Buy.com To Launch Music Download Service
from the snuck-right-in-there dept
After the initial success of Apple's iTunes, everyone had their heads turned towards Amazon.com, expecting them to come out with a similar solution. Sneaking up behind everyone, though, appears to be Buy.com. They are getting set to launch their own music download service next week, backed by a huge promotional campaign. Buy.com, of course, is no stranger to huge promotional campaigns. This was the company that launched behind the idea of selling everything at a loss, but making it up by having vendors buy premium product placement on the site. Now, their goal is to beat Amazon to the market, and capture the audience Apple hasn't gotten to yet, by focusing on Windows users. They say that the service will be similar to iTunes, in that it won't require a subscription fee, but will have some differences. First of all, they're so desperate to launch, that they haven't received licenses from all five major labels yet - which could be a problem. They also say their plan is to create more of a destination site, with additional content, where people will want to "linger". It's unclear how they'll do this, or how much they're going to charge for each download (or what format the music will be encoded in). Still, with a $40 million promotional campaign, this ought to get some attention.
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