RealNetworks shares have spiked more than 10 percent this morning, on zero news.
TheStreet.com notes that there has been “heavy upside options activity” in the shares, asserting that “volume was nothing short of explosive” in both the stock and the options.
The news this week that Napster is relaunching with a $5-a-month subscription plan that includes 5 free MP3 downloads would appear to be a troubling development for RealNetworks’ rival Rhapsody service, which will set you back $13 a month for a streaming service that lacks the free MP3s. It is also no doubt irritating to Real that it comes from a company that is now a unit of Best Buy: in the past, the Best Buy digital music store was a re-branded version of Rhapsody, which came pre-loaded on non-Zune, non-iPod music players sold by the retailer.
After writing about how Napster renegotiated its deals with record labels to offer its music subscription service at a lower price, I called RealNetworks, which offers the Rhapsody service, to see if its executives were excited about cutting similar deals that would allow it to offer its own $5-a-month music service.
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