Michael Robertson goes for a new target: Jack Johnson

Back in the bubble days, Michael Robertson was a (mostly) loved rebel.

He started a number of innovative companies that, as part of their DNA, set out to tweak established players. His first company, MP3.com, was for a time the largest digital music site online. The labels hated the site, but Robertson refused to back down to their threats. Then he started a company that attempted to bring Linux to the desktop, choosing a name for his company — Lindows — that was sure to anger the most powerful, richest guy in tech. (The company is now called Linspire, which should give some indication of who won that battle.)

Anyway, it seems that Robertson these days is picking on people more his own size. One of his companies, MP3 Tunes, started a service today that allows you to upload your music to your mobile phone over the air. The FAQ for what he's calling Load2Mobile includes this great give and take:

Q: What will the songs sound like on your mobile phone?

A:
Even though the songs are small so they will load quickly they are full stereo and surprisingly pleasing sounding. Of course if you're loading crap like Jack Johnson it won't improve that.

After the jump, one of my favorite Robertson anecdotes from a 2003 Fortune piece written by WIRED's Fred Vogelstein:

Spend a couple of hours with Robertson, and you feel as if you've been granted an audience with a cult leader. At 35, his fine blond hair and craggy face make him look as benign as an over-the-hill surfer.
Everything else about him is icy. Employees at MP3.com recall a ruthless perfectionist who would burst in on meetings to dress down associates__ or explode at teammates for bad plays during lunchtime basketball games. "You miss a shot on his team, and he's all over you like you're the worst athlete in the world," says one of his former colleagues. "He's not even that good." __(Emphasis mine)