Slashdot Mirror
Buy Your CDs From Your PCS Phone
guido_sst writes: "SprintPCS has inked a new deal with *CD to allow its users to buy CDs with their PCS phones. Basically, you hear a song on the radio, dial *CD (*23) on your PCS phone, type in the station's call letter and your credit card number, and viola, you just bought that band's CD. The service is also available for wireless members of the 3Com Palm family. Read more at starcd.com."
I am wondering how they will figure out which song you were listening to, when using the service. Most radio stations I know about can not even seem recall their play lists from the past five minutes... then add on the problem of which cd - the single? the album? the muchmusic compilation? the japanesse import? the movie sound track? on top of it all, add in the problems with timing - I meant to get song x, but I was too slow and got song y instead... I really have a hard time seeing how this will work on the old analogue radio.
I'd like they put the charges on my cell phone bill directly.
--- You make things foolproof, and they'll find you a damn fool.
It used to be that the big music companies got all the radio time. Now they get to have direct sales from their radio times. A better example of corporations being able to contrl the opinions of the populace, I have not heard.
This means that the corporations get to pick what sheeple like, while those of use that are self-thinking MUST relly on shoutcast or other similar non-mainstream systems to be able to pick music on our own.
Let's just say this is one system I won't be using.
t14m4t
67.5% Slashdot Pure I guess I need to work on that....
A non-embarassing way to order "Who let the dogs out" without haveing to know the name of the band or the name of the album.
Jackpot.
--
RumorsDaily
I tried it out last Tuesday. I ordered (I thought) Al Gore's "Macarena", but somehow got a Pat Buchanan single of "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" instead.
And what do you want to bet that their database is chock full of Backstreet/Nsync/Britney-alikes and won't have anything that the local college station plays?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Another impending sign of the Apocalypse... Britney Spears CDs on speed dial....
Part of me wishes to be abducted by aliens and taken off this godforsaken rock of a planet... then I remember that 99.9% of the time they get their abductees from places like Pig Jowl, Arkansas.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
i'm buying 'can' on my phone! oh shit i just bought air supply!
I hope they don't make it too easy to order.
Imagine sitting in a meeting, when your phone starts playing a Brittney Spears song, and in your frantic attempts to make it stop, you accidentally order 10 copies...
I'm pretty sure that's a scene from Dante's Inferno...
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
This is made for impulse buyers. I can some ex-girlfriends of mine using this service. "I loooove that song let me order the CD"
How long before some enterprising hacker figures out how to use starcd.com to look up live playlists and then queue up the song for downloading via Napster? It's a shame that this would be of questionable legality because otherwise this would be perfect. Even curmudgeons like me sometimes like a catchy pop tune now and again but I don't want the other 12 crappy songs on the band's CD.
I'm not paying per song download on Napster unless I get a $0.10 per song upload CREDIT.
At least the * makes sense here, since it's referring to something you'd dial on a cell phone.
Kind of like *BAM (for Bell Atlantic, now Verizon, customer service) and some other * services that I can't remember specifically.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
I think it's rather closed-minded to expect the target market of this service to be only geeks. 'Regular' consumers are used to dialing *[anything] for various services from traffic emergencies, to weather info, to call forwarding.
I suspect that the general target market for this service is the market who currently already buys the most radio-played CDs, and with the most disposable income. Teens, and 20-30 yr. olds.
More info/links here.
"When it rains, it pours." --Morton's Salt
I work for a group of radio stations. Our streaming audio provider wanted to do a "now playing" thingy on our station's web site, but the only way they could do it required that I attach our audio server computer directly to the internet. Needless to say, I declined.
I hope Sprint has at least figured out how to run it through a firewall...
----- Leghorn "Not responsible for program content"
I see a FuckedCompany in the making.
--
--
You are a fucking moron.
It was Cellular One. I participated in the beta test for them. I only bought one CD (whuch they gave me for free for testing). The service really sucked. It took about 5 mins to complete the order, and the process was quite cumbersome. VERY dangerous if you were driving. And worst of all, after the beta period, they were going to charge AIRTIME for the call! Plus, the CD was $22 from them ($14 at local store, $11 online). Buyer beware.
-mark
-mark
If your computer says LINUX, run...computers can't talk! [unless you have text-speech software]
Wow. live playlists. -- from real radio stations too.
----
I think maybe someone has finally realized why people prefer Napster and MP3's to going out and purchasing CDs: it's not money, it's convenience. It's much easier to hop online, search for something, and download it, than it is to go hunt down the physical goods at your local store.
I'm not sure that this is easier, at least not yet. But perhaps it's a step in the right direction.
Now THAT would be cool.
Hey! Why do you have to be rippin' on Barry Manilow? Just for that, I'm going to use company bandwidth & Napster so I can be listening to some Manilow at work! ppphhhhhthhhhh!!
