http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/25/the-end-of-music-cds/
It seems that record companies are looking for a new way to market their music in stores. With CD sales on the decline, record companies have been looking for a new alternative to selling CDs. This newest alternative to downloading music and buying CDs is called Slot Music, developed by Sandisk. Slot Music cards are just micro SD cards with enough space to hold the songs from the album, the album cover art, lyrics, notes, and a little extra space if you want to put your own photos on it. All of the songs will be free of copy protection also. The SD cards can also play on many cell phones, some mp3 players, and many computers that have SD card ports. The SD cards are no bigger than your fingernail and all of the "Big Four" record companies have signed on. Wal-Mart and Best Buy have signed on to carry the devices.
While these micro SD cards with music might be a good gimmick to get more album sales because they're different, it's hard to see how it will be anything more than a fad. The reason CDs aren't selling as well isn't because of the lack of appeal or because you have to rip music from them, it's because mp3 players and online music stores are more convenient. You could even argue that Slot Music is a step backward because a lot of computers don't have micro SD ports, cars don't have Slot Music players, and iPods and Zunes don't have micro SD ports. You also don't get the physical album cover and the case that comes with the CD, which is one of the only upsides to buying a CD nowadays. It's a good idea, it just seems like it's too little too late to stop in store stales from dwindling.
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3 comments:
I am a huge CD buyer. Right now it is the cheapest form of music. Buying used CD's especially of lesser known bands is often less than 4 or 5 dollars. Sometimes the shipping is more expensive than the CD itself. The downfall of the CD is working to my advantage right now. I can buy a lot of music for very little and I have control of my own music, so that I can transfer it from computer to computer easily, unlike Apple who has too much control over the tracks you own. The Slot Music idea sounds ridicules and sings of failure. People who are used to buying CD's like me aren't going to buy them. I like the size of a CD and I like being able to play my CD's in my stereo. I like my CD album art. If they market it well enough to seem like the "next wave" of music technology like: vinyl to Eight track to tape cassette to CD maybe some people will be fooled into it.
Maybe, I usually just go to the nearest Best Buy and just buy the hard copy of the CD. I actually prefer to own the hard copy. This is all from personal experience of loosing over one hundred dollars of music when my computer crashed, and I kwon I would lose something that small. So I probably won't buy any micro SD music cards.
How exactly is this even supposed to compare to the convenience of a digital download?And who would actually go to a store to buy an SD card instead of the CD itself. Slot music will not increase the sales of music because problem is not the size of the CD, its the convenience of an online store where you can download your music. Slot music would have been a good idea before the ipod and other music players.
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