Like others of its kind, San Diego’s MP3.com was recently snatched from the
music service provider ether by a large music company. And like those
others, business still goes on for the acquired until they can be completely
assimilated.
MP3.com Thursday secured Minneapolis-St. Paul
International Airport as a subscriber to its Business Music Services, a
program in which organizations may license tunes from MP3.com’s library of
150,000 artists for use inside their offices.
Specifically, the airport, through whose gates stream about 35 million
people for flights all over the world each year, will play the music over
its elaborate sound systems throughout the concourses, baggage claim,
ticketing counters, walkways and parking structures. Through its
relationship with Minneapolis firm Ambience Systems, the airport will
receive MP3.com services in conjunction with other communications and sound
systems technologies. MP3.com’s service allows businesses to select music
and advertising messaging for specific demographics by accessing a
Web-enabled, password-protected MP3.com account. Financial terms of the deal
were not disclosed.
The deal is a coup of sorts for MP3.com, which was acquired by media giant Vivendi Universal for $372 million in cash
and stock May 21, because it demonstrates the degree to which airports are
willing to incorporate alternative forms of technology into their daily
operations — the technology being the digital music delivery format known
as the MP3, which has spawned a revolution in the music industry and a slew
of lawsuits to boot.
The agreement is also indicative of New Economy businesses’ strategies to tap
transportation standbys for business, but not just for entertainment
purposes; a number of technology providers — such as Microsoft Corp. and
IBM Corp. — have stepped up to demonstrate how airports are prime testing
grounds for wireless networking, whether it be via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi
(802.11b).
Why the interest in coaxing airports to use groundbreaking technologies?
Simple — size and scale. Thirty five million is a lot of people heading
through the airports gates each year and one can imagine what it’s like at
more heavily traveled venues such as Los Angeles’ LAX and JFK in New York. Lots of people
means more exposure for the technologies and if the standards are high enough, one can
bet that consumers will expect to see wireless ports where they may use
their Bluetooth-enabled laptops with the same ease travelers steal
deals on airline tickets from priceline.com or the new Orbitz service.
For MP3.com’s Business Music Services
division, signing an airport is a success given that it’s greatest
customers to date have been Petco Pet Supplies, Thriftway Stores and Rubio’s
Baja Grill.
“This will be the largest single venue we have contracted to date.” said Bob
Simril, vice president of Business Music Services at MP3.com. “We’re excited
that the more than 150,000 artists MP3.com works with will have the
opportunity to expose their music to such an immense and diverse audience.
We believe the airport will benefit from the fresh and comfortable sounds
they will experience with our service, as will travelers and employees.”
Vivendi Universal’s purchase of MP3.com put an end to one tumultuous and
contentious pattern — labels and artists suing music companies such as
MP3.com and Napster — and signaled the start of a new one whereby music
service providers have been ceding the reigns to larger media conglomerates.
Call it the changing of the guard, changing of the tune or what have you,
but companies such as MyPlay, Launch Media, EMusic have learned to survive
by playing nice and allowing themselves to be folded into successful companies instead of just plain folding. Analysts have seen the patterns as a maturation of the
online music industry. To that end, new powers have emerged on the horizon
with Vivendi, Sony Corp, and Yahoo! Inc. spearheading the new pressplay (formerly titled Duet) music subscription service program, and AOL
Time Warner, RealNetworks Inc., BMG and EMI putting their chips on MusicNet, both of which are set to debut at summer’s end.
In general, July is an important month for the online music industry this year, with
the MP3 Summit set to get
underway July 12-13 at the Price Center at the University of California in
San Diego and Jupiter Media Metrix’s Plug.InForum 2001, which will run July 23-24 at the Sheraton New York Hotel And
Towers in New York City.
