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The Perfect Online Music Store?

Posted by Cliff on from the better-than-iTunes-and-Walmart-combined dept.

brace asks: "With the proliferation of online music sales, more and more companies are jumping onto the bandwagon and trying to sell you downloadable music. Some of them do a good job, some of them are just bad at it. The question I have for Slashdot readers is essentially 'What would the perfect online music store offer you?' Should it have OGG and FLAC tracks, as well as MP3? Would you rather pay per-song or per-month? Would you want the option to purchase hard-copy as well (like the actual album, or even band merchandise)? Should the song samples be 30 second downloads or full-song streams fed on-demand? Is a radio station important for an online music store?" "Personally, I'd like to see a store that has a 24/7 internet radio station, on-demand streaming, $0.99 downloads (and $9.99 album downloads), links to purchase actual albums or merchandise, and with MP3, OGG, and FLAC support. I'd also like to see the artists being paid more than 10%..."

3 of 532 comments (clear)

  1. allofmp3.com by n0iz77 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    allofmp3.com is already amazing. super low prices and i can get most of the music in ogg q5. :)

  2. iTunes rock by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    After 3 years of boycotting music and not buying any, I finally started using iTunes 4 months back. Since then I've purchased 10 albums. I tried MusicMatch and looked at Real, but honestly iTunes is the most user friendly.

    1. Re:iTunes rock by dbn3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      [Listening to the new U2 single just bought on iTunes :) ]

      Now that I am more than 10 years out of college, it is definately worth $0.99 to just get the song I want without trolling the p2p networks looking for music.

      Besides, in recent years, if it ain't hip with the teen/college crowd, it ain't on the p2p networks. Those tracks that are there are of very variable quality -- you have to get several copies because some moron can't rip or encode correctly. It's just not worth the hassle.

      Things I really like about iTunes:
      - cost;
      - quality;
      - ease of purchase;
      - the "others also bought" links let me explore things I haven't heard before; and, of course
      - buying the single for a buck instead of a 10 track crappy cd for $14 for that one single.

      Things I still am waiting for:
      - broader catalogue (Madonna and The Beatles for two are still not available)

      --
      open mind: teaching computers the stuff