And Rhapsody, you complete me.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpWAlvWNZj0?rel=0]
Isn’t it ironic that I just wrote about Tom Cruise being an idiot, and now I’m using quotes from Jerry Maguire in this post?
Okay, enough ooey gooey mushy love for now. Let’s move on to talking about the superstar of this post, my new favorite technology treat, Seattle-based Rhapsody.
Thanks to this article that my husband read in a recent edition of Seattle Weekly, I now have access to millions of songs whenever I want for just $9.99 a month. I can play them on my Macbook, or I can use the Rhapsody app to stream music on my iPhone 4. If I want to listen to music on a plane, I can download songs to my iPhone and play them while I’m offline as long I remain a Rhapsody subscriber. The Rhapsody library is extensive. So far I’ve found practically everything that I’ve searched for, including more obscure bands like Dean and the Weenies. On Friday I was looking through the new releases and stumbled upon The King Is Dead by The Decemberists. I was like, “Oh yeah. I really like The Decemberists, but I only have The Crane Wife.” Not for long though. Within a minute I added all albums by The Decemberists to my ever growing Rhapsody library.
When I started using Rhapsody I was stunned that more people aren’t using this service. I mean, seriously. Why wouldn’t any music lover pay $9.99 a month to have access to basically everything? That’s less than buying one album a month. Some people say that they wouldn’t want the service because if you decide to end your subscription you don’t have anything to show for it. That doesn’t make sense to me. Why do you have to have something to show for it? You pay for services like satellite radio and cable television without having something to show for it. You don’t get to “keep” anything when you go see a movie in a theater or rent a DVD from Netflix. Why should Rhapsody be different?
While there are some tweaks that they need to make (How about a downloadable player for Mac similar to the one that Windows users have? How about the ability to choose an artist on my iPhone app and shuffle all songs in my library by that artist without having to make a playlist first?), what Rhapsody really needs to focus on right now is marketing. You can’t increase your listenership if no one knows about your product. Did I really just say “listenership?” My market research background is showing.
When I started talking to people about Rhapsody, they had the same response that I did when my husband mentioned it to me: “I’ve heard of it, but I’m not sure what it does.” Some of the commercials that they’ve run aren’t informative enough. Creating an entire ad around Lady Gaga and telling the audience to listen to her on Rhapsody isn’t enough, no matter how cool she is.
Rhapsody needs to hire a new ad agency. Rhapsody needs to do more market research. Rhapsody needs to have slick, fun ads that make the service look really hip and current, while at the same time show just how awesome the service is. Think Apple advertising (remember how great the Get a Mac commercials were?). I swear those ads were at least partially responsible for making me switch. I mean, who wants to be the doofus with Windows, right? I’m not suggesting that Rhapsody make watered down versions of Apple commercials (cough, cough, T-Mobile, cough, cough). Just make some that are cool, memorable, and informative. And definitely show people why they don’t need to actually own music anymore.
So my advice to you, dear reader, is to give Rhapsody a try. You can sign up for a free 14 day trial on their website. If you’re like me or my husband, 14 days won’t be enough.