Napster will be launching its own downloaded music chart on Virgin Radio at 7pm on August 29th. The chart will be compiled from the top 20 most popular tracks bought each week from Napster UK service. The chart will also include tracks that have been streamed as well as downloaded.
Napster has come a long way from illegal music download service to radio chart music store, but the Official Chart Company may take some of the heat out of this new move when they launch the official download chart on BBC Radio 1 on 1st September. However, the Official Chart will not include streamed music, just downloaded tracks and will be compiled from Napster’s data, but will include sales from MyCokeMusic, iTunes and others.
Comparing the differences between the Official Chart and Napster’s will certainly be interesting, as some tracks are simply not available on both services, but will probably be as insightful as comparing bananas with roof tiles. No doubt the Pixies will feature in there somehow. There will also interesting contrasts between what listeners are buying in shops and what they are buying off internet services.
About Napster
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Fraser Lovatt
Fraser Lovatt has spent the last fifteen years working in publishing, TV and the Internet in various capacities, and believes that they will be seperate platforms for at least a while yet. His main interests at the moment are exploring where Linux is taking home entertainment and how technology is conferring technical skills on more and more people.
Fraser Lovatt was born in the same year that 2001: A Space Odyssey was delighting and confusing people in the cinemas, and developed a lifelong love of technology as soon as he realised that things could be taken apart, sometimes put back together again, but mostly left in bits or made into something the original designer hadn't quite planned upon.
At school he was definitely in the ZX Spectrum/Magpie/BMX camp, rather than the BBC Micro/Blue Peter/well-behaved group. This is all deeply ironic as he later went on to spend nine years working at the BBC.
After a few years of working as a bookseller in Scotland, ("Back when it was actually a skilled profession" he'll tell anyone still listening), he moved to England for reasons he can't quite explain adequately to himself. After a couple of publishing jobs punctuated by sporadic bursts of travelling and photography came the aforementioned nine years at the BBC where he specialised in internet technologies and video.
These days his primary interests are Java, Linux, videogames and pies - and if they're not candidates for convergence, then what is?
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