Verizon Wireless music store
p2p news / p2pnet: Verizon Wireless is, "expected to introduce a music download service next month that will let subscribers purchase music wirelessly over their mobile phones and transfer songs between their phones and Windows PCs," says CNET News.
"The new service, called V Cast Music, is scheduled to become available on Jan. 16 at Circuit City, Verizon Wireless stores and Verizon’s Web site, according to documents seen by CNET News.com. It would allow customers to browse, preview, download and play music from a mobile handset and a computer."
Will the Verizon service offer anything the other corporate download sites don’t already have?
Nope. It’ll be flogging the same old stuff from the usual suspects, Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG.
V Cast Music, "according to company documents, is intended to compete with other music download services, such as Apple Computer’s iTunes, and would give Verizon’s partner in the project, Microsoft, firmer footing in the mobile services realm," says the story.
It doesn’t explain how a few corporate sites serviced and supplied by the Big Four and offering exactly the same ‘product’ at exactly the same grossly inflated prices to exactly the same tiny handful of people who mostly get their fill from iTunes can be called competition.
Also See:
CNET News – Verizon plans to offer mobile music downloads, December 22, 2005
December 23rd, 2005 at 9:37 pm
“… is intended to compete with other music download services, such as Apple Computer’s iTunes, and would give Verizon’s partner in the project, Microsoft, firmer footing in the mobile services realm.”
Okay, and what’s in it for the music-lover? I’m sick and tired of hearing all this corporate flannel – when they are asked to justify what they are doing they come out with crap about positioning themselves in the market, or creating a brand that creates firm returns from units etc, completely ignoring the fact that people are supposed to be attracted to these services.
Until Verizon and their ilk start thinking about distinctive services geared towards music-lovers wanting to be part of and appreciative of a msic download service, p2p will continue to flourish.