It migh be argued that downloaded music is a commodity. A song is a song. But broadcast radio, though skewed to large national audiences, does have specific formats that appeal to specific demographics. Then there are "talk" formats, "language" formats, "subject" formats. Then there's XM and Sirius, that slice and dice the domographics into much more granular listening segments. That being the case, whys shouldn't every form of Internet-centered media also be capable of segmentation? Keep in mind that segmentation can occur on any number of levels. Type of content, method of delivery, geographic focus, device support, storage, navigation and other elements of a user experience can be targeted.
So it is that Ruckus Network, which distributes movies and music online to colleges nationwide, now is attempting to exploit a college niche by expanding its ad-supported music download service to any user with a valid university email account.
The Herndon, Va.-based company aims to boost the rolls of college students who use its service to woo more advertisers seeking to market to young audiences. The company adopted the ad-supported business model about a year ago.
Previously, Ruckus' service was only available to students at universities that had entered into agreements with the company.
Students outside Ruckus' network of affiliated universities will not be able to download movies, but will have access to Ruckus' more than 2.1 million tracks, which they can download to their computer for free. To transfer audio files to a portable music player, however, users must pay either $5 a month or $19.99 per semester.
Previously, students at universities without an agreement with Ruckus had to pay $5.99 a month to download music from the service and couldn't move the tracks from their computer.
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