use the money to kill people. Ethical problem? What's the difference between the money I send to allofmp3 being used to kill Russians, and the money I send to US_RECORD_CO being used to kill Iraqis? Remember that both allofmp3.com and Microsoft are legitimate businesses. It's just that in either case if you follow the money far enough, someone's getting buried.
And finally, from a Lawful Evil point of view: the Russian Mafia's crimes kill a small number of people I don't know. Microsoft's crimes inconvenience an enormous number of people, myself among them...
Re:Urge? (Score:2, Insightful)