David Kirkpatrick Nails It

David, who has written about technology for Fortune Magazine for as long as I've been in the technology business, just penned a great column explaining that Rhapsody, not iTunes, is the future of digital music.  David says:

While the iPhone may be the phone of the future, to the degree that it is a music player, it is based on the ideas of the past.

David has had the same experience I've had with Rhapsody and Sonos. Rhapsody has always suffered from being a web service, when most people are used to listening to music from a "home stereo" type device. Sonos fixes that problem and if you haven't used Sonos and Rhapsody, you are missing out.

David explains:

Using Rhapsody in my living room over the Sonos equipment was a revelation - it was now possible, on a whim, to listen to anything I wanted - whether it be an individual song (What was that great Waterboys hit again?) or an album (Sometimes I just want to go all the way back to high school and hear "Disraeli Gears"). It just streamed through the Internet. Rhapsody on Sonos shows what's possible.

Now Rhapsody is heading to the wireless ether, as it should. At the CES show this week, Real and partners announced several new ways to get Rhapsody, including some that are wireless. Reigncom this spring will start selling an iRiver portable MP3 player that allows you to listen to a Rhapsody stream over Wi-Fi networks. Nokia's (Charts) pocket-sized N800 tablet computer will also be able to receive wireless Rhapsody starting in February. They won't allow you to listen everywhere, but if you can get a good wireless signal you'll get Rhapsody.

Yes, this setup is still expensive. Yes, not everyone wants to "rent music". But I agree with David that "music dialtone" is the future of music, not iTunes, iPod, or iPhone.

Comments

[Charlie Crystle]

That's true except where you say "that "music dialtone" is the future of music, not iTunes, iPod, or iPhone." Perhaps it should be, but people don't know what they like, they like what they know--an old music industry adage that radio programmers religiously follow, to their own demise.

My point is this: iPod is what people know. Even people that don't have it know it. And because that's what they know and that's what their trusted sources of information know (friends), that's what they'll get. Rhapsody can show the way, and perhaps Apple will follow, but the general public will follow Apple, not Rhapsody, and until Apple moves, the dialtone of music is locked in the iPod. Not so much a dialtone as a...a...personal closed-circuit sound emitting device. PCCSED.

[Dan Buell]

I have used Rhapsody as well as virtually every other music service that exists and I disagree with this assessment.

First, from a pure quality and functionality perspective as a web service, Napster is many notches above Rhapsody or the others; something that every periodical review I've read from PC Magazine on concurs with.

Napster's music is already portable without the need for a connection and it is a breeze.

In RE to transferring into a home theater setting, although I have tried Sonos but will, I don't believe that extraneous equipment is even necessary to accomplish this task as most newer home theater systems can either be connected to a portable player or have docking ports for this sort of thing - perhaps Sonos increases the quality of such thing, I will explore.

Dan

[Scott Rafer]

I take exception as well, though a different one. "Dialtones" are not the future of anything. It's a carrier metaphor based on the idea that a significant intermediary like Cingular or Rhapsody provides enough value to mediate the customers' relationships the producer of the original good. Now that always-on Internet connections are a consumer reality, intermediaries whose primary value-add is aggregated access exist solely due to corporate welfare programs (i.e. the FCC) and inertia (i.e. the big music labels). Last.fm and its ilk are the future, not Rhapsody or iTunes as they exist now.

As has been the case through most of human history, performers will return to singing for their suppers. Packing a stadium with adoring fans will make that one heckuva supper, of course. The phenomenon of exchanging cash for recorded music is very new in the context of thousands of years of human music history. Selling recorded music in any form started in the early eighteenth century and will end in the first half of the twenty-first.

As much as it pains me to paraphrase Seth on these matters, musicians will need to make money on attention rather than copies of their songs. MP3 will kill consumer music sales and licensing by 2020. With its current momentum, iTunes will dominate music sales at least half the time until them.

