Rob Glaser
In April, streaming media pioneer RealNetworks bought Listen.com to the tune of $36 million - in a grab for Rhapsody, the dotcom's music subscription service. A week later, Apple launched iTunes Music Store, letting Mac users pay 99 cents a pop to download songs onto their iPods. Rhapsody, which charges $9.95 per month for unlimited streaming, is still deciding which MP3 devices to support in the huge PC market. We asked Real CEO Rob Glaser for the download.
WIRED: Why buy Listen.com now?
GLASER: Digital music has reached a tipping point. The major labels finally have made enough content available with sufficient flexibility for a consumer service to be workable.
Didn't Apple steal your spotlight with its new iTunes Music Store?
It's hard to design a better scenario for us than what Apple did. Apple serves only 5 percent of the market, and it doesn't offer an all-you-can-eat service, just downloads. One of our challenges is teaching consumers about digital music. It's great having Steve Jobs get the word out, since we have the best service for the 95 percent of people who don't use a Mac.
But with Rhapsody, all-you-can-eat applies only to streaming, and users can't load files onto their MP3 players like with Apple's service.
Rhapsody offers-la carte downloading - anyone can burn any song to a CD for 49 cents. As for MP3, we have a full set of alternatives to implement that securely. With so many different players out, the PC world borders on chaos. It's not like with Macintosh, where there's only the iPod to worry about. We'll pick a couple of popular devices and build out support for those.
Will Rhapsody be absorbed into your existing subscription service, RealOne?
We'll keep Rhapsody as a stand-alone service but also integrate it into RealOne. If all you care about is music and you want access to a library, then you'll go with Rhapsody. If you want a fully integrated experience - news, sports, and live entertainment as well as music - you'll go with RealOne.
Any buyer's remorse?
No, actually, quite the contrary. We're getting one of the best teams in the business with the best product, and a technology foundation that cost $100 million to build for $36 million. That's just 36 cents on the dollar.
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