Roxio just announced the divesting of their non-music assets to free up cash and management focus on their Napster/digital music business. It is simply the latest in a trend of deal making, M&A and financing that has made things seem like a game of musical chairs. For a quick recap, let’s see…Real bought Listen.com, Roxio bought Napster assets & Pressplay, and now divests their software biz, Circuit City bought MusicNow, Walmart bought Liquid Audio assets via their distributor, Dimensional Associates bought eMusic, Digital Club Network (renamed eMusic Live) and the Orchard (wonder what they have in mind?), LightningCast recently raised $5 Million, CNET bought MP3.com assets, Zingy was bought by a Korean firm…and those are the ones that I can tell you about! Then there are the private equity and VCs looking to put some of their "dry powder" to use (which is how nearly every VC I've talked to has referred to the unspent amount of their Fund).

Speaking of dry powder, if you were Chris Gorog and had $100 MM worth of it, what would you do? Send a Napster CD-ROM to every consumer in the country (a la AOL)? Go buy yourself a media player with an installed base? Do an iPod-like advertising blitz? Who knows...but I do know that, having seen Gorog aggressively enter and play in the space, it will be interesting to see what he has in mind.