Jupiter: Resisting the urge to comment

Michael Gartenberg finally gets the urge to comment on the MTV/Microsoft partnership at the Jupiter Analyst Weblogs. After withholding comment for a few days, he adds his two cents regarding the lack of info on devices for the service.

He writes that "we know more consumers are interested in listening to their music on their stereo or on a portable device rather than directly on their PC. There's still no simple way to get music from the PC to the stero for most folks and when it comes to portable devices, the market has already voted on the most popular player and this service doesn't work with it. iPods drove people to the iTunes music store, not the other way around."

Gartenberg still likes the subscription model as "it's one of the last ways for other folks to set themselves apart from Apple and the iPod." He thinks there is a market, but "what's missing is a clear articulation of the benefits of this type of service to consumers who up until now are used to dealing with only one of two models for music." He concludes:

If this effort is going to make some inroads, someone has to explain the benefits of the subscription model to consumers. That also means making sure you can get your music from the PC to the stero and have a good portable solution as well.

My biggest complaint about the subscription model is I don't own the content, and more importantly the high cost. Paying $10-15 a month to rent music does not interest me in the least. If it drops down to the cost of my Tivo service for DirecTV at $5 a month then that's a different story....