This week Real CEO Rob Glaser sent out an email to the poor souls who have not managed to remove themselves from Real's spam list. My wife is one of these people. I got a kick out of reading what Rob had to tell his faithful 11 users. But I found a few typo's so I thought I'd correct them for Rob.
Dear RealPlayer User,
This week marks the 10th anniversary of our introduction of RealAudio®, the product that started the Internet multimedia revolution.Well, at least we like to THINK we started it... I’m writing to thank you for letting us annoy the living futon out of you be a part of your life for these past 10 years.
As one of over 450 million Internet users around the world who has used and since DELETED the RealAudio Player, or its successor, the RealPlayer®, you are part of something very big if you can count 11 users as 'big'. But at the same time, it’s not an elite club we can't PAY people to join. Indeed, one of the reasons we invented Internet streaming was to create an audio visual medium that was and is open to everyone – no channel capacity limits, no gatekeepers, just personal choice. That was a jab at Apple for not letting us put our songs on the worldest greatest portable music player, the iPod.
Along the way there have been lots of twists and turns: A technology financial bubble in the late 1990s… The bursting of that bubble five years ago… We still haven't recovered from this - we haven't been profitable in years. The incredible worldwide growth of broadband… This eliminated the need for streaming altogether, thus successfully lowering our user count to 11. The explosion of peer-to-peer services that were based on very innovative technology Napster RULED, I wish it was still around but often were used to distribute video and audio without the permission of the rights holders… The more recent growth of services iTunes that delivered that same content, particularly music, in a way that is both great for consumers and respectful of the rights of the artists who created it.
Over the past 10 years we’ve delivered 10 major versions of the RealPlayer each one crappier than the previous, plus compelling new products such as RealJukebox – the Internet’s first integrated music jukebox Has anyone heard of this?, and Rhapsody I meant, iTunes – the internet’s first music service with music from all of the major labels.
While we’re proud of our past (read: horribly ashamed), I’m also writing to tell you that the best truly is yet to come. We’re as committed to innovation stealing from Apple over the next 10 years as we have been for our first 10 years. I know this sounds like an ambitious statement, but we’ve got some stuff coming very soon that I think you will agree is truly a breakthrough. As soon as Apple releases their version, give us 3 to 6 months to copy it and release ours.
On April 26, we are changing the rules of the Internet again well we've never changed them before, but we'd like to think so, and digital music will never be the same. I can’t say more now because we have nothing more to copy from Apple yet, but I do encourage you to visit www.real.com on the 26th to learn more. If you’d like to sign up get a lot of spam to be automatically notified, click here.
Sincerely Yours,
Rob Glaser
Founder & CEO, RealNetworks, Inc.
Caleb Hagen says,
Noah, that my friend, was THE MOST INGENIOUS entry you've made thus far. I loved it. I laughed until I was done. Grade A. You win! I think you're ULTIMATE! Keep up motherfutoning good work.
Posted @ April 25, 2005