Napster 2 was to be the great bugaboo and nemesis of Apple’s iTunes Music Store (iTMS). When Roxio announced its intention to use the Napster brand name to launch a music download service, many hailed the Napster name as potentially being the biggest brand in the music download business. Others, including The Mac Observer, said that if any company could give Apple a run for its money in ease of use, it would be Roxio, and that Napster 2 would likely be a success.
Napster may or may not be as easy to use as the iTMS, but so far, it is likely the #2 download service. While on the surface, being #2 is usually considered a success, we should qualify that #2 ranking as a distant #2, because Apple is beating Napster 2 by about 5:1. Late yesterday, Apple announced that during the first week of Napster’s launch, the iTMS had some 1.5 million downloads. In comparison, Napster had some 300,000 downloads during the same period. Apple issued the corporate press release equivalent of "Nyeener-Nyeener-Nyeener" to celebrate:
Music fans purchased and downloaded 1.5 million songs from Apple’s iTunes Music Store during the same period that Napster reported selling 300,000 songs during its first week of operation. More than 17 million songs have been purchased and downloaded from the iTunes Music Store since it launched in April 2003. According to Nielsen SoundScan, the iTunes Music Store had more than 80 percent market share of legally purchased downloads last week.
"During Napster’s first week of operation, the iTunes Music Store sold five times as many songs as Napster did—1.5 million versus 300,000," said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. "The unbeatable combination of iPod and iTunes offers music lovers a seamless experience for buying, managing and listening to their digital music collections anywhere."
You can find more information on Napster and the iTMS at their respective Web sites.
The Mac Observer Spin:
We expected Napster’s rebirth to be a bit more exciting than it has apparently been, but it’s still a fairly good start. That is, if you take into consideration that Apple is clearly dominant in this new market. The iTMS did better in its first week, and it was only available to Mac OS X users. It turns out that Apple is the 900 lbs. gorilla in the download market, something referenced by Steve Jobs in comments two days ago:
"Why should we work with another music store when we are working with the Microsoft of music stores?" Jobs said. "I’d rather spend our engineering dollars on enhancing the iPod and the iTunes music store."
"The Microsoft of music stores…" It has a nice ring to it, no? Even better since Apple earned that dominance by making a good product, instead of using sneaky, underhanded business tactics.
The real question, however, is whether or not Apple can maintain that kind of domination. As we have noted before, the iTMS’s dominance is directly tied to the dominance of the iPod, and vice versa. Should some enterprising company like Sony release something that is truly an iPod-killer, Apple could see traffic at the iTMS take a hit; and, by definition, should someone launch a service that overtakes the iTMS, iPod sales will take a hit. For those keeping score at home, the former is possible, while the later is doubtful.