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Best Buy, the undisputed king of consumer-electronics retailing, is taking Shawn Fanning's beloved Napster and making it a force in music retailing. Look out, Apple. Best Buy is always looking for new revenue streams and it has found a gold mine in the Napster brand.
Log on to Best Buy and search Napster and the ubiquitous cat with the headphones pops up offering music buyers five songs and one month of on-demand streaming on Napster for only $5.
The on-demand streaming is the blockbuster here. What it means is that music buyers are getting free streaming on their computer as a reward for buying Napster downloads. That's a darn attractive offering for music buyers used to being nickel-and-dimed to death by iTunes. Is there a better buy in music sharing? Not for my iPod. Napster, by the way, supports all MP3 players besides Apple's iPod, including Microsoft's Zune.
"There's no need to settle for 30-second clips to decide if you want to buy a song," boasts Napster CEO Chris Gorog. "For five bucks now you can have access to our entire music catalog and get five MP3s to add to your permanent collection."
Best Buy is offering a wide range of Napster prepaid cards both at its stores and online.
Don't forget that Apple earlier this year raised the price to download the No. 1 song on iTunes to $1.29 instead of 99 cents. Apple is trying to milk more money out of the big hits from the best-selling artists.
Best Buy, meanwhile, is no doubt looking to buddy up to the biggest and best-selling artists. Indeed, look for Best Buy to not be shy in flexing its music industry muscle by offering everything from Napster online exclusives (just like it does in retail stores) and special promotional offers around the biggest-selling artists.
Best Buy is all about technology value. And it is clear it is bringing that value to the music download business. Apple is no doubt pleased to position itself as the high-priced, high-styled offering (think of a Gucci bag). Best Buy is going to trump that with a Target approach (think Isaac Mizrahi designing for Target).
Great job, Best Buy. Thanks for bringing some good old-fashioned free market capitalism to the stale and tired music download retailing business.
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