[Ted]

I would tend to agree with you with respect to iTunes. When iTunes first came out I, like many, purchased many songs before I sort of figured out the inherent limitations of it. However, the idea of Rhapsody leading the way is a bit off. While middle age, middle to upper class techo-savvy consumers will see this as the ultimate, I would humbly submit that it is the younger generation that pushes the industry and I cannot see them shelling out that sort of money for a subscription. While they undoubtedly shell out that much per month on iTunes, psychologically it is different. The idea that you can have a month off is appealing, thus I do not see the market changing that much, which is unfortunate. Personally the only company that I think that could change the paradigm will be Apple themselves. While locking people into the iPod is their strategic move, I don't think the limitation of the 5 devices is. I think that was merely Apple's compromise with the RIAA. Unless we have outright anarchy against the RIAA I think we'll continue to live in an anachronistic world.

On another note, does Rhapsody listens get captured by last.fm yet?

[mark]

i couldn't agree with you more - rhapsody rocks and is not only far surperior to itunes but also to xm and sirius. also, with the announcement that squeezebox has incorporated rhapsody dna, there is now a more affordable alternative to sonos...

[CoryS]

I'm confused that the idea of temporarily having access to a variety of music, even the majority of what's available in the market, (let's call it renting) is better in some way to owning it outright. In the short run, a monthly subscription seems cool, but three years from now, I'll no longer have access to my top 20 favorite albums from that time frame? (btw, 20*$10 = $200, which cheaper than buying them with DRM + free internet radio)

[hello]

@ ted,

Yes, you can capture your Rhapsody listens at last.fm. Please see the developer discussion on last.fm at: http://www.last.fm/forum/21716/_/175521 . you can set an RSS feed, to see latest announcements, etc.

There is a Rhapsody + Last.fm thread on Real's forums as well. Please see: http://real.lithium.com/real/board/message?board.id=InstallingRhapsody&message.id=15752

As for the dial-tone meme: It doesn't work for me, or the types of music I listen to. I listen to jazz, 20th century classical, opera and musical theater. I also enjoy vintage R & B/Soul. Those are all genres where the vibrancy of a live performance is essential. And most of these performances are/were recorded live "direct-to-tape". In other words, without much post-production (tweaking in the recording studio). Today's jazz recordings -- and I mean real jazz here, not the smooth jazz junk -- are recording in 100 takes (or less) for the entire album, usually in of 2-3 days of studio time. It's the tradition, check the session dates on an Ellington, Basie, Coltrane or Miles Davis recording. The same standards apply for classical.

I still buy all of my music on physical media -- that's 1200+ LPs on vinyl, 2700+ CDs to date, I've also begun purchasing 180 gram vinyl when available. I'm also old enough to have purchased some of this music on more than one type of physical media -- 45rpm, LPs, 8-track, cassette, CD, as well as mini-disc and laser discs. In that collection, I have purchased exactly *two* DRM'd digital/download tracks... *yawn*.

Many of the more ephemeral physical media formats listed above were all related to to so-called "portable devices" anyway, and I've had them all. Am I the only one on this blog to own a "Close 'n Play" (http://www.feelingretro.com/view_toy.cfm?id=26)? A Boombox, WalkMan, DiscMan, a mini-disc or laser disc player?

As such, I have no interest in "renting" music via a subscription service. The catalog just isn't there... sorry folks. Not to mention the fact that, actual audio quality on the subscription services is highly variable. Besides, the subscription model is hardly new. Again, am I the only one who remembers K-Tel, and the Columbia Music Service? For those subscriptions, you received LPs of your choosing monthly, often they were specially packaged, lower quality pressings or remainders.

In the "digital / Internet" era -- the pioneers were LiquidAudio way back in the mid-90s. What's left of the original LiquidAudio technology was acquired by Wal-Mart a couple of years back. Thomas Dolby's original digital service "Beatnik" was also subscription based IIRC -- before the technology was adapted for ringtones -- to huge success in the mobile market.

Check out the "history" page for the nightclub/record company "The Knitting Factory" (http://knittingfactory.com/history.php). The Knitting Factory was an very early adopter of internet broadcasts (web casts) for music, as well as digital music distribution via download in watermarked (DRM) LiquidAudio format; if IIRC the cost was $.10 per minute length of the track, thus a 7 minute song cost $.70 USD. There may have been other fees associated with LiquidAudio (.com), but you'll have to check archive.org for the gritty details.

