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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."
I wonder if all the songs will be censored like the CDs in the stores?
~.Evanrude
So will we be seeing them for 49 cents a song then?
And I can print out a coupoun for a yellow happy face with the purchase of each song online-Walmart song right?
Is the little tune they play with each commerical free download? or do I have to pay for that too?
Can I buy online and pickup the songs on a cd in the store? That would be great!
-Grump.
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
Why Wal-Mart, why? Isn't the industry flooded enough as is? Although Wal-Mart does make enough to offset the losses it will incur with the music service (as all music services do), its just another iTMS wannabe.
"Some fight for law. Some fight for justice. What will you fight for? One day, you will see."
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.
You don't sell "Sick Marilyn Manson" ?
What's so sick about him?
The fact he knows how to market the fuck out of his stuff ?
Cop killer rap... Rap lyrics ever killed anyone? I know 50 cent fucking annoys me but I haven't died *yet*.
See guys, when you don't let kids play dodgeball cause it's bad for their self-esteem they turn into Christian music store owners.
The first company to sell decent music using a lossless codec will get my money. Until then, I can't justify spending $10+ for an album of crappy MP3s when I can buy the CD used for less (or even sometimes new for a dollar or two more).
Online music for Linux, maybe?
My Ass hurts.
I'm confused as to what Walmart's impetus here is. Steve Jobs has very clearly stated that iTMS makes about squat for profit; it's just a pretty Trojan Horse to get people to buy iPods (and eventually Macs). Walmart doesn't have an MP3 player (that I'm aware) to push. Selling music to get people to buy MP3 players seems a bit more plausible than, say, selling music to get people to buy tires/clothing/cereal in Walmart stores.
All that is left now is Microsoft's turn:
(1) Call it MS Tunester
(2) Bundle with new version of Media Player
(3) Introduce Drakonian DRM
(5) ????
(6) Profit!
The article is pretty vague. Wal-mart is going to start an online music store to compete with other services which have been successful. Unless they can offer something darn impressive I think they'll have a hard time getting it out the door.
Apple offers you iTunes - excellent music software that people actually want to use (just look at the number of non-US downloads for proof).
Napster 2 offers...well, it's got plenty of name recognition - the music selection/pricing scheme is a little different and the format works on a variety of players.
The other services (buymusic, napster, pressplay...) haven't had near the success of the iTMS. Unless walmart has some sort of killer feature that people are actually asking for they're doomed to be another smalltime player.
what could that feature be?
- Lossless files
- No DRM/Regular MP3
- Extremely cheap pricing ($.10 - $.50)
- EVERY major artist/song represented (and more indie tracks too)
Without one of those it's just more of the same, and there is no reason for consumers to choose walmart's startup over the much more popular ITMS or the much more established napster.
Why add another store which will have the same set of songs?
Worse, why add another store which will have a subset of the songs? The article states that Walmart is discussion with the 5 major record labels... Apple has contracted with many independent labels, and I don't really see these indies striking up a deal with Walmart.
Also, Apple has admitted they don't make much off the store and really use it to sell iPods - what exactly is Walmart's plan here?
topreacher@signature.slashdot.org 1% rm -rf sig
have the website designed in China and maintained by illegal immigrants in the USA.
Wal-Mart has a corporate policy of beating suppliers until they relent on pricing.
Since digital music costs fractions of a penny to duplicate, the marginal cost is less than one cent, which is where the RIAA's revenue will go once they've been strong-armed by the Wal-Mart business process.
The only way Wal-Mart will not do this is if they buy the RIAA outright and use their ownership to make up "cost" numbers.
Note that this will be "passed on to the consumer" in the form of a 1% reduction in retail prices.
Just read a few of the newsgroup postings about that: Google Groups on Wal-Mart/NetFlix
A minor drawback to online sales is that there will never be surplus discounts. If I can pay 50 cents a song, great, it won't matter. If not, well, I'm accustomed to paying $10 for a CD in the bargain barrel (and liking most of the songs) or $5 at a used CD shop. There is no need or cause for liquidation sales online and no way (?) to sell used electronic music without causing a big flap.
Yet another music service in the works?...
Just in my inbox:
--------------------
Subject: Important MP3.com Announcement
CNET Networks, Inc announced today that it has acquired certain assets of MP3.com, Inc.
Please be advised that on Tuesday, December 2, 2003 at 12:00 PM PST the MP3.com website will no longer be accessible in its current form.
CNET Networks, Inc. plans to introduce a new MP3 music service in the near future. If you would like to receive email updates on this service, including an invitation to a special members-only preview, please sign up here.
MP3.com is not transferring your personal information to CNET Networks, Inc. or any other third party.
On behalf of all of us at MP3.com we thank you for your patronage and continued support. It has been a privilege to host one of the largest and most diverse collections of music in the world. MP3.com wishes to express its sincere thanks to each of you for making us your premier destination for music online.
Sincerely,
MP3.com
--------------------
Too true. Of course it defeats evolution by providing a place where all of these lobotomized individuals can meet each other and mate. Perhaps we need some wild predatory animals at Wally World to thin the herd? ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
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).
