To make it more popular, though, they need to promote the music store on the Amazon.com homepage. That's where most people go who don't know about the mp3 store.

About the variable music prices: I wonder if this is in line with what Amazon is paying out to the labels? The reason I ask is because I recall the pissing fight between Universal Records/NBC Universal and Apple about variable pricing. Apple didn't budge and lost NBC. However, players like Zune was able to grab the content because they do pay variable prices... only the consumer does not. Zune pays much less for each older TV episode sold and more for the newest ones. That's the variable pricing the labels/studios may be looking for and perhaps Amazon is giving it to them, too.

Good article, btw.

DW

mackro

I've bought a few singles from Amazon, but aside from one or two $2-4 super deals, I would almost never buy a full album in a digital-only format.

Halfwit

On the pricing thing, I could swear I read something about Amazon going against the wishes of the majors with their lower than iTunes prices. Maybe I am remembering this wrong. Maybe that's what you're saying too.

At any rate, as a consumer, I'm quite impressed with Amazon's service. Although I am an Apple user, I'd really much rather have plain old mp3 files that I can play on anything than AAC files that I'm limited in their use. Not to mention they are a higher bit rate and cheaper, usually.

(Sidenote: whatever happened to Steve Jobs' push to rid the world of DRM? Wasn't it almost a year ago he gave his dramatic speech, yet 3/4 of the iTunes music store is still DRM protected. This is something I've been wondering about for a while and I'd love to see someone look into it, because I can't help but feel Apple is as much to blame as big media.)

Interesting thought about the Best Buy prices lowering the value of music. For me, it's always been difficult to justify paying the same for a download as physical product when you're not getting the same thing. You rarely get liner notes or art beyond the cover. The medium, by it's nature, gives you less quality than a physical CD (untill/unless they go to lossless files, which I doubt is going to happen.) There's no manufacturing costs. Etc., etc. Though I think you have a point about Best Buy, I have to wonder how many consumers think like I do and just don't see mp3 or AAC downloads as being the equal of a physical CD.

Captain Wrong