“Coca-Cola Co., which famously offered to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony, now wants to teach the world to download in perfect legality. Coke said Wednesday that it was planning a joint promotion with San Diego-based MusicMatch Inc., becoming the fifth beverage company seeking to fizz up its brands with a partnership that taps the popularity of online music,” Jon Healey reports for The Los Angeles Times.
“PepsiCo Inc. will be the first out of the gate, offering as many as 100 million songs from Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes Music Store in a promotion that kicks off with a flashy commercial during Sunday’s Super Bowl. Later this year, Miller Brewing Co., Heineken USA Inc. and South Beach Beverage Co. plan campaigns with RoxioCorp.’s Napster, RealNetworks Inc.’s Rhapsody and BuyMusic.com Inc., respectively,” Healey reports.
“Rob Enderle, who runs a technology market research firm in San Jose, thinks the time is right for deals like Coke’s partnership with MusicMatch,” Healey reports. “‘Wherever the kids are, they want to be,’ Enderle said. ‘Young adults are some of the most well-funded consumers in the world
Enderle thinks this deal is great, because it’s only the fifth of its type. Of course, when someone is first to something, like Apple and Pepsi, they are doomed to failure. Can anyone explain to me how this man’s brain works?
I can’t explain, but Apple and Pepsi together on iTunes is definately not going to fail…
With so many “free song” deals, we need a clearing house where people who drink coke and want iTunes can trade with people who drink pepsi and want musicmatch. Or maybe even people could buy “free songs” from people who don’t want them.
That’s what eBay is for. I guarantee you that by next week you’ll see auctions popping up selling winning Pepsi/iTunes bottle caps…
“Can anyone explain to me how this man’s brain works?”
Ah. But you are making an assumption this man’s brain “works”.
Well, duh!! Pepsi is Coke’s number one competitor, pepsi sided with an online music store, so Coke must follow suit. Napster already has sponsorship, and other music stores (like walmart) don’t have downloadable *brandable* software; So you tell me, what is Coke to do? Certainly not rest on it’s laurels, and certainly not make a deal with Apple, that’s out of the question. As a company, it’s thier only real alternative
His brain was removed by microsoft and replaced by windows ME. It needs to be rebooted and has his memory defraged regularly. unfortuately since he doesn’t have a brain he can’t remember to defrag his memory cause it is the stupid user’s fault
i second David’s motion for a clearing house.
Yes, that’s just like his brain running out of memory, or perhaps his thought process unexpectedly quitting (error 142)
David and reilly. the only problem with the clearing house idea is that nobody will want the Musicmatch songs. I’ll bet you would have to trade like 3 Musicmatch songs to get just one iTunes song.
In fact, if we can just do that a bit ourselves and get the word out that that is what is happening maybe the news wires will pick up on it and really face coke and music match
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Spin Spin Spin
If Coke’s goal is to be where the kids are, then what does that say about the motive behind Miller, Heineken, etc.? Get the kids addicted? The tobacco companies might as well join in.
Hey! A guy over at MacSlash said he could use a flash player with iTunes. Not that I would want to what with having a 30 gig iPod but this could be big news if it is true.
“opened iTunes to listen to some music. To my surprise on the left hand side, Creative Muvo appeared. Clicking on the device, I had options to format it and I then was able to drag music files within iTunes and it transfered the files perfectly.”
http://macslash.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/27/145221
“Young adults are some of the most well-funded consumers in the world” No way! They are about the worst-funded. And YAs without an iPod are absolutely the worst-funded.
Maybe it’s just me, but the ad is not that impressive. Amazing that when Apple is involved ads just don’t measure up. I thought that the Pepsi ad that’s been previewed on the news channels with Pink, Spears (who proves she truly has no talent), and the other girl singing we will rock you was going to be part of the promotion.
“Can anyone explain to me how this man’s brain works?”
Enderle has no brain that we know of.
He and the other clueless Wintel tools seem to prefer to let their lower most orifice do their talking for them. This avoid any conflicts in logic, reason or accuracy.
Btw, any auctions will be removed from eBay because the caps are technically non-transferable.
anyone notice how pathetic Coke must feel to team up with a proven loser? I mean, Pepsi really beat them to the punch with iTunes, and with HP offering the same integration, all Coke could come up with was Musicmatch? They could buy Musicmatch themselves without breaking a sweat! On top of which, it is well-known services don’t make money on music, but players.
