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Buy Music, Get Loaded
Tech TV's article on Buy.com founder's newest venture,
BuyMusic is a nice overview of what promises to be a way to build a payment model that works around downloadable music.
The theory behind BuyMusic.com is that customers have shown a preference for downloading music by the song, and also by the album in some cases. Rather than fighting to make that audience conform to the existing model, this site has instead adapted the file sharing model to a pay model, while adding enhancements such as the ability to download an entire album together if desired, and enhancing ease of use.
The price to download one song is 79 cents, and an album is $6.99, about half the price of a CD, but virtually all royalties and profit, as the distribution costs are minimal. (Never mind that P2P file sharing actually led to an increase in CD Sales, and that the sales have declined with the demise of P2P sharing. From the press attention, it would seem that busting those pre-teens with Napster downloads on their hard drives is a matter of national security...)
As the article mentions, iTunes Music Store has been an early provider of this type of service on the Mac side. BTW, how cool is the VW ad spot which combines the iPod and the Beetle to show how the trendy maintain a seamless musical accompaniment no matter where they are?
Anyway, not being much into music downloads, I first heard about this on
Fox 10's Arizona Morning show this week. Founder Scott Blum and rocker Tommy Lee were live on the air promoting the new site.
If Blum's name sounds familiar, you might remember his coup related to another company he founded, Buy.com. He grew the business quickly, selling a wide range of products, including computer products, at or below cost. At the height of the dot com bubble, Blum sold the company for $260 million. Then, after the bubble burst, he bought it back for $26 million. Pretty shrewd!
The new BuyMusic.com site is poised to meet a demand for downloadable music by providing a profit for the music business. Their new slogan is Buy Music. Get Loaded.
Rock On!
