Rhapsody: Social Music To Social Media
Rhapsody - The Seattle based online music business, entertaining the music lovers of US is all set for renovation with flying colors. It takes a bang with the addition of socialization bells and whistles. With more than 11 million songs in its ally and more than 8 million satisfied paid subscribers in its fold, the company is marching ahead to establish new benchmarks in online music delivery system. As per the latest news, Rhapsody has announced the acquisition plan of another music streaming service, Napster at an undisclosed price. In fact, Napster was acquired by BestBuy for $54 million in the year 2008.
Rhapsody, established in the year 1999, gets credit by being the first online music streaming service. The company was successful in procuring licenses from EMI, BMG, Warner Bros and Sony. The monthly subscription based plans attracted music lovers as users will be able to listen to their choice music from the available ocean of music collection.
Having changed its hands and names from various concerns over a period of a decade, Rhapsody became independent from RealNetworks in April, 2010. Rhapsody also sells music to download to your computer which will have digital rights management restrictions. You can also purchase in MP3 format which will not have any restrictions.
Rhapsody: The move
Rhapsody is making fast moves not only to retain the existing music lovers but also to attract new users by improving user interface. The new interface permits users to create profiles in the lines of social media networks like Facebook and Twitter. User can share playlists with other social networking sites.
User’s profile page will populate with the user’s favorite tracks. User can follow other Rhapsody members and be able to find what their friends are listening on Facebook and it is also possible to find whether their friends are using music service or not.
Perhaps Rhapsody is compelled to gear up its social media facet due to the rising influence of Spotify and other music service providers like MOG and Rdio. It is also known that Facebook is also trying to woo music lovers by involving Spotify and other popular music service providers.
Rhapsody has identified the effectiveness of social media in fast spreading the news. By being able to trace what their friends are listening, users will be encouraged to check the same track. The music album attracts more visits when more and more people vote for it.
The new interface at Rhapsody
Rhapsody’s new interface contains buttons like “Like” in Facebook at various prominent locations. It can be understood that Rhapsody would like to follow Facebook’s way of networking of friends and all other possible concepts so that it can retain their premium customers that bring substantial revenue for the company. The new interface promotes Rhapsody with the existing members.
Member’s Facebook friends will be able to listen to the track in Rhapsody on sample basis and they can even go for a trial version of Rhapsody before going for actual paid subscription. This is a great way to let the other users taste the services of Rhapsody and if they are really satisfied, they are prone to become paid members. Rhapsody may launch relevant mobile application to deliver the same features over smartphones also.
How Rhapsody’s new measures will encourage existing customers and how it will attract new users will be exposed in the coming days.
