Listen.com flirts with Napster links
The music directory service, partly funded by major record labels, is shedding a little of its clean image with a new song-search service that plugs directly into Napster's software.
The new service replicates all the music search and recommendation functions of Listen.com's Web site but lives on an individual's PC desktop. The company has added a function that triggers the Napster application, booting up the file-swapping service to help find music reviewed or recommended by Listen.com.
The company did not run the idea past either Napster or its major label investors, executives said.
Even in the unauthorized, test version now on the site, it's the first time the gap has been closed between the sprawling Napster download service and the mainstream services serving as guides to the often bewildering maze of online music. For Listen.com, which has kept squarely on the side of authorized music, it's also a first visible nod to the reality that online music lovers have flocked to Napster's service instead of directories of authorized music.
But some analysts say they've likely gone too far.
"This is not a copyright-friendly demonstration of technology," said P.J. McNealy, a Gartner analyst. "I think they're shooting themselves in the foot."
Listen.com has been among the leaders of a generation of online music companies born just before the advent of Napster. Launched as a music portal that would recommend, review and point to legal music on the Web, it saw much of its potential consumer audience shrivel when Napster's service came along.
The company has adjusted to new marketplace realities with an old Net tactic: It's gone "business-to-business," syndicating its directory service and new products including Web radio to other sites such as Lycos, Excite@Home and iWon.com. It flirted briefly with file-swapping services once before, bidding on the assets of bankrupt Napster rival Scour, but lost that auction to CenterSpan Communications.
Bid for attention
Nevertheless, the convergence of file-swapping sites and music directory services has already begun, as executives on both
sides of the business have realized that consumers use the two types of services in conjunction with each other. Napster bought struggling music recommendation service Gigabeat last week, with the aim of providing recommendations inside a promised subscription service the company hopes to launch by summer.
Other services that have plugged into file-swapping networks, such as Angry Coffee and Bertelsmann-owned Snoopstar's peer-to-peer search engines, have been taken offline. The Recording Industry Association of America has pressured most commercial file-swapping companies to remove or limit their services, and none of the big consumer portals has yet dared to add any kind of file-swapping search engine.
Executives from Napster and the RIAA were not immediately available for comment.