The Urge Merges

The Washington Post reports that MTV has abandoned it's partnership with Microsoft by taking their Urge service to RealNetworks. The new service, called Rhapsody America, will work with Verizon's V-Cast, as well as Windows and some digital music-players.

MTV has abandoned it's partnership with Microsoft by taking their Urge digital music service to RealNetworks. The new service, called Rhapsody America, will work with Verizon's V-Cast phones, providing mobile distribution in addition the the usual internet offerings of the previous Urge service.

Doomed by Microsoft's disinterest after the introduction of the Zune player, which was incompatible with the "PlaysForSure" framework originally designed by Microsoft, the Urge service had failed to bring in more than a token number of subscribers. This new service hopes to compete against iTunes and the iPhone, but according to Verizon's Chief Marketing Officer, the service is "..not somehow about how we collectively compete with the iPhone. I think that's a very limiting definition."

Instead, the service hopes its larger pool of hardware devices will lead to a competitive advantage. According to Ron Glaser, CEO of RealNetworks, "This is a close collaboration of partners that believes in the idea of openness. Consumers should get to pick what mobile phone they want and get great music on it." However, a quick review of previous attempts, including those by RealNetworks and MTV, to topple Apple's iTunes indicates that this strategy may not bring consumers away from the iTunes ecosystem.

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