September 22nd, 2008
microSD music: Are we regressing?
With all of this hoopla surrounding SanDisk’s announcement of slotMusic, a product conceived in conjunction with record labels that involves DRM-free MP3s on (SanDisk’s) microSD cards, I’m not convinced that we’ve actually advanced, technologically-speaking.
TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington has a few choice words for SanDisk and its record label ilk, questioning why the record labels fell for the technology and citing the cost involved in making such a product along with the practicality of an alternative like a USB drive. GigaOM’s Om Malik predicts outright failure.
But my question is this: Since technology in this decade has allowed music to travel without a medium attached to it, and the current business model charges only for the music itself and no longer the medium that used to come with it, it makes me wonder why a company is trying to monetize something the public has clearly moved away from.
Sure, the music’s DRM-free, but a microSD is a lot harder (and more expensive) to come by and use than downloaded music — content in an almost unadulterated form.
What do you think? Tell us in TalkBack.
Andrew J. Nusca is an associate editor for ZDNet and SmartPlanet.
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