SlotMusic obsolete from start

By George Lang, The Oklahoman

Published: October 29, 2008

Some people just don’t like the way the world is turning and think that if they go as fast as they can in the opposite direction, like Christopher Reeve’s Superman, it will spin their way. Last week, a coalition of four major labels announced SlotMusic, their latest attempt to sell consumers on a new music delivery format, and it looks like retail Kryptonite.

The idea: SlotMusic consists of albums loaded on 1-gigabyte microSD cards — the fingernail-size storage chips that are compatible with cell phones, personal digital assistants and a few mp3 players such as the SanDisk Sansa. According to SlotMusic.org, the cards deliver songs directly to a phone or a digital music player "without being dependent on a PC or Internet connection.”

Perhaps I’m being elitist — I used "perhaps” instead of "maybe,” so it’s possible — but how many people own digital music players of any kind without being connected to the Internet? Is this truly a growth demographic?

The cards will retail for $14.99, hardly a bargain considering compact discs at Best Buy or Walmart — the first sellers who signed up for SlotMusic — often go for much less. I randomly selected one of the first 30 titles offered on SlotMusic, the debut album by Los Angeles slacker hip-hop duo Shwayze, and compared it to Best Buy’s retail price for the CD. It was $9.99 on disc.

Worse yet, it is incompatible with the iPods and iPhones, also known as 70 percent of the digital market. But this is the year of harebrained music biz ideas. In January, Sony put the Platinum Music Pass in stores, allowing consumers to buy what was essentially a dedicated gift card that would only buy one title, such as Alicia Keys’ "As I Am.”

These passes are not a runaway success, since they add at least one unnecessary step to a purchase process: go to a store, buy a card, go home, get online and download. Why not save fuel and buy it online? As an alternative, Platinum Music Passes are available for purchase at online retailers, offering consumers the pleasure of hitting the Web, buying the card, paying for shipping, waiting for it to be sent in the mail, and going online again to download the album.

It’s like Lewis Carroll’s Mad Hatter is in charge of digital music marketing. Look for SlotMusic on the nearest scrapheap of digital music history.

(excerpt from George Lang’s Static blog Oct. 20)

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