Impact of Napster Superbowl Ad

At this year's Superbowl, Napster took iTunes head on. Napster's concept is based on a service. There are no gimmicks. You pay $14.99 per month and you have access to a million songs. However, the catch is, you only have access to the song as long as you keep paying your monthly fee. The music expires as soon as you stop paying. On the other hand, Apple's iTunes has no monthly fee, but you only hear what you pay for. Most tunes are $.99.

So what's a customer to make of all of this? A lot of the decision is based on how often you cycle through a variety of tunes and how much you're willing to pay for. At $180 a year with Napster you're talking a lot of money for me. However, many do pay out this much for music in a year. The problem with the Napster service comes down to the ownership factor. When a Napster user leaves the service they are left with absolutely nothing, but their auditory memories. This is where the Napster model fails. The desire to own music is as rock solid today as it was during the L.P. While the Napster ad might generate some consumer interest and a brief spike, it's model does not hold for the long term.