Napster Sold For $207M & Canadians Are Skipping US Travel
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What is the most important business story of the 21st century?
Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, where are all the Canadian tourists? Why our neighbors up north are snubbing Miami for Mallorca.
Then Napster, yes, that Napster, is back after being acquired for a sum of money that is much bigger than you'd think. It's Wednesday, March 26th. Let's...
If your bracket is toast in the real March madness, here's an opportunity to start fresh. The Brews social media team, led by Toby right here, has rolled out a bracket challenge that attempts to answer the question everyone is asking in 2025. What was the most important business story of the first quarter of the 21st century? We're not deciding. You are. You can head to the Brews social media pages on X and Instagram to vote on juicy first round matchups like when Apple put U2 on all our phones versus the release of Vine or FTX collapses versus Fyre Festival. Toby, the first round of voting happened yesterday. Were there any upsets?
We've already had two upsets in the first round, so we're beating real March Madness in terms of excitement. Both came from the 2000 to 2005 region in a 5 versus 12 matchup, putting the iPods launch versus LinkedIn's launch. The lower-seeded iPod wiped the floor with everyone's least favorite social media platform. Then in an 8 versus 9 matchup, the launch of Gmail barely eked out a win over the AOL-Time Warner merger. My favorite matchup, though, was Martha Stewart's insider trading case versus Enron's collapse. That almost saw Martha pull off the upset, but... Alas, Enron came out unscathed. As for the next two regions of the bracket that are dropping today, I'm looking at number 13, Pokemon Go craze versus the number four, Cambridge Analytica scandal. I think Pokemon can upset that one there. And then in the 2019 to 2025 region, number nine, the Aris Tour versus number eight, Nvidia becomes the most valuable company Brutal first round matchup.
I think both of those could have made a run. But yes, as Neil said, voting is going to run through this whole week on Morning Brews X and Instagram accounts if you want to participate. And we'll see you there. Now a word from our sponsor, Sophos. Neil, remember Fluffy, the three-headed dog from Harry Potter? Scared me to death growing up.
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Remember Napster? Of course you do. It made music execs lose sleep, lawyers rake in billable hours, and ushered in the concept of music streaming.
Why is Napster being revived in the Metaverse?
That very same Napster just sold for $207 million to a company called Infinite Reality, which says it's going to transform the brand into a quote, social music platform, according to a press release, where music lovers can hang out in virtual 3D spaces to watch concerts, join listening parties, and participate in merch drops. Yeah, somehow Napster is being resurrected as a metaverse company in 2025. Now, to be clear, Napster hasn't been the Napster you remember in a long time. It went bankrupt in 2002 after a barrage of lawsuits. And ever since then, it's been passed around like an illegally downloaded MP3 file. Best Buy owned it at one point, so did a company called Rhapsody, and most recently, it was in the hands of a consortium of crypto companies. But Napster still holds the licenses to stream millions of tracks, which made it an attractive acquisition target.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the most important business story of the 21st century?
0:01–3:16
2
Why is Napster being revived in the Metaverse?
3:16–12:29
3
Why are Canadians skipping travel to the U.S.?
12:29–17:02
4
What is Trump's latest venture into cryptocurrency?
17:02–21:56
5
How is the U.S. infrastructure performing according to recent reports?
21:56–27:30
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Morning Brew Daily
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