Napster is a social networking site that was founded by Shawn Fanning and flourished during February 2001 with over 25 million global users. It is a site that specialises in interactive music downloads and sharing. Napster offered such features as music on demand, ad free radio and artist auto-mix, listen offline, billboard charts and playlists. The site is a host to blogs that are about famous and up –coming artists, giving the impression being a direct news service and allowing members to feel a certain closeness to them. Napster uses media devices like the iphone, ipod, blackberry, home theatre and audio systems to boost their advertising. The site has no direct link with these products however the music downloaded off Napster can easily be transferred to them giving the impression that the two companies are linked. Napster is still an active social network even after its initial shut down in July 2001, and like said in the lecture, is a host to many members that share a common interest: music. Unlike Myspace and Facebook (and perhaps a reason for the falling number of members), Napster requires that members make a payment plan for their accounts that ranges from $5 per month to almost $100 for an annual membership (incl. mobile access). According to Jupiter Media Metrix who deal with the analysis and measurement the internet and new technology, about the time that Napster usage plunged for no apparent reason, several new file-sharing sites emerged and Napster unfortunately never regained the same numbers they had before.
http://www.techdigest.tv/2009/01/noise_gate_naps.html
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