p2pnet - rss feed: Is RealNetworks finally getting real?
p2pnet news view Music | P2P:- Simon Higgs was pretty surprised when he found the complete Led Zeppelin box set going for a mere $10 online.
All 165 tracks of it.
And it wasn’t on an indie download site either.
It was on RealNetworks’ Rhapsody.
So Simon pays his money and starts his download and apart from a few hic-cups —- OK, more than a few, ie, “the original full download … crashed at just over 600MB,” he eventually gets the lot.
But only by downloading them one at a time.
And, “the zip archive is corrupt and useless”.
And he only gets one shot.
Oh, and, “the other weird thing is the track listing in the downloads section is out of sync with the box set tracks,” he told me for a p2pnet post.
“Makes it slightly harder to figure out if what you’ve downloaded is right.”
But, “still, and all, one could say it’s a kind of model of the way it could be if the Big 4 offered their customers genuine services at reasonable prices, instead of accusing them of being criminals and thieves,” I said, going, “All we need to do now is for ReelNetwerks to do an Apple —- ie, sell the tracks as loss-leaders while they wait for the Big 4 to drop their wholesale rates, as they’ll be forced to do sooner or later.”
A Big Question, I added, not really expecting an answer, was, What kind of a deal did did RealNetworks strike with Led Zepp?
‘We made a mistake ….’
To digress, I’ve moaned not only at, and about, RealNetworks, but all the other corporate so-called online music ’services’.
However, fair is fair and I have to give it to the people who run Rhapsody: they’re showing distinct signs of grasping what the Net is all about.
For one thing, “We made a mistake in pricing for this album so we will eat the cost, not the label or the band,” admitted the company’s Lacy Kemp in a p2pnet Reader’s Write, going on »»»
We decided that since people were so psyched about this we would continue to heavily discount box sets in the future, only announcing them via twitter and the real blog.
Loss-leaders, in other words.
Not only but also, Lacy is a real person and a real blogger, even if she is working for a corporate service. And on the phone, she doesn’t sound even remotely likely the super-glib PR types you usually get.
She sounds like a real person who actually cares about what she’s doing.
Eat the costs and pay the labels
Back to the subject at hand, if I’ve complained about various aspects of the so-called corporate music downloads business, I’ve also frequently said one of these days, they’ll get it right, start offering music at reasonable prices, and begin treating their customers as intelligent, honest people instead of gullible, cash cow marks.
Admittedly, until they get together and collectively tell Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG to stick their music where the sun doesn’t shine unless they (the Big 4) lower their ridiculous wholesale prices, which, we understand, come in at somewhere between 60 and 85 cents per, they can’t do much about the prices.
But that’s a whole other issue and meanwhile, let’s assume Rhapsody, “does eat the costs and pays the labels in full on these promotional prices,” said Simon in another email, “will the labels book these heavily discounted sales as cut-outs (or some such other artist deduction) and fail to pay the artists?”
We asked Kemp, who replied:
“When we discount we cover the cost. The bands do not feel the pricing change at all. The labels still get their full amount so the bands, in turn are not effected.”
10 albums at half price
We also asked Lisa Lindberg, senior director of product marketing for Rhapsody America, why Rhapsody is doing what it’s doing.
“Our goal is to connect our customers with the music they love, in the easiest way possible,” she said.
Very good.
Now it’ll be interesting to see how far RealNetworks is prepared to go to live up to that, and what it’ll do about reconfiguring its business model to the benefit not only of its investors, but also its customers
For the moment, the company will be selling 10 albums at half price every week.
“This is something we actually were already planning, but have not yet announced,” said Kemp on the RealNetworks blog.
Will there be more —- a lot more —- to come?
Stay tuned.
Jon Newton - p2pnet
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July 16th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
I think that this is one employee who is real.