The main reason everyone is trying to abuse iTunes is because the iPod is the only source of revenue in the whole industry and they know it. It’s just a matter of time before they burn up and out. Imagine: “choice” for these people means choosing companies that won’t be around because there is no profit in the music business, only the player business.
Apple IS the way to go!
Free music with Sprite only, not Coke? I think Coke knows this is a long shot
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” /> And this from the folks who goofed with MyCokeMusic.com.
The iTunes camp is too big for M$ to stop:
Apple/Mac/OS X/iTunes/iPod/iPod mini/huge iPod accessories industry
PLUS AOL/Pepsi/HP/Compaq/unknown future partnerships
And NOT all the remaining fraction of downloads are WMA, either–Sony and Real are non-WMA, further fragmenting the tiny non-iTunes market.
Jack: iTunes can work with ANY MP3 player, and always has–iTunes existed before iPods and before the iTMS. iTunes even adds special functions to the interface, for things like reformatting flash cards. It’s intentionally supporting a wide range of devices.
iTMS songs are another matter–they are protected, and so the flash player (if it can even handle MP4) won’t play them. But re-rip to MP3 and you’re in business.
Err, Jack, is this new? iTunes used to support other players. I assume they still do. The limitation is just that iTMS songs are only supported on the iPod.
I wouldn’t say it’s news that other players work with iTunes (although I know some vendors stopped supporting it), it’s just that people had forgotten with all the iPod talk.
Market leading… jerk off till it last then back to the usual 3% little corner… Losers.
The Coca Cola store crashed the first day it was up – much like musicmatch – Coke has some sort of music store promo going on for a while – it’s pretty much like tide.com – as much as I like coke, I don’t really need a website.
CONSUMERS have picked – MP3’s. As mch as we like having a buying option, by the storage capacity of ipods and the number of songs sold, it’;s clear that that 90% of music on ipods are Mp3’s (or for the extremely lazy – AIFF).
WMA is the lawyers format.
WMA (and REal) were useful when we were in dialup and HD’s were EXPENSIVE. Both companies as well that technology is stuck in the 20th century.
CONSUMERS have moved on.
Mp3’s are best. (hell, even other free alternatives like Mp4’s and OGG have barely made a dent).
Name an WMA plyer that does NOT play Mp3’s – they wouldn’t dare – only Sony is so lawyer bound that their hardware guys can’t sell a real Mp3 player (has to be Sony ATRAC Mp3).
So, unless you have NO alternative like the rest of the world are you forced to choose WMA but once AAC Mp4 arrive, that is CLEARLY the better choice.
WMA is not for consumers, it doesn’t even fast forward correctly – how hard is that to fix? NOT very – but what do lawyers care. They’re more concerned you can track who is playing it and where.
Mp3’s – the car you buy.
AAC Mp4’s – the car you lease.
WMA – Alamo.
I am very disappointed at Coke if this is how they show their commitment to quality and taste. I drink Sprite quite a bit, but suffice to say, MusicMatch won’t get the money if I win.
If Apple wants a really simple way to help people to accept AAC as the format standard, they should just call it MP4. People will intuitively make the leap of logic from MP3 to MP4. Of course, then, they can explain M4P to them.
Regarding trading bottle caps (MusicMatch for iTunes):
1: I’m not certain the promos will overlap. So unless you create a futures market… you won’t have anyone to trade with.
2. It would only make economic sense to auction off large quantities… if I’m bidding on a winning cap… after my time spent, I might as well have just gone out and bought some Pepsi.
3. FRAUD! How can you confidently buy one-time use codes over the Internet…
4. eBay will pull the auctions, both because of the promotion rules, and because of the issues with transferring ownership.
5. I imagine most people will adjust to the situation as I do… I am a Coke drinker, but as soon as I find the promo bottles in stores, I’ll be a “switcher” for the next two months… I may like the taste a little less… but the value add of iTMS is worth that and more.
I predict a massive sales surge for Pepsi, as people who would ordinarily not buy bottles of Pepsi start buying up iTunes bottles (that’s potentially 300 million bottles which could be bought by people who would not ordinarily buy Pepsi)… but to be realistic… let’s say 150 million increased sales… that’s not peanuts…
Marcin