“Consumers love digital music, they’re just not that eager to pay for it. Perhaps Target can help change their minds. The Minneapolis-based retail chain is close to a rollout of a digital music subscription service, say people familiar with the company’s plans. Target will offer single-track music downloads, similar to those offered by Apple Computer’s iTunes store, but the emphasis will be on all-you-can-eat monthly subscriptions, putting it in competition with offerings from Napster, Yahoo! and RealNetworks,” Peter Kafka reports for Forbes.
“Executives at major music labels who have seen Target’s presentation say the offering, which will be powered by Seattle-based Loudeye, will offer both a “tethered” service, which allows customers to use the service only on their PCs, as well as a “portable” service, which allows users to move the tracks to compatible music players–which, notably, does not include the most popular digital music player, Apple’s iPod. The portable service, sources say, will likely be priced somewhere between the $6.99 charged by Yahoo! for Yahoo! Music Unlimited and the $14.95 charged by RealNetworks and others for their portable services,” Kafka reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Kafka doesn’t mention that Target sells Apple iPods, iPod minis, iPod shuffles, and iPod accessories that will be incompatible with their online music offering, à la Wal-Mart.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Morgan Stanley: Apple, Wal-Mart pact broader than some realize – June 15, 2005
Wal-Mart begins selling Apple’s iPod mini in select stores – February 01, 2005
Apple’ Mac mini in high demand, faces backlog; Target.com now selling Mac mini – January 21, 2005
Wal-Mart begins selling 20GB ‘Apple iPod from HP’ which is incompatible with Wal-Mart Music Download – September 19, 2004
Target stores to carry iPod – October 23, 2002