Otherwise, Real remains just obnoxious, to the point that I completely forgot about the existence of their player.
http://jogin.com/weblog/archives/2004/02/29/real_obnoxious
“Unfortunately, playing video streams is only a very small aspect of what Real Player does; Real Player, most prominently, is a small bastard with inferiority complex and delusions of grandeur, not too different from Napoleon. Although Real Player’s task is simple and limited to a certain timeframe, Real Player defaults to running at all times, whether its limited functionality is needed or not, and claims a seat for itself in the throne commonly called the systray.”
July 16th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
http://jogin.com/weblog/archives/2004/03/06/real_reply
Consumer Friendliness in RealPlayer 10
– The player install screens show all set-up preferences in a clear, easy to use format
– The player provides users with even more control over how/when the player claims file types (like MP3)
– The player Message center can be completely turned off
– The “Product Updates” category for messaging can be turned off
– The player provides improved ‘uninstall’ functionality that provides users with more control
I think it’s pretty obvious that whoever is in charge of the invasive, user hostile features of Real Player, is very aware of the fact that it is not just badly or ignorantly designed, but blatantly designed for maximum hostility. Due to what “John” refers to as “much internal and external complaining”, they’ve softened their tone and are now pulling their punches a bit.
July 16th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
http://jogin.com/weblog/archives/2004/03/07/real_proof
E-mail from consultant who worked for RealNetworks:
Hi there,
In 2000, I was a consultant involved in a major re-design effort at Real Networks, which in a roundabout way led to the RealOne player and changes on Real.com.
All of the issues you mention with regard to ease-of-use (or the lack thereof), super commercialism, and downright misleading customers were things that we addressed during this design program.
Real spent $2.5M in design fees and over a year and a half with my company. When the relationship ended we had produced detailed design documents that were about a foot high when stacked on top of one another. While we had designed solutions to all of these problems, Real ultimately chose to ignore them. Only some of the graphic design changes we recommended ever saw the light of day.
In my experience with Real, I found a company that had absolutely no respect for the user, that was supremely arrogant, and completely mismanaged by Rob Glazer and his team.
July 16th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
I used to use Real Player 8, but after installing Real Alternative, I started using Media Player Classic to play RM files. Recently, I uninstalled Real Player after not having used it for months.
July 16th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
I found that after installing Real alternative, and uninstalling Real player, the latter corrupted and destroyed files needed by the former. Get real indeed. As far as Rhapsody goes, I’d be very wary of ever having anything to do with those shady ex-audio galaxy greedy sellouts
July 16th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Are you paying attention Michael Merhej?
July 18th, 2008 at 11:13 am
I’m not sure why this turned into a RealPlayer rant. Regardless here is our stance:
RealPlayer has, ahem, a reputation for making people turn green. I totally get that. There were some old versions that were completely crappy and full of unnecessary “extras”- though at the time were thought of as experimental. Failed experiments, to be sure, but boy did we learn what not to do! Regardless, I think “malicious” is grasping at straws.
We think media players are a vital part of a computing experience, straight up. Is it useless? We wouldn’t have made it if we really felt that way. And yes, it IS installed by millions of users every week. I know, crazy right?
Seriously though, people are angry about RP’s history. We learned that a long time ago. We read your posts. We really did try to improve our latest version a lot. It is not chock-full of extra features you do not need on your system. The message center (a major issue for a lot of people) is now opt-in, instead of opt-out. And coolest of all, anyone can download DRM free videos to their hard drive. It’s a cool way to get your video collection going strong. There is no spying going on, and to be clear, there never was. What you watch is yours, and yours alone.
RealPlayer 11 has been out for just over a year and it’s gotten a lot of great reviews. We are trying to learn from our mistakes and we tried to make RP11 the best product possible. Take it or leave it, that’s where we are today.
July 18th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
This is not a rant Lacy. These are just a few negative comments. But it is in the nature of the internet for things to go off track.
Jon says you are a real blogger (I wonder if the pun was intended) and if you are you will know this.
All that is happening is that you are having the valuable experience of direct contact with the people you should always have been talking to in the first place.