Curtain Closes on Napster Japan
Napster Japan, a JV with Tower Records, has announced that they will shutter operations here as of May 31st – Search WWJ
Search Results for: napster
Napster Japan – The First Six Months
On October 3 of last year, Napster Japan launched the first online music subscription service in Japan with an ‘all-you-can-eat’ model – allowing subscribers to download and play as much music as they like for a flat monthly fee. Accompanied by a massive marketing campaign featuring oversized bar-code poster ads, the Napster Japan launch attracted a great deal of attention and media coverage. When the company announced that over 2 million songs had been ‘shifted’ (downloaded for playing) in the first week after launch, it looked as though Napster might well be on track to replace iTunes as Japan’s most popular online music service. So how have the first six months gone for Japan’s first and (so far) only online subscription music service?
Napster Mobile Launches on KDDI
Napster announced the launch of it’s mobile music service on KDDI so Au brand customers can access Napster library through the EZ web network. Programming features, include personalized recommendations, featured artists and new releases, exclusive music and chart information. Napster Mobile made its Japanese debut this past November when it launched on DoCoMo’s i-mode platform.
Napster Mobile Launches on i-mode
Napster has announced the launch of Napster Mobile on iMode. DoCoMo is now promoting Napster Mobile, with over-the-air full length songs and ringtones and the Napster To Go PC-to-handset sideloading capabilities through a multi-million dollar integrated marketing campaign comprised of TV, outdoor, print, in-box, online and on-deck promotion. The campaign also includes today’s platform-wide takeover of iMode by Napster. DoCoMo customers can use Napster Mobile to access full-length songs and ringtones that can be delivered over-the-air (OTA), directly to their mobile handset for immediate listening and downloading.
Number Portability – DoCoMo Relying on Napster Japan
Despite the resounding silence from DoCoMo’s website, Tower Records (part-owned by DoCoMo) have just introduced a joint-venture service with Napster in Japan. The Tower Records Japan-Napster JV will provide music distribution services for PC and mobile from an initial catalogue of 1.5 million songs. The initial service launch only allows content purchased by premium subscribers – a subscription costs 1,980 JPY per month – to be moved from the PC to mobile devices – and at this time only one handset (F902is) is supported.
DoCoMo took a 42 percent share of Tower Records here in November 2005 and – if the on-scene hype at DoCoMo’s booth at this week’s CEATEC consumer electronics show is any guide – they appear ready to announce a more aggressive mobile music device line-up in the coming weeks.
The Tower Records initiative appears not unrelated to DoCoMo’s overall mobile music strategy, which has so far run a distant second to mobile market leader KDDI/au.
Since 2002, KDDI have seen strong traffic, sales and handset popularity with their Chaku Uta, Chaku Uta Full, and Chaku Motion full-track audio and video offering. More recently, their new ‘LISMO’ unified PC/mobile content download and syncing service has started to gain customers, while DoCoMo have only this year in June started pushing Chaku Uta Full.
DoCoMo to Offer Napster Flat-Rate
NTT DoCoMo Inc. plans to make available the flat-rate pricing service of U.S. online music distributor Napster LLC for its new cellphone handsets to be marketed from this summer, informed sources said Saturday. Music distribution has been available for mobile phones at about 300 yen per track in Japan. In the U.S. market, Napster offers more than 2 million pieces of music for users at fixed-rate charges equivalent to about 1,100-1,600 yen a month, they added.
Sharp 906i Handset has Touch Technology
DoCoMo announced it’s new summer handset line-up last week and, as mentioned, there really is ‘plenty of material to wade through’. While seperate posts reviewing the increased Napster video offering and the expected impact of Flash 8 enabled handsets are certainly worthy, we had to post this link for promo video of the SH906i in action.
That 15-second tv spot was on during almost every tv commercial break here last night, no doubt the company is trying to raise awareness about it’s slick functionality before this ‘other phone’ hits the street!
As this model is also Bluetooth enabled, hardcore mobile users are encouraged to take advantage of the k-tai shop campaign and grab a wireless keyboard.. while supplies last.
Impressions from the MoMo Global Summit
The 3rd annual MobileMonday Global Summit was held in Helsinki, Finland, on 10 September with an estimated 1,500 attendees; this year included a bonus side-trip to St. Petersburg, Russia, the following evening. WWJ was there once again, as founders of the MoMo Tokyo chapter, along with representatives from over 20 MoMo cities around the world. In addition to our Trip Report, WWJ’s ed-in-chief Daniel Scuka offers these thoughts about the experience.
Japan Mobile Music News Brief
The latest Music Media Watch newsletter from Steve Myers came out yesterday with an op-ed feature on the-phone which we covered to great extent – for our paid subscribers – back in January. That being said it’s well worth the read (for free) as it even popped-up on the O’Reilly Radar this morning 😎 Meanwhile, there’s a few other “Noteworthy News” tips clipped from his blast after the jump.
DoCoMo 2.0 — Message Lost in Translation?
On Monday 23 April NTT DoCoMo unveiled their latest 3G handsets, the 904i-series, at a press conference held here in downtown Tokyo.
WWJ pointed to this webcast of their presentation, which clearly stated from the very beginning the new “DoCoMo 2.0” campaign theme.
We shouldn’t really be surprised that the main message, from Japan’s dominant mobile operator, contained in the announcement somehow managed to get 2.0 attention from the mainstream media. With few exceptions, the entire tech web focused on the motion-sensor for gaming application. Few if any noted how ironic it was that while the company insisted it was going to “focus on offering unique applications and services that will be difficult for the competition to duplicate” they were in fact introducing a functionality which was originally made available in Japan [video here] by Vodafone and Sharp over two years ago.
Perhaps the gritty details — such as the fact that all five new models will (of course) ship pre-installed with the Osaifu-Keitai FeliCa mobile wallet together with related security services — are less appealing to the overseas media than Nokia’s recent announcement that they, too, have the mobile wallet urge?
To be sure, there were a few interesting new offerings in Natsuno-san’s presentation, such as the 2-in-1 dual-identity option and flat-rate access to Napster’s full music library service. However, one of the main observations we take away from this news is that the rest of the world still tends to focus only on the most quirky headlines (wait until the MSM find out about this one). WWJ subscribers login for our thoughts on this latest development.