RSSMTV Kills URGE, Joins Real on Rhapsody
By Nate Mook | Published August 21, 2007, 12:16 PM
MTV Networks, RealNetworks and Verizon Wireless announced a joint venture Tuesday morning, which will unite the companies' digital music offerings with Real's Rhapsody service. MTV's URGE service will be shut down, but customers can migrate over to Rhapsody.
The expanded Rhapsody music service will fall under a separate corporate branding, called "Rhapsody America," jointly owned by MTV and Real. MTV will provide music programming from its MTV, VH1 and CMT properties, while Real continues to handle the underlying architecture and music sales.
Primarily a subscription service, Rhapsody offers all-you-can-download music for a monthly fee, as well as a la carte downloads. Songs can be transferred to portable devices that support Real's audio formats, such as those by SanDisk.
Michael Bloom, who ran URGE for MTV, will head the new company, which will have offices in New York, Seattle and San Francisco.
Verizon, meanwhile, will provide mobile-oriented services for Rhapsody, including delivering music from the service to cell phone users over the air. Rhapsody will be fully integrated with Verizon's VCAST service, although it's not clear if pricing for mobile downloads will differ than those on the PC.
In a largely expected move, MTV will cease operations of its URGE service that was launched with Microsoft, but largely ignored after the debut of the Zune player and Zune Marketplace. URGE customers can simply log into Rhapsody using their same username and password, and monthly billing will likely continue seamlessly from the new service.
The partnership could be a boon to Real, which has struggled to promote its subscription music service in the face of Apple's dominance with the iPod and iTunes. MTV is expected to devote considering marketing resources -- including television ads -- to promoting the joint service, including placement at MTV's Video Music Awards next month.
"Today's announcements represent a sea-change in the digital music market," stated RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser. "We'll make Rhapsody the premier digital music service that delivers great music to millions of consumers whenever and wherever they want."
MTV killed everyones URGE a long time ago.
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|Normally I would be mad about someone joining Real, but since it's MTV in this case, my reaction is more like:
"Meh"
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|mtv is still around?
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|I suppose this means there will be WMP 12 to remove the Urge features.
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|URGE is still around? It was a complete failure before it even went online. I feel sorry for all the complete suckers who bought a Zune or subscribed to urge... "laughs"
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|Program86's new SOP:
Make troll post.
Wait for a few replies.
Replace post with "LOL"
Repost original troll at top of page.
Clever.
You can be the best troll on the net, but in the end, you're still a retard.
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|MTV sucked since they got rid of head bangers ball :)
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|Ahhh, memories.
Late nights, loud music. Good times...
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|MTV and Real together? Talk about a black hole of suck.
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|I have an Urge account. So will I no longer be able to to use this service thru WMP, only Rhapsody? Just wanting to make sure I understand this correctly. If this is the case it sucks! I switched from Rhapsody because I liked shopping, searching, syncing, and etc thru WMP.
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|From everything I have seen so far I can only use the Rhapsody player. This does suck.
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|Why would it be a surprise that URGE failed? There is absolute no promotion whatsoever. Only time I see about it is from WMP. MS really need to learn some marketing from Apple.
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|MS really need to learn some marketing from Apple.
++
QFT!
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|Hmmmm....
Murge?
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|Ouch.
That was physically painful. :p
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|Then my work here is done. ;o)
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|And the layoffs, of course. None of the commntators seem to take notice of the human xost in this merger
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|We've generally come to believe that humans can adapt. Since no-one's been killed (yet), the human cost is effectively zero.
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|They abandoned URGE for Zune....So Zune Marketplace is still around.
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|LOL
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|Er...
Not awake yet?
It's called URGE, not ZUNE, or ZUNEStore, Or even, Zune Marketplace.
This has almost nothing to do with the Zune.
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|Program86: "URGE is still around? It was a complete failure before it even went online. I feel sorry for all the complete suckers who bought a Zune or subscribed to urge... "laughs"
Urge has nothing to do with Zune.
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|I was surprised when I could not renew my yearly subscription and was instead put on a monthly. I love Urge and hope that whatever collaboration they come up with will allow the model to stay close to what it is working with an Urge like store in WMP. Subscriptions are the way to go.
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|I have a long-standing boycott against Real and Apple because of their sh***y A/V formats and crappy software; so it'll be a cold day in he** before I join either of their music stores. It's too bad that Microsoft ever took down MSN Music, because that was the one music store I liked; I was upset when URGE replaced it. Currently I'm using Napster, but I can't say I'm happy about it. Please, someone, open open a feature-rich, artist-rich, easy-to-use, music store that sells high-bitrate MP3s encoded using ABR or CBR.
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|Another example of what M$ does to its partners...you partner with M$ and you will soon find yourself in direct competition with them.
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|Definately. They should have stuck with the failing store so that they could continue to lose money on the deal. I'm sure all of the MS Stockholders would have been just peachy with that.
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|So they bail on their partner, launch a new music store, which is failing again btw.
So my point stands. Not sure how your statement addresses the point.
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|While you read the post, you totally missed the point. (I'm shocked, really...)
This is standard business practice. If a unit is failing, and the chances of reviving it are slim, move on. You implication was that MS was somehow in the wrong for doing so.
I know, I know... I mistook your point in my original reply. You weren't actually trying to argue business practice. You were just slamming Microsoft. Again, I'm shocked. Really.
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|Good.
I tried URGE, and though it seemed decent all of the files still had that grainy sound all WMA files used to have.
Maybe if Microsoft hadn't abandoned all of those "Plays for Sure" partner devices this wouldn't have happened.
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|Gee, I'm glad that URGE logo is permanently embedded into Windows Media Player.
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|You took the words right out of my mouth.
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|You can change it, just go to the drop down menu and choose a different store. Hopefully they'll remove it in the next Media Player update. With the stupid name and going up against iTunes this was doomed to fail. I really have the Urge to laugh at them.
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