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About this siteFor six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul Monday, August 23, 2004Is Real a Real Hypocrite?More insightful reporting from Tired: "RealNetworks badly needs a PR coup to regain credibility with music fans, but its latest 'freedom of music choice' campaign is missing the mark, critics say. To bolster support for the campaign, Real cut its download prices in half and launched the Freedom of Music Choice website. The company encouraged fans to sign a petition aimed at Apple that reads: 'We want Freedom of Music Choice! Don't lock us in to purchasing digital music from one source. That's bad for competition. It will stifle innovation. And it will slow the adoption of digital music devices like the iPod.' But instead of a groundswell of support, Real was skewered as a false advocate for open standards and mocked for its history of being unfriendly to its customers. Not surprisingly, a good chunk of the criticism came from Apple users who are legendary for their loyalty to the brand ... Mac users also took offense to Real's claims of music choice, because its Rhapsody digital music-subscription service is not available for the Mac ... Despite the criticism, Richard Wolpert, chief strategy officer for RealNetworks said 'the feedback we're getting is great.' Download sales in the Real music store have exceeded the company's expectations, he said. Rhapsody has had its highest peak in active users and new users last week. Over 100,000 people have checked out the new website."A couple of fairly obvious points here. - The people posting negative posts to the Real forums are not "fans," they're a minority group of vocal fanatics (i.e. Mac fanatics). - While the criticism of Real not porting its Rhapsody subscription service (or a full-fledged version of RealPlayer 10.5, which is not mentioned in this article) to the Mac seems valid, it isn't. That's because Real logically targets 95 percent of the computing market first; most computer users, and most iPod users, for that matter, use Windows, not the Mac. And people who choose the Mac do so knowing that they are getting a much smaller range of software from which to choose from than Windows users. So please don't act surprised that yet another piece of software isn't available for your comparatively lonely platform. Furthermore, those Apple fanatics that spammed Real's forums are no more likely to use Real's software than they are to use Microsoft products, so they're a lost cause anyway. With less than 2 percent of the worldwide computing market--probably more like 1 percent when you figure in the fanatics, who wouldn't touch Real if you paid them, and the Mac users who would never even hear about Real's software--what you're actually asking Real to support is a market even tinier than the group of active Commodore 64 users out there. It's not going to happen. From a financial perspective, they'd be crazy to do it. And the fanatics are just making it worse on themselves. How about a petition asking Real to port RealPlayer 10.5 to the Mac? Eh? Eh? You can be positive too, guys. [ Posted at 11:20 AM | Permalink ]
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