Can anyone beat iTunes?
October 3rd, 2008 by admin
Today it’s the UK’s 7digital trumpeting deals with the record labels which it says make it Europe’s biggest purveyor of DRM-free music. And next month sees the arrival of “Comes With Music”, iPhone 3G Charger says Nokia’s new service promising free music downloads with a handset contract. What they are all attempting to do is loosen the extraordinary stranglehold that Apple’s iTunes has over the market.
It’s going to be tough. The subscription model favoured by the likes of Napster and eMusic was one strategy, which now seems to be fading, just as the talk of an iTunes subscription service gets louder. Napster gathered around 700,000 subscribers but still ended up making a big loss. I’ve recently tried out another service eMusic, and am wondering why - it is hard to navigate, and appears to have a limited library for a £10 a month subscription.