Some MP3 thoughts
Thinking again, as I always do when I have to do other things. This time I saw an ad for the newest Dave Mathews Band album (available on amazon) and I really wanted to have it, or at least listen to it.
Ordering it at Amazon will take a few days, which I will still be doing most likely but … it takes a bit. This is not acceptable though. I want it now. At this moment. I will probably like it in a week too but I would love it now. It’s what you call impulse buys. Buying it now and waiting a week would probably be an impulse buy but for me a real impulse buy would mean that I also have it now, not only that I buy it now.
Now don’t come to me with shops and going out to buy it. I am fairly happy sitting inside and not walking through the rain at the moment and I like to buy stuff at amazon. First of all it’s easy and second it will ad to my amazon bill and they tend to be nicer to people with higher bills :)
This is where MP3s come in though. The album costs me about 16 EUR here in germany if I buy the CD. If they had offered my to download 128kbit/s mp3s for 10 EUR with a possible reduction of 7 EUR if I buy the CD later I would have jumped at the chance. They would already be on my harddrive, with a coupon for the CD sitting nicely in my amazon account, or whatever other account we are talking about.
If I love the CD then I would like to have the CD at one point or the other, maybe. Even 256kbit/s mp3s might just not cut it. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. I will really have to watch out for more infos on this one, e.g. from . But in general I think the coupon on the CD would be a good idea.
First of all you would have people think they only spend 3 EUR for the MP3s if they still want the CD having people who really just want the music download the MP3s even if they are not convined of the MP3 format. I would just load the MP3s on my Archos Jukebox and be happy.
Another option would be to let me download the MP3s when I buy the CD. I mean download now. I buy the CD have the MP3s until the CD arrives. Now that would be service.
Somebody I know recently bought Visual C++. Expensive. Getting shipped. Next thing he did was download a copy of the web somewhere because he wanted it _now_ and not in a week, which was the time it took the package to arrive.
In the following months if not years MP3 will have to fight to get out of the underground and into the mainstream for things like this to happen.
The other thing is that young people might not have the money to spend a lot of money on CDs. Why not give them an inexpensive subscription so they get hocked on having 10 new albums on their desk per month? In MP3 form of course.
Later you will spend more money for something like this or somehow buy the extras that come with it.
All this needs a lot of thinking but the thinking will come, at least I hope it does. It would rock. I would love it.
Pay $30 per month to have access to 10 albums per month as MP3 in 128kbit/s from Amazon including a 20% discount on all CDs that you buy. How does that sound?