“Retailer HMV will teach customers how to download music, to try to persuade a wider range of people to download as it enters the digital music market. The high street chain will install computers in 200 stores and launch its own download service in September,” BBC News reports. ‘HMV said it aimed to ‘demystify’ downloading for ‘women, older people and music fans in general.’ Earlier this year the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) estimated that 96% of downloaders were male.”
‘HMV will create ‘digital areas’ in its stores, where staff will help customers to download music and digital music players will be sold. Its spokesman said HMV’s download service would sell millions of songs at a similar price to Apple’s rival online store iTunes,” BBC News reports.
Full article here.
Along with each “digital area,” HMV had better create an “alternate universe,” in which 8 out of every 10 of their customers won’t be pulling Apple iPods out of their pockets and asking how to use “iTunes.”
Okay, I love this site and the “takes.” Bookmarked.
I’m one of those older persons and I don’t need special training to use the iTunes Music Store. Have the folks at HMV gone mad? A download service that requires training classes? Ye gods, what fools these mortals be!
Forgetting the fact that itunes doesn’t need classes if you know even vaguely how to use a computer – I don’t see what is so amazing about this, go to an Apple store and you’ll get as much help as you want and they do classes for the whole computing experience.
That smacks a bit of ‘women, know your limits’
I recall that HMV had chucked £10m at this project…
…pissed up against the wall in my opinion!
It was £10m – partnering with the beast Microsoft..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4117417.stm
Interesting it was scheduled to have launched in February (05)..
I down load songs on there computer? But its a secure windows computer, No threat of some one stealing my song and distributing it all over the internet with my name and license on it. And the record companies will understand.
What’s ironic is that HMV canada was one of the first record companies I remember offering digital downloads (non-DRM) on-line… over a decade ago!
Sadly, they pulled the site (right around the time the iTMS showed up), partnered with amazon.ca and don’t seem to offer digital downloads anymore.
Strange…
This doesnt actually surprise me that much. Some of the people I work with (other Mac operators) who don’t use iTunes wouldn’t know how to download from the music store. There are only 3 people at work, myself included who really know how to easily get around iTunes to select what music we want since the rest of the team don’t use iTunes themselves. I see lots of people in computer stores at the weekends who having never used iTunes or an iPod for that matter wouldn’t really know who to do it unless shown. Also we don’t have the iTMS in NZ YET! but there are now two other legal music download services avaiable Coke and one called Digirama that support Microsoft DRM
We are beginning to see it now – partnering with Microsoft on anything is becoming the Kiss of Death. HMV just blew a chunk thinking Microsoft’s brand would make this a safe venture, but I think we’ll see that it will fail miserably.
Hopefully, the more this happens, the less other companies will be willing to jump into bed with Microsoft and begging to be used and abused.
Did anybody else read British Pornographic Industry (BPI) the first time?
pffft.. Apple has no chance.. the brits use bpiTunes, not iTunes
iTunes is just a ripoff of the British Phonographic Institute
It’s funny. British Telecom were promoting their iTunes killer all over the place, but suddenly all their ads have “up to 40 free tracks from iTunes”.
Will HMV learn now, or do it the hard way?
how do i put music on my ipod step-by-step