And there were many others way back in the early days of the Internet -- I can't remember them all. Bottom line -- these newfangled digital formats come and go, and cycle 'round once more. The situation is even crazier in Asia.

Another advantage of purchasing physical media is that I can take advantage if the newer digital re-mastering techniques at 96 or 120 kb, which can can greatly add to the clarity of acoustic music, and delivers almost as "warmth" as DAT.

As I said, I'll continue to purchase music on physical media. I have 78 rpm platters from the 1920's that still play quite nicely :), and I copied my cassettes and 8-tracks to reel-to-reel way back when or purchased a re-issue on CD when available. Much of this music hasn't been released on any of the current "digital music services" either.

Fred, I l truly enjoy your blog, but sometimes you make me ka-razy with your prognostications of the state of music and the music distribution. :-D

[Andi]

Rob Glaser very convincingly made the case in early 2004 that the iPod's music distribution was doomed to failure.

It's all about branding and user experience. Real is the single most obnoxious software ever installed on my computer.

[OffBeatMammal]

I want my music where-ever I am, whatever I'm doing without having to worry about DRM, music disappearing if I go to a different service or, well whatever.
I care about having access to tracks I've loved for 3 decades as well as fresh new material recorded last month by an independant artist from a country I don't know where it is on the globe.
At the moment there are very few providers with the depth and reach and very few I trust enough to build a long term collection that will ast my lifetime with.
Also outside the US the data costs (cellphone and broadband) are also priced in a way to make this expensive.
Currently I buy CDs (DRM free so I choose what I do with my music), I buy from unsigned bands and/or labels with a more forward-thinking approach and I use Pandora to deliver me ad hoc music when I'm tethered
I don't doubt it will all change, I don't doubt we'll get to a better solution given time, but it's going to take more than the iPhoneto break the current mould and shake off the current vested interests..

[howard Lindzon]

The masses just could care less about this issue. Check the stock prices.

It is fun watching you stir this up while we wait and see the end game.

[mark s]

its a service not a product. start there..

[Mike]

I'm one of those people who used to say I would never use a subscription music service. When I bought my Sonos system a year and a half ago, I tried out a free 30-day trial of Rhapsody. I was hooked and continue to use Rhapsody to this day. Here's why I like it...

- every Tuesday when new music is released, I can find 95% of it on Rhapsody and add it to my Rhapsody library

- if I discover a new artist, album, track, etc. on Pandora, last.fm, on a music blog, on Hype Machine, on the radio, etc. I can go to Rhapsody and find it (again, 95% of the time i can find it). Using a subscription music service doesn't mean you don't listen to & discover new music through other channels.

- I have gone through the effort of adding most of the music that I own (mostly ripped CD's and a couple hundred tracks that I bought on iTunes when it first came out) and added it to my Rhapsody catalog. This allows me to access my music from the "cloud" wherever I am. This wouldn't be possible on an iPod because my digital music collection is several GB. Yes, I know that there are other ways of doing this through Orb and Streampad but that limits my collection to what I already own.

- I rarely deal with the crappy Rhapsody software. I listen to Rhapsody on Sonos (which has a great user interface) and on YottaMusic, which accesses the Rhapsody catalog through an API. In a few months I will be able to access my subscription music wirelessly through devices such as Sansa Connect. With free Wi-Fi coming soon to my area (San Francisco) that means I can access Rhapsody 24x7 wirelessly wherever I am in San Francisco. By the way, YottaMusic gives you an option to scrobble your music to last.fm.

- if you want to own your digital music, don't forget that you need to store it somewhere and back it up on a regular basis. Costs for this have come down but it will still run you a few hundred bucks to set up a system to store 100 GB of music and have it backed up somewhere. And you'll still have a chance of losing it all if your house is hit with a fire, a flood, etc. With subscription-based music services this is a non-issue.

I don't look at subscription-based music services as a replacement for purchasing music through iTunes or buying CD's. I see it as a way of supplementing my music collection and expanding my access to it.

For the record, I have absolutely no connection to Rhapsody, YottaMusic, Sonos, or SanDisk (maker of Sansa).

