Napster Clones Crush Napster. Take 6 out of the Top 10 Downloads on CNet
There it was in black and white, actually blue and white, the number one download on CNet's Download.com site was MusicCity Network's Morpheus with over 1 million downloads. What was second? Fellow Napster clone Audiogalaxy Satellite with 977,868 downloads.
That is not all, looking at the top 10 list of the most trafficked downloads on CNet show that Napster alternatives captured 6 out of the top 10 spots. That tells a whole story right there, especially since these numbers only show the download traffic from the most recent week (Morpheus has a total of 5,299,869 downloads on CNet so far).
Ever since Napster started filtering songs from its service, users began exploring alternative file trade programs. Some of these programs proved challenging to use Newtella, others did a very good job of recreating the original Napster experience Morpheus. Several of these services like Morpheus and iMesh didn't limit themselves to just MP3 files, they expanded into text and video trades also, offering the user a wider variety of content to explore.
All of these programs are now developing the last piece in the puzzle that they need to challenge in the space once occupied by Napster alone. An audience, or more specifically, a large active audience that increases the assortment and diversity of available song files and other desired content.
Napster's shutdown has only hastened the rush to replace it. Due to return soon as a pay service, this flood to alternatives seems to spell rejection to details of the Napster's upcoming subscription persona. Vox populi? The people are indeed speaking through their actions.
A year back we said that Napster's death would probably do more to change the status quo of the music industry, both traditional and online, than while alive. Napster has only been playing dead for the last few weeks and already the explosion has rippled through the Net and - as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is slow to realize - the record industry.
