Best Buy put in a bid to buy online music retailer Napster. According to the article.
Best Buy said it will pay $2.65 per share, nearly double the amount of Friday’s closing price.
Included in the deal is approximately $67-million in cash and short-term investments held by Napster, meaning the net price of the deal would be $54-million, the companies said.
The companies said the proposed acquisition includes Napster’s approximately 700,000 subscribers, its Web-based customer service and mobile capabilities.
One has to think what is the benefit to Best Buy and its shareholders. What is so unique about Napster that it will bring about an increase in profits to Best Buy? Are Best Buy consumers going to all of a sudden choose a Sony Walkman MP3 Player instead of an iPod because Best Buy may throw in 10 free downloads on Napster? In a previous post we talked about how Popcuts.comuses a unique hook to get people to sign up with them and focused on building up tribes around musicians. There is nothing truly unique about Napster - that’s why iTunes has millions of subscribers and Napster doesn’t.
