There's news today about the Swedish wireless marketer Ericsson, which will market a mobile music service with Napster. The service will enable consumers to download music to their wireless phones.
It's a nifty idea that we think will prove popular with 18- to 24-year-olds.
The thing is though, what about those of us who are tethered to our iPods and other MP3 players? We have grown
accustomed to the razor-sharp clarity delivered by those digital devices. We enjoy hearing every crisp word and syllable uttered, guitar riff, and dissonant vocals. We wonder if this service will have
the clarity we are accustomed to.
The plan put forward by Ericsson and Napter is to license the Napster service to wireless carriers like Verizon and Sprint. Napster already markets Napster To
Go, a service that costs $15 a month for an unlimited number of downloads that come in a copy-restricted format. Those tracks can only be played on Windows XP PCs and select digital music players.
The new service is a plan to counteract the dominance of iTunes, which will come out on a Motorola handset this summer. The Napster-Ericsson service is set to launch in Europe over the next year.