Your Music Everywhere I: SlotMusic

Reading the Lefsetz Letters, I found out the LATimes is reporting the next tactic by the music labels to get you to spend money on music you already own, and it's called SlotMusic. Contrary to the prominant image on the LA Times' site, SlotMusic will be distributed in microSD cards, not CompactFlash. Most post-RAZR phones come with a microSD reader, and I wouldn't be surprised if more people that regularly listen to music have a microSD reader than have a CD player.


Still, I have a difficult time imagining this music offering could ever take off. Sure, it is a way to get people to listen to music on their mobile devices, and it should be relatively easy: just pop in the card and off you go! Plus, though most new phones support microSD, few but those at the highest end of the spectrum come with one standard. For example, my N75 did not come with a card, but my Nokia N82 came with a 2GB microSD card and is one of the best on-the-go devices I have ever come across.  This way, there will probably be few complaints to the tune of "where did my photos go", although this could be a problem in the future.

Really what SlotMusic boils down to is the music industry thinking it has come up with another way for you to pay for music you already own. People simply are not using their very powerful mobile phones to listen to music and carry an iPod instead. Why? because no one makes it easy to transfer music to the phone! Bob Lefsetz has it right in his sarcastic letter linked above: why would we need something like this when iTunes is so easy to use? Ah, but he is right about one thing: iTunes requires a computer to transfer the music from either the iTunes store, a CD, or a pre-existing mp3 collection.   When phone users realize they can use their device as an mp3 player and see others doing so, they will want to try it out.  I hope they do not go the SlotMusic route, paying again for music already owned and instead give other forms of music management a good try.

Where I really see the problem occurring is in the management of all that music. Sure, it could be nice to grab a bit of extra music for your phone before that plane ride... oops, no, you cannot turn your phone on while flying... but still, one album or audiobook might not be a bad thing, but what do you do when you have a dozen of them? These things are tiny, I sent my N82 to Nokia for repair, and I almost lost the card immediately after taking it out of the phone. How would I manage multiples of these things? And what's more, except for those of us that have really large music collections, mobile devices are able to cart around all or nearly all of a person's music.  It takes a while for someone just starting with digital music to work up to multiple 1000s of songs they really want to play, which is what most devices are capable of with the release of 16GB microSD cards cards and 8GB cards on the cheap, just about everyone has an iPod-equivalent device whether they know it or not.  A full-length album is less than 2% of the space that can be stored on today's phones, so why would you want to buy a card with one album on it and then mess around with swapping those tiny, smaller-than-a-thumbnail cards while on the go?
 
Except it isn't really iPod-equivalent because getting the music on there is more than most people can handle.  Even for the tech-savvy, iTunes is just so much easier to use than the alternatives that are available right now.  The next closest competitor that I know of is Nokia's attempt at a desktop music application that just got out of beta yesterday.  Nokia Music promises to be the iTunes app for your mobile device, allowing you  to synchronize purchased and collected music to your phone for easy transfer and listening on the go.  Plus, with the Nokia Music Store (whenever it launches in the US), one will ostensibly be able to purchase music either on the computer or on the phone for immediate download.  Nothing ground-breaking (hello iPhone, once again you win in the ease-of-use category) but there are so many music-capable Nokia handsets out there.  Nokia ships 7 million handsets a day which is an incredibly untapped-market.  The Nseries phones I have played with: N75, N82, and N95 have amazing little speakers built-in.  So much so that I routinely use my phone for music while I am cooking or doing other chores because it is easier than turning on the stereo.

Next, I will investigate a new entrant into the mobile music scene, combining web application and the ability to download your music straight to your phone no matter where you are.
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