New Virgin Digital Music Club offers subscription service

Amaze your friends as CD-quality music comes out of your little plastic computer speakers! Then, pay us – monthly - even if you don't listen to anything, and even if you would rather listen to it on your portable music player. That's basically what Virgin Music is proposing with its new virgindigital.com Digital Music Club. Charging subscribers $7.99 a month, the exclusive club will "allow" you to listen to as much music as you can on your computer. As of now, you can't download tracks to a portable device – that will cost more at some point in the future. While they do offer $.99 per song purchases, the folks at Virgin are banking on the idea that digital music subscriptions are the stuff of trained consumers from the future. "Two or three years out, subscriptions will overtake à la carte because it is a much more interesting proposition," said Zack Zalon, President of Virgin Digital. Because, you know, it's just, um, more interesting to pay them every 30 days.

[Aaron @ Dec 19th 2005 2:11AM]

Cynics aside, I think this is (almost) the way forward. Obviously the music industry is going to have to let us do whatever we want with these files, but they're going to have to move to a subscription model eventually. I want to be able to listen to everything I have time to - and subscription is the only way I'm going to be able to do that legally.

Of course, this will neccessitate the use of a portable device that has the capacity to connect to a wi-fi/3G/etc network.. anyone else see their iPod as a staging point?

I generally buy about $30 worth of music (plus concert tickets) a month, and in my own head, consider this to be my subscription fee/license to download whatever I want.

[CT @ Dec 19th 2005 2:11AM]

Like XM radio - only not so portable.

[thinkman808 @ Dec 19th 2005 2:11AM]

Wow yourself, Jason, you music industry stooge. I'm sure if you get a cord long enough, you can enjoy those tunes LOCKED DOWN in your computer where ever you go.

And, er, the sarcasm is fine, because at least it's not the fawning hyperbole we get in consumer magazines who essentially provide an advertisment under the guise of a review.

Ass.

[Johnathan @ Dec 19th 2005 2:11AM]

That's the deal breaker for me. Why must they force users who want to join the "club" to download a Windows .exe?

What really gets me is that Zack Zalon (of Virgin Digital) posted on MacNN.com suggesting users give it a try. If we're on Macs (or, indeed, any other platform) we can't, silly!

When they can offer support of multiple platforms and support for my iPod, then I'll give it a shot.

[Zack Zalon @ Dec 19th 2005 2:11AM]

Hi - I run Virgin Digital and have read many of these opinions with a lot of interest. It seems to be a polarizing concept to pay monthly for access to music, and while we think that it will eventually be a huge benefit to music fans, we get that it�s early-stage.

If people don�t like that option, we do offer a complete music store that�s free to use, and has over 1 million songs available. No, it doesn�t work with the iPod, but unfortunately nobody will license us that technology. For now, it�ll work with all of the WMA-based players, some of which are really good.

As far as subscription, we�re working on �portable� subscriptions that allow you to take the music with you wherever you go on a variety of devices. Again, if you don�t believe in this model, that�s okay. But we�ve spoken with literally thousands of music fans at the Virgin Megastores and for the most part they love the concept. Also � you should note this � Apple will definitely be coming out with their own subscription service in the future. Just read between the lines of some of their recent quotes, and you can get a pretty good idea of the direction they�re going.

Our goal is to be the most open standard for listening to music. We want to support all of the available digital music options, and all of the available portable devices, and we�re on the road to being able to do that. We also want to support OS X and Linux, but we�ve just now launched and need to take things one-step-at-a-time.

All we ask is that if you do have a PC, download the software and check it out. We�re working really hard to develop a great piece of �kit� that you�ll love using. And if you don�t love it, then at least let us know why so that we can take the time to get it to a point where you might try it again.

We�re a pretty small company for such a large brand, and we�re doing this because we really believe in it, not just because we think it�s a profitable venture. Thanks�

ZACK ZALON

[Bruce @ Dec 19th 2005 2:11AM]

Monthly fees .... who else does that?

Cable TV? Why would anyone rent TV shows and not buy them?

[Adam Lasnik @ Dec 19th 2005 2:11AM]

Hi there,

I eagerly tried out Virgin Digital last night and even penned a largely positive review in the user feedback section of a related CNet article.

I was dismayed, however, that I was unable to find any way to report bugs or offer general feedback to the Virgin Digital team.

Your efforts at communicating *TO* customers and potential customers with clarity and a sense of humor is laudable. I hope you'll take the extra step as a company and do a better job at communicating *WITH* folks :)

Regards,
Adam

[Jammer @ Dec 19th 2005 2:11AM]

The Virgin Site, is probably the worst implementation I have seen as of yet.

It's amazing that people copying I-Tunes can't even do that correctly. It's also amazing that all these services use off the shelf technology from Microsoft.

What is going to be the key differentiator? We know it's not content; hell anyone could go license music from MusicNet. It's going to be technology and market reach.

Virgin has the market reach, but their problem is going to be building something that's different. This is obviously not accomplished by being at the mercy of Microsoft and its technology, especially when they are a provider and a competitor. You will not see this solution on Mac, Linux, embedded Linux or smart phones (except MS Mobile) because it's not in Microsofts interest. It might give you 700 mp3 players today, but those will be collecting dust in 12-18 months as phones with more capability come out. The mp3 player game is over anyway, Apple won. The real opportunity is on the phone, and embedded systems. Apple see's this and is moving that way already.

This is your first big mistake. I would strongly think about a platform built from the ground up to be multi-platform and multi-codec, and be able to control your technology destiny that is the key differentiator.

[allwaysmusic @ Dec 19th 2005 2:11AM]

Wow... another entry into the Digital Music biz... just a few days after eBay's launch...

I think that Virgin Digital will probably be successful because they (like eBay actioning off Music Prizes) have quite a differentiation - The Subscription idea...

I actually think that consumers will like this; however, I am not totally sure what all is included with the subscription. So, I am guessing that Virgin's success will depend on what all a subscriber gets for $7.99/month.

All in all, I think this is a good start for Virgin entering the Digital Music Market.

It will be interesting to see if Apple can keep it's market share or if they will loose their majority to Virgin Digital.