[Harry DeMott]

Interesting comments all. I'm not sure whether Rhapsody will win over Napster - or whether Sonos is the right device for people - or which way Apple will go. but one thing I am reasonably certain of is that the right device and right balance out there will be a device or service where you can buy own and carry your own tunes, do this wirelessly, synch wirelessly, access all the music out there, and have a pandora or last.fm like service to do recommendation. That way you can access and experience music in all three axes: from highly engaged to totally laying back, from the familiar to the new, and from mobile to place specific. The closest I have seen to this vision comes from Zing Systems, that just released a device with SanDisk.

[rick]

i've been listening to music broadcast from my computer to wireless speakers (scattered inside and out of my home) for years. no big whoop. it's not the zenith of technology but it accomplishes my goal.

side notes: a) itunes only 60% of the time has what i am looking for (where's the new 'math and physics club' collection?) b) i am on my third ipod following slight mishaps where the fragile buggers succumb to introductions to the ground.

[carl rahn griffith]

i just know that itunes is the most cumbersome, imposing and ugly bit of software on our laptop/s. each time i 'have' to use it i resent it - ergo, i wouldn't trust apple's coding for the 'revolutionary' (sic) iphone one iota.

music means a huge amount to us and we're going to radically re-assess how we consume/enjoy it in 2007.

[Jay]

I don't see any reason to believe its the future of music. Looking at the past, there were opportunities for people to pirate or rent all the music they want, but they have chosen to go with iTunes.

I personally like the idea of a music subscription service. But the market has spoken.

IF the future is going to result in a change in their activities so that iTunes becomes irrelevant--- well, give us some reason to believe this change is going to happen.

Seems to me that you're saying "I prefer solution X therefore ,this is the way the market is going to go".... despite the fact that the market has already spoken to the contrary.

[carl rahn griffith]

but hasn't the itunes market already reached a plateau? i seem to recall hearing some stats recently to that effect.

hardly a vote of confidence in a relatively new and supposedly 'exciting' music broker service, is it?

[Mick Liubinskas]

My issue with this, and we spent a lot of time thinking about it while I was at Kazaa, was that subscription doesn't reward quality as cleanly. Sure, I know how many times a song is listened to, but it's not the same as buying it. I could listen to a song on Pandora, but until it stops me in my tracks and makes me buy it, or thumbs up, then it hasn't really been given approval.

My dream has always been to let me friends Dan and Christian who are 'for the love of it' musicians make a better living. I think with an open system where they could find their 1,000 fans from around the world buying their songs for 10c would give them a more chance of a career then trying to weed their way into a subscription list.

That being said I haven't looked at Rhapsody's artist payment or independent music processes lately so maybe all that has been improved.

Thanks for a good post Fred. Worthy discussion.

[TC]

I agree with everything you say. I would just add that I use Napster and it seems to do everything you extol about Rhapsody. I also own Napster stock. If subscriptions are the future, the pure play, Napster, is the one to own. I'm sold. My two kids fill thier players over and over from the subscription and no longer pirate music from the P2P sites.

[TC]

I agree with everything you say. I would just add that I use Napster and it seems to do everything you extol about Rhapsody. I also own Napster stock. If subscriptions are the future, the pure play, Napster, is the one to own. I'm sold. My two kids fill thier players over and over from the subscription and no longer pirate music from the P2P sites.

[Kevin Farnham]

Yes! I'm not alone in thinking that the capability to download 3000 songs onto my MP3 player and switch them in and out in batches of 100s every week for just 50 cents a day is a better deal than iTunes and iPod.

I continue to be astounded that the capability to listen to and download thousands of songs, which Rhapsody provides, hasn't made enormous headway in the marketplace compared with iTunes.

Can anyone imagine paying for cable or satellite TV shows by the show? Subscription is the natural model for accessing media where the available content is enormous and constantly growing.

I just don't get Apple's iPod/iTunes success. I guess it's just cool to have specifically an iPod, rather than an iRiver? Maybe as the teens become adults and have to spend their own money, they'll look at which type of service provides the greater value.

[docsharp01]

Interesting article. Who wants to rent services when one can download them. That's what happening with ipod services, internet TV and PC satellite TV.
http://www.1-satellite-tv-facts.com