NYT: Saul Hansell focuses on the 25 free song plays for every basic Rhapsody sub. Real will pay the labels roughly 1 cent per play; supporting the service with advertising. Rob Glaser, Chairman, RealNetworks: “What we give people is the instant gratification of the illegal services, on a legal path.”
Forbes: Michael Gartenberg, analyst, Jupiter Research: “This is certainly one of the first vendors to challenge the model that Apple has established and which offers some real differentiation. It’s not just another music store offering roughly the same music for about the same price and with roughly the same usage rights as iTunes.”
Reuters: “With an expanded suite of services, RealNetworks appears to be hedging its bet on how consumers want to buy and listen to music in the coming years as it aims to chip away at Apple’s dominance in music online.”
USA Today: David Card, analyst, Jupiter Research: “When we’ve done consumer surveys, we find that people are six times more likely to convert to paying customers after they try it out.”
Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Phil Leigh, senior analyst, Inside Digital Media: “The value proposition of $15 a month is quite a compelling, competitive challenge for Apple. It enables you to listen to so much more music.”
CNET News: Mike McGuire, analyst, GartnerG2: “I understand that from a marketing perspective it is important to help get people into it. But I think is going to be a challenge. They aren’t facing just the challenge of free peer-to-peer, but also legitimate free online radio stations.”
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