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Strategies & Market Trends : VOLTAIRE'S PORCH-MODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dealer who wrote (54532)	8/20/2002 6:33:29 AM
From: Dealer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

RNWK--RealNetworks Unveils Latest For-Fee Service For Internet Content BY PETE BARLAS INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY RealNetworks Inc. (RNWK) on Tuesday will make its latest attempt to provide consumers with a service they're willing to pay for. The company also hopes the service will help set it apart from rivals Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL) But analysts say it faces the same question of most paid online content: Will consumers pony up for these bells and whistles? Analysts have doubts, which isn't a big boost of confidence for a company with falling sales that's been hovering around the break-even mark for the last seven quarters. The new product from the maker of audio and video software lets consumers play music and video in any software format on PCs. Specifically, the new version of the RealOne software will let consumers play audio and video recorded on Microsoft's Windows Media and Apple's QuickTime software. Microsoft and Apple, like RealNetworks, provide free software — called players — that people use to play audio and video on PCs and laptop computers. But while the players are free, users typically must wait for the software to download content. During the process they see the Microsoft or Apple logo on their screens. For $5.95 a month, the new RealOne will eliminate those logos and will speed the process of getting access to audio and video programs with any of the player software. In addition to what Real calls its "universal playback" feature, the newest RealOne will give subscribers access to 3,200 radio stations on the Web, 50 of which have no commercials. And it lets users find out immediately what song is being played at any time. The company's also releasing a new, free version of RealOne, but its users get no commercial-free stations nor song ID. The free version also doesn't include universal playback and other features. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------