=steve
--- rapper/producer/bachelorette party stripper
This seems like a nice little concept, but here's something for you paranoid cypherpunks out there. Let's say you actually buy that stupid "Who let the dogs out" cd with this service, what do you think will happen when their next album comes out, or any similar band, or any band whose promoter sucked off the radio station's manager ? In ordering the cd, you've given them your name, address, but most importantly your *cell phone number!* Now they can call you anwhere, anytime to tele-harass you. They will manage to annoy you at the worst possible time (imagine being in a meeting and you answer your cell thinking it's important, only to end up stuck arguing with a stupid telemarketer who just won't give up - watch your executive reputation go through the basement). If you really want to buy whatever top40 crap's playing on the radio, just listen to the announcer when he/she says the title and group and stop by the mall to buy it. Cheaper, safer, and anonymous. Just tell them your personal info is none of their fucking business and they don't need it to sell you the damned cd. Something you just can't do on the phone when shipping is involved.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Tom Leykis is a syndicated guy out of LA. He isn't bad, but he is mostly a Stern ripoff. He did "innovate" the 405 flash, meaning you flash your headlights while on the 405 and women in other cars are supposed to flash their tits at you. As if the traffic on the 405 isn't fucken horrible enough.
I'm not impressed, but I'll admit that it's a damn sight better than one of the other ideas that I've heard about: walk too close to a store, and it auto-dials you to relay a recorded spiel. I swear, if that ever happens to me, I'll happily walk into the store, and explain quite thoroughly why they've permanently lost my business. Gods help 'em if they suggest that I turn my phone off...
Five tons of flax.
I say they're more likely to just use the service to find out the song name/artist and then disconnect the call and stop at their local store to buy it.
---
seumas.com
Except mp3.com already tried that, and got slapped. I bought some discs from Cheap-cds.com on the premise that I would be able to listen to them immediately on my.mp3.com, even before they arrived. And I could, for a couple of weeks; it was neat. And of course I'd already payed for the music. Of course, the RIAA paid no mind to this really neat, non-money-losing idea when they had all the major-label content shut off.
Hit *CD (*23) on your PCS phone, type in the station's call letter, get the name of the band and song, and then ... hang up.
Start up napster, type in the name of the band and song, and download the mp3 :)
I'd rather wait a few days to get the merchandise and save myself the trip down to whatever store sells it. Even though I live in a very large city (i.e. I can get almost everything locally), I buy a lot of stuff online for the convenience factor. Order it, forget about it, and have a nice surprise in the mail after a week or so. This service fits right in with my purchasing habits. Too bad I don't listen to music on the radio...
Yo dawg, I heard you like the Ackermann function, so OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD
Another reason to stay off the road....SUV DRIVER: "Oh MAN! Carribean Queen by Billy Ocean! I love this song, I gotta get it! Let's see... B-I-L-L... Oops, cut that guy off, sorry... Y.. O-C-E *SCREEEEEECH* SHIIIIIIT! *BOOM*Sharkey
badassmofo.com
They probably offer big deals, since usage is what they really want. Think about it. The big win here is that they're turning into a demographic database of what people listen to on the radio. They can then turn around and:
* Sell info to the stations on *when* people listen.
* Sell info to the labels on what radio stations sell the most CDs
Oh yeah, this is a great business model for them. For the consumer, it's only a lose becuase it's one more thing feeding the cycle that's homogenizing entertainment "content" down to a gruel that doesn't offend anyone "much".
I prefer to listen to a variety of music (my choice of music) rather than what some radio company is being paid or otherwise compensated to over-expose to its audience.
I'll listen to a few good streaming radio stations online though -- but they don't broadcast on the airwaves anyway.
If it turns out that this service offers a larger variety of music (not just the stations that play the Top40) then they might have a chance at something successful. But I'm not going to hold my breath.
---
seumas.com
Hey, on another note -- anyone notice that after your karma gets to a certain point, positive moderations of posts no longer increase your karma?
---
seumas.com
Buy a CD because of one catchy tune on the radio? This is obviously targetted at rich kids without bills to pay.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
if you could have the mp3 placed in an idrive for you or something. that would be a viable mp3 biz model.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Pretty cool. You enter in the number of the station; for example, "961#" is 96Rock in Atlanta. Then you can hit 1 to hear what was most recently played or you key in the time of the song. You can preview the song first so you don't accidentically buy Barry Manilow.
You can hear samples of other songs on the CD too. Not bad.
-tim
I guess on the "Hey, neat idea!" scale, it rates a couple points. But on the "How many people will use it?" scale, I think it's pretty much DOA.
---
seumas.com
Actually, this service was tested in Philadelphia about a year ago. I'm not too sure which cell company sponsored it (Bell, AT&T, etc), but they were promoting the hell out of it on the radio. The only problem was that in order to use the *xy service, you had to be a member of their service. IE, an AT&T wireless customer couldn't use it if Bell sponsored the *xy service.
If I recall correctly, it disappeared due to lack of funds..*Shrugs*
-kris