RealNetworks Encouraged By Early Music Without Limits Numbers

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RealNetworks Encouraged By Early Music Without Limits Numbers

RealNetworks (NSDQ: RNWK) CEO Rob Glaser used a few minutes during yesterday afternoon’s earnings call to paint a rosy picture of Music Without Limits and alluded to some promising early results from the new service. “Delivering a great mobile music experience has been one of our industry’s holy grails for the past few years… The challenge has been seamless integration, both inside the purchase process and in terms of the consumer experience once they leave the store. With VCast music with Rhapsody, we think we’ve crossed the threshold. Still, company stock is taking some hits following the company’s $1.3 million loss on the quarter, which Glaser described as the “most turbulent macro-economic scene we have seen since our company was founded 14 years ago.” Music Without Limits integrates with Rhapsody, Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Wireless’s VCast music service, a new DRM-free MP3 store the company launched, and numerous music discovery sites, Glaser said during the call. “Sign-ups for the first month have been very encouraging, exceeding our expectations. We’ll know a lot more in a few months about this as we learn more about the lifecycle behavior of these customers.” Rhapsody has an exclusive deal with Verizon Wireless to provide full track music to its customers. “We just started backing all this up with $15 million of TV advertising on MTV and other Viacom channels as part of our $230 million marketing program with Viacom (NYSE: VIA). No other DRM free MP3 store has this kind of marketing muscle behind it… Suffice it to say that we are both optimistic about our growth prospects and sober about the challenges of taking on iTunes. “