Although it seems pretty unlikely that spending my time digging around in the OED is going o get me wafed (assuming it takes the regular past tense (the ladies love it when you talk about linguistics (almost as much as (riduclously) nested quotes))) anytime soon
:)
Welcome experienced LISP programmer
"Hell hath no fury like a hippo with a machine gun."
Looks like this 'digital music' thing is starting to catch on with the bigwigs. Finally.
One problem: 'digital music' doesn't need bigwigs.
Nor do we want them. For they bring us DRM, low quality audio, inflated prices, and they still screw our favorite artists.
At least the next logical step is in place, however: Artists ditch their labels and sell directly online. Followed by: Artists forget about selling music itself because it's such cheap advertisement thanks to rapid online distribution that *everyone* now uses.
they are very very good at putting pressure on suppliers to cut prices, because they are such a big volume seller.
They know now, that without all the distribution costs of physical media, that the 90cents / track that Apple currently pays to the RIAA, can be cut down to 50 cents or less because they know this is all just pure profit for the RIAA right now. This is all fat, Walmart knows it and they have the buyer market power to make this price cut happen.
Then they will sell those tracks to us for 60 cents, undercutting Apple, and Walmart still will make money.
This is how Walmart always does it with whatever they sell. No reason it will be any different this time.
Wal-Mart has several advantages. First it can blast out info about this service though it's retail stores. Second they will be cheaper than Apple (or else they wouldn't be entering the market), Wal-Mart has a ton of power over suppliers and can get their prices very low. Apple or any of the other services don't have the brick and motor sales has leverage.
Wal-Mart undercut Netflix's prices and they will do it to Apple.
With all the talk of censored music at Walmart, it might help to understand a bit about the company. They are based in Bentonville, GA. A hellhole of a place, quite a ways from a major city. Everyone in the town works for Walmart. As far as I know, everything there is owned by walmart. Gas stations, food, and even (surpise) walmart itself. Bentonville is in a dry county. That means that it's illegal to serve, sell, or buy booze in the county. People there apparently have a real problem with alcohol, think it's the devil. A friend of a friend took a consulting job there about a year ago. She was in another county at a bar and someone that worked with her saw her drinking a beer. She was fired the following monday.
At my previous job, I had to deal with walmart as a client. They are a bunch of Nazis. They are huge, and many companies depend on them to survive, and walmart knows it. That's why they can get away with doing almost anything they want. 70% of all companies that do business with walmart either go bankrupt or get purchased by walmart.
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Like people who go to Wal-Mart know what the internet is.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
As I have a walmart less than 3 blocks from my house, I pick them up there.
When this system works, it kicks ass. It's cheap (26 cents), they can handle ass-loads of volume (I've ordered 300+ prints), consistent (color is usually pretty damn close to what I send them), fast (store the pictures on their servers for repeat prints), and free shipping.
When this system doesn't work, I think about killing every walmart employee I see. In a small town, that's everybody. :(
They used to only support IE, and some ass-tacular version of netscape. That hasn't gotten much better. (I use a mac for this). Their javascript is buggy. They make me go through 20 screens even though I do the same thing *every time*. Their servers are slow during the day, sometimes to the point of unusable. I get a million timeouts on the secure side, because they can't handle the load.
Best of all, they had an issue where they 'lost' my pictures, and replaced them with some booger-eatin', twelve-sandwich makin', camero-rustin', trailer-house dentist's nightmare's people's photos.
I took screen caps of all the good ones. I was surprised they could afford a camera. I really will have to post a link to them.
Walmart did fix this, but only after I went through email hell (happy obvious taglines on every email = CSR death!).
The photo center has improved, but having used it for more than a year, any music service is going to suck the big musical nuts in the sky for awhile.
They'll compete on price like they always do, work out the kinks, and have a pretty bland selection.
w00t - more volume, less choice.
Would you please quit linking to the NY Post as a "news source"? The last time this happened was when the NY Post was claiming that McDonalds would be giving away a billion iTunes songs... which turned out to be completely untrue, an unfounded rumour.
For the love of god, stop linking to tabloids as news! If it's reported somewhere respectable then fine, but it's not a story until you've got more than this pathetic 200 word paragraph from some grocery store checkout RAG.
Hey,
The website http://www.hearsaymusic.ca is currently recruiting Indepedent Canadian Artists wanting to sell their music online in mp3 format (as well as CDs, etc.). Artists interested should e-mail contact@hearsaymusic.ca for more info.
Cheers,
Warren
ps. ogg to come later
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
Daniel
http://people.cinn.ca/daniel/
However, this is not always the case, otherwise people would see that Walmart only expands into markets to control and dominate them.
I used to believe if i told people about this, they would choose against Walmart.
I was mistaken.
Its sad when you're right and no one will listen to you.
Eat a Chicken, You know you want to.
Apple has experience writing Operating Systems and other various software. They have experience dealing with artist type folks (musicians, graphic artists, etc) and they also deal with hard core nerds. They have a darn good idea of what to put in an online music store and how to design/code it for scalability, high-availability, and etc. They also make hardware, which gives them another benefit and even more credibility in my book.
What does Wal-Mart have experience with? They make flyers. And cheesy commercials. I imagine they'll hire a team to build it for them, but I'm just not convinced that someone who has little experience with software can make a music store that has the things I want. I may try it out, but Apple has my loyalty for being the first to market and doing it well.