Wal-Mart to Launch Online Music Store

Dteyn writes "I heard on the radio today that Wal-Mart will soon be opening up an online music store to compete with the likes of Apple's iTunes and Napster. According to the radio newsguy, it's expected to be officially announced as early as next week. Looks like this 'digital music' thing is starting to catch on with the bigwigs. Finally."

Comments

Also makes you wonder.....

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

If they'll offer a wide range. Wal-mart tends to be somewhat puritanical on what they offer. (Marilyn Manson anyone?).
Still for mainstream music it shouldn't be too bad. Here's an older story about Wal-Mart's controls on music sales.

More details from the Rejected Post Machine

[securitas]

Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Comcast to Offer Online Music

2003-11-11 13:10:14 Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Comcast to Offer Online Music (articles,music) (rejected)

Wal-Mart will launch its own digital music download service through its Web site later this month. Not to be outdone, Best Buy will also launch an iTunes-type online music store - with the ability to buy through in-store kiosks - based on the MusicNow service (formerly FullAudio). And today Comcast announced music downloads via Real Rhapsody for its 5 million broadband Internet subscribers. The Washington Post's Cynthia L. Webb writes about the online music frenzy and the resultant advertising onslaught due to the sheer number of entrants into the music download market, while Bloomberg's Holly M. Sanders offers an analysis of Walmart's imminent entry into online music, which is significant since Wal-Mart already controls 14 percent of global CD music sales. More at the New York Times (via SeattlePI).

Re:How will it make money?

[Octagon Most]

And guess what, Wal-Mart is a privately held company to boot!

I guess so, if by "privately held" you mean owned by all the shareholders that freely buy and sell WMT on the New York Stock Exchange.