Slashdot Mirror
Say Goodbye to BuyMusic.com
dark_lotus writes "Spymac.com today is reporting
that an e-mail sent to prior customers of BuyMusic.com,
informing them that BuyMusic.com is being merged into the parent site, Buy.com.
Spymac reports: BuyMusic.com initially expected to sell one million songs
per day or 200 to 300 in the first year according to estimates
by founder and CEO Scott Blum. When re-interviewed in December, Blum offered no
statistics, but did say, 'We're nowhere near Apple's
numbers.'"
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
...the fact that they charge $1.99 a song probably didn't help either. It's supply and demand, people. You increase price, demand falls. It's economics 101.
will be similar.
the only players in the market will be Apple and Microsoft because they have the money and product variety to support the low profit business.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Yes, this is the first casuality of the new internet bubble. Next up I think will be Napster. It will probably be bought/merged with Microsoft's forthcoming online music endeavor.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
Perhaps if i had
a) Heard about the site
b) They supported my browser
I might have used it. But I suppose they will just give up and sell out before trying to reach me, the customer.
~ Maintainer of the Skajake Projects
Confusing DRM: Songs purchased from BuyMusic vary widely in burns allowed, transeferring to other machines, etc.)
Limited/poor selection: Never increased from their initial catalog
Poor search functionality / confusing website layout: If customers can't find what they want, they're not going to be able to buy it.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Say goodbye to BuyMusic.com, the web site.
It's being integrated into the parent site, Buy.com.
Not quite the same as giving up and closing shop.
Or did I miss something?
Is it really goodbye, or more like "See you later, when you re-open down the street"...
Is that this will likely be used as ammunition to "prove" that no one wants to buy downloadable music. "Oh alack and alas," I can hear them sigh, "We, the lowly and humble record industry did so TRY to sell music on the Internet, surely we did, but those evil pirates just refuse to buy songs they can download for free!"
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
Not trolling, but take this quote:
"'We're nowhere near Apple's numbers.'"
and ask yourself how many people have even heard of them compared to those that have heard of Apple. No big surprise here.
"and Wal-Mart (they've got the low cost structure)."
Seriously, who is going to buy downloaded music from Wal*Mart? Their store customer base for the most part is not sophisticated enough to get the download model and if they can't attract them, who are they going to attract? I won't buy from Wal*Mart based upon a savings of 10 cents per song when its in WMA format and I cannot be sure the track hasn't been edited.
I'd be willing to bet that the iTunes Music Store will receive anchoring from retailers such as Target though. Kinda like how Amazon is maintaining the online sites of several retailers now.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Seriously, who is going to buy downloaded music from Wal*Mart? Their store customer base for the most part is not sophisticated enough to get the download model and if they can't attract them, who are they going to attract? I won't buy from Wal*Mart based upon a savings of 10 cents per song when its in WMA format and I cannot be sure the track hasn't been edited.
You may not be price sensitive, but Wal-Mart's success (now at over a quarter trillion dollars a year in sales) suggests that many people do like WalMart's "Always Low Prices."
WalMart might be the only online music retailer that's making a profit - even at 88 cents/song. WalMart is the #1 retailer of CDs. They handle 14% of all music sales world wide. Thus WalMart has a huge negotiating advantage when it talks to the record lables about online sales rights -- you want your CDs on WalMart's shelves? Then license them for online sale at WalMart.com for a competative price. In contrast, Apple, Microsoft, Napster, etc. can only offer a rather meager carrot to the record labels. Thus, I'd bet that Wal-Mart pays less for its licence than do the other online music stores.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Basically there were hoping to sell about 1 million a day with yearly sales somewhere in the 200 to 300 million range. Apple is not going to beat those goals with esimated sales at 130 million songs a year, and they are #1 right now. I would think with a smaller catalog, BuyMusic was overly optimistic. And the problems with this is that plans made are for naught if your expectations far exceed reality.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I thought the idea of build it and they'll come was dead a few years ago... Regardless, 500,000 plus transactions per day is not a reasonable expectation unless you are Wal-Mart.
-- $G
Well, the question is what the additional expense is of supporting that remaining 10%.
Isn't supporting practically 100% of browsers at no extra expense why we have web standards?
When the new i-pod was released most here at slashdot thought it was a huge goof on apple's part. Slashdot is not the oracle that you make it out to be.
Legal? You mean because it's in Russia and possibly beyond the reach of American and European law? Something isn't legal just because it hasn't been caught yet.
When something sounds too good to be true, it's likely because it is in fact too good to be true. $.86 an album may pay for bandwidth; it certainly isn't paying for the musicians. And much (most?) of the content they're offering is owned by the major labels, who are surely not receiving what they've contracted to receive.
After a quick look around allofmp3.com I can only conclude that they're hoping to make their pile before somebody manages to shut them down. And then they can pop up somewhere else.
The only differences between these guys and P2P are that they're better organized. And they charge you. But legal? Don't make me laugh.
Here's an interesting thought (to me, anyway):
Apple's sales alone have generated $32.5 million US for the labels-- that's 65 cents per song, times their 50 million downloads. At virtually no cost to them, other than somebody to manage the checks coming in.
Think about how many people the RIAA have settled legal action with so far... at last check I saw a number of 1200. Their own numbers say they are averaging settlements of $2000 with each file sharer. That works out to $2.4 million US, LESS LEGAL COSTS, which I would imagine to be consistent.
Which market strategy is more profitable?
(I guess the counter-argument would be: keep suing a few people to keep up public education about piracy AND collect money from online music sales. But nobody's factoring in negative press and ill will generated by companies suing their own customers. And make no mistake, file sharers are, in bulk, RIAA customers.)