XM + Napster Online Music Service Goes Beta

By Digital Trends Staff November 21, 2005

Satellite radio provider XM Satellite Radio and online music service Napster yesterday announced a beta version of a new co-branded service which brings together the company’s two music offerings. Dubbed XM + Napster, the service can be accessed here.

XM + Napster, the two companies said, provides a single interface for accessing, purchasing, and downloading music, heard on more than 70 XM music channels on the XM Radio Online service, from Napster by linking subscribers to find songs being played live. It also lets XM subscribers create playlists with music tracks from their entire digital music collection.

The two companies added that songs and albums purchased from XM + Napster can be played on a variety of portable MP3 players available now. Upcoming XM/MP3 players will let subscribers listen to XM live when the players are docked in the car or at home, mark the titles of songs played on XM for easy reference in XM + Napster and store content.

“XM + Napster takes XM to a new level in terms of exposing people to music and enabling them to buy the music,” said Hugh Panero, President and CEO of XM Satellite Radio. “It takes the promotional impact of radio and puts it on steroids. XM + Napster greatly enhances the discovery aspect of XM by letting people instantly purchase and download the music they hear on XM Radio Online from Napster’s catalog, dig deeper into artists’ digital music collections and use Napster’s programming expertise to discover related artists and genres. It’s a 360-degree music experience.”

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