So maybe Napster second coming may not be very different than the first, at least in the end result…some very interesting details emerging on the troubles at Napster and its parent Roxio.
Apparently, HP was supposed to tie up with Napster, and not Apple, but it fell through at the last minute.
Also, Napster is losing money, and top executives have left the company, including its president, chief financial officer, vice president of programming and head of corporate communications as well a key board member.
Also, according to the story, Napster sells only about a quarter the number of downloads from their artists as iTunes store.
On the subscription side, Napster declined to provide specific subscriber numbers for its service, aside from noting that downloads and subscriptions each contributed equally to Napster’s $3.6 million in revenue for the last three months of 2003.
That means Napster has attracted about 90,000 subscribers in its first two months — ranking it fourth, behind RealNetworks’ Rhapsody service, America Online’s MusicNet and MusicMatch.