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Wal-Mart Relaunches Online Music Store
ack154 writes "The latest competitor in the paid music download business will now open its 'doors,' as Walmart begins selling songs at 88 cents online. It had recently finished a three month testing period and now will open to everyone. According to CNN, however, they don't care so much about selling music, 'Analysts have said the goal for Wal-Mart is to bring more people to its Web site.' Maybe they're taking cue from Apple in trying to sell something (iPod) else by using a music store? Articles can be found at Reuters, CNN and others."
amichalo points out that this is really a re-entry, writing "The service was previously launched last December. No explanation as to the re-launch (cough-poor-sales-cough) other than the addition of exclusive artists."
Did that yellow happy face fly by and knock the price from 99 cents to 88 cents?
Bargin Britney! yay!
:)
*kills self*
Great, now I can buy all of my favorite death metal online, with all of the swear words censored by traM-laW. /ex Wal-Mart electronics employee
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
They build their mega-sized websites and put all the smaller websites in the neighborhood out of business.
Now you can wait in line behind 20 300lb people with there kids running around there legs like a pack of wild dogs for hours before downloading your music.
How long to you have to stand in line to check out?
If I know Wal-Mart, 400,00 people will want to check out per hour, but their servers will only be able to hadnle 50,000 transactions in that same time period
For that matter, how do you go about returning the song when it quits playing after a few days?
With $250B in sales, that's $1k for every man, woman, and child in the US. So for the $3k they should get from my family (and won't) some other family is giving them $6k this year to make up for me not giving them a dime. It's staggering how huge they are.
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.
You mean Wal-Mart has artists that Kazaa does not?
DRM'd AND censored! Now that's how I like my music... limited and g-rated.
The Wal-Mart customers that are sufficiently technical already possess iPods. The Wal-Mart customers that aren't sufficiently technical are "wondering what this newfangled MP3 thing is."
What a niche!
Do you like German cars?
WALMART.COM may from time to time amend, supplement or modify the terms of this Agreement. It is your responsibility to check these Terms of Service (available in the Music Downloads Help section) periodically for changes. Your continued use of the Service following the posting of changes will mean that you accept and agree to the changes. If you do not agree to be bound by the Agreement as amended, you must stop using the Service.
Also, looking at the useage terms
What are the restrictions on how I can use the music I download? By purchasing a music download, you are entitled to: * Download the music to 1 computer and back up music to 2 additional computers (see instructions below) * Make 10 burns to a CD * Make unlimited transfers to a portable device Microsoft Windows Media(R) Player 9 keeps track of the rights associated with each song. To back up your music, you will need to make copies of 1) the song files, and 2) the license files and transfer these to the new computer. Your song files are available in the place where you download your music. To back up license files, in Windows Media Player go to the Tools menu and click on License Management. You will see a dialogue box asking you where you want to store the license backup files. Click the "Back up Now" button to save the license files to this location. Then transfer the license files to the new computer. Please refer to the instructions in the Windows Media Player's help system for more information on backing up and restoring music to a computer.
Of course you could re rip from the CD's and convert into the format of your choice, but that is an extra step, and I personally wouldn't pay for a service that doesn't allow me to easily do whatever I wish, with the data on my computer.
Its kind of weird how I haven't heard anything yet about Amazon's Music service.
Everything is free (legal, but selection isvery limited, no uniform media-format) and they allow anyone to upload their own music to be downloaded by others.
The LA Times did an excellent series on Walmart's
negative effects on US manufacturers, overseas suppliers, its own workers, and the US economy last year. It was sparked by the impending entry of Walmart into the Southern California grocery market. Which also indirectly caused the painful, drawn out strike by workers at other grocery chains there.
But my favorite story on Walmart I've read so far (other than the lady who was nearly killed last year in the scramble for a cheap dvd player) is Fast Company's analysis of the company's effect on US manfacturers.
It starts, oddly, with a jar of pickles. And talks about how getting a distribution deal with Walmart eventually undermines and nearly destroys the Vlasic pickle company, due to savage cost cuts forced by Walmart, and undermining of the company's brand-image as they moved to selling big, cheap jars of pickles.
Along the way, the article shows how Walmart forces US manufacturers to move overseas, and even advises them on how to do it.
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