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SanDisk's slotMusic format: FTW or WTF?
8 comments- TAGS:DRM, MP3, music industry, RIAA, SNDK
- IT TOPICS:Hardware, Mobile & Wireless, Personal Technology, Storage
In Monday's IT Blogwatch, Richi Jennings listens to the music industry's latest wheeze to sell us their choonz: a drm-free album on a microSD card for under $10. Not to mention a "clbuttic" mistake...
Arik Hesseldahl gets the party started:
Once again, memory chip maker SanDisk is making a push into the digital music market ... The "slotMusic" cards can be inserted into wireless phones and other digital music players with built-in memory card slots. SanDisk (SNDK) is making the announcement along with the four major music labels Warner Music Group (WMG), Universal Music Group (VIV.PA), Sony BMG (SNE), and EMI.
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The music will be encoded in high-quality MP3 format and will not be subject to so-called digital rights management.
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Songs will be loaded onto ... microSD cards, the fingernail-size siblings of the larger and more popular SD card format. Slots for microSD cards can be found in scores of mobile phones ... Each card will have a capacity of 1GB, more than enough to store an entire album, with extra space left over. The space might be used by the labels or the artists for videos, interviews, album art, extra tracks, or other premium content.
Sylvie Barak inquires:
With CD sales trailing off into irrelevance and physical media sales generally not doing so well, the MicroSD is a last ditch attempt to woo millions of MP3 and mobile phone users into buying a new format. The tiny card can be bunged straight into mobile phone slots and just in case that's not enough to tempt people, comes complete with a USB sleeve too.
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The new format will start off tentatively, dipping its toe in the water with the release of 29 albums to begin with. How much the cards will sell for is still a big secret but it's thought a micro album could set you back between seven and $10.
Saul Hansell is intrigued:
Do you remember when cereal boxes sometimes had phonograph records imprinted in some sort of waxy stuff on the back? ... I wouldn’t be surprised if some desperate record label executive were talking with Kellogg’s to revive the idea ... The record industry is trying to find every last way to sell music these days.
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I’ve been able to figure out enough to be intrigued. Unlike so many of the Frankenstein concoctions to come out of the music industry, SlotMusic, from what we know so far, does not impose any annoying compromises on users. For some, it may even be a good value.
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Since Wal-Mart is selling a 1-gigabyte MicroSD card (the size used for SlotMusic) for $15.98 these days ... $7 to $10 ... seems like a fine value.
But Nilay Patel is no fan of atoms:
We're not sure why the music industry thinks consumers want to buy even more physical media, but it can't seem to stop pumping out plastic in a futile attempt to stay relevant.
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The idea is that you'll be able to buy music and listen to it without having to sideload it onto your device using your computer at home. Sure, we can see the appeal of that, but when we half-facetiously asked SanDisk's reps if they expected us to carry around a stack of individual microSD albums, they didn't laugh when they said yes, and even told us that slotMusic media binders would be available at launch -- no, they weren't kidding.
David Diskin doesn't get it, either:
How is this better than what Amazon.com offers us now? I can download DRM-free songs from Amazon for less than a buck, and albums at about $8 ... Amazon's library is HUGE.And internet distribution doesn't impact the environment ... Physical distribution is dead. If they want to cater to impulse buyers at a retailer, install a kiosk with a variety of ports, card readers, BlueTooth, etc and let people download stuff instantly.
And Om Malik is even more scathing:
This adventure ... is going to end badly. Here are my reasons:
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People don’t much care about the “physical media” very much these days ... iTunes has sold over 5 billion songs, indicating people like to download music.
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SlotMusic will have 29 albums on day one - not enough for even the most curious to pick one up.
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I wonder how much money is left for SanDisk after paying off the music industry Shylocks ... Of course, if it is cheaper than blank 1 GB MicroSD cards it might be worth just buying and erasing the music. (That would mean that the music is totally worthless.)
And finally...
Buffer overflow:
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Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/adviser/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and spam. A 22 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. You can follow him on Twitter, pretend to be Richi's friend on Facebook, or just use boring old email: blogwatch@richi.co.uk.
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