Filed under: Audio, Business, Internet
AnywhereCD online music store closing its doors
Online music retailer AnywhereCD is closing down within the next few days. The online retailer took a different approach toward music sales than pretty much anybody else around. The company's business model was based around selling CDs and throwing in free MP3 downloads. Or maybe it was the other way around.If you ask us, there were two fatal flaws in the plan:
- They were selling DRM-free tracks, which kept many record labels from signing on (they had only managed to get a contract with Universal).
- They were hardly adding any value to your CD purchase, since anyone who buys a CD can rip their own MP3s just as easily as they can download them from the internet.
[via paidContent and socalTECH]
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Let's start with the premise itself: Groundhog Day meets Memento. The game experience revolves around 'days': you explore the world and the clock slowly ticks towards the evening. You bounce around picking up gems and talking to the denizens of 'Level Upland'. Eventually you feel tired and head back to ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
smashthesymbols said 1:54AM on 9-25-2007
Does anyone know anything about the site? Are they safe to buy from? I'm not interested in the MP3 part, but there's some CDs on there that would be a great deal at $7 each.
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Subliminal Fusion said 10:41AM on 9-25-2007
It's a close-out sale from a failed Michael Robertson venture ( http://www.michaelrobertson.com/ ) - he's the guy behind Linspire and MP3tunes, so I'd definitely say it's a trustworthy site. If you're nervous about the transaction, use a one time use credit card (your credit card's website probably has something that will let you generate one).
I placed an order for 5 CDs I've been meaning to pick up for $47.75 (including tax and shipping), not bad at all.
The instant access is a great idea (and really how all online physical CD purchases should be). However, it's not really too much of an added value if you subscribe to Napster or Rhapsody.
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John said 10:47AM on 9-25-2007
There was, however, value in the fact that you could listen to the tracks as soon as you bought it; yes you can rip the songs yourself, but you'd have to wait a few days to receive your plastic, I mean CD in the mail.
The fact that they only had a contract with Universal probably has to do with the link between Vivendi Universal's purchase of MP3.com at one point!
Too bad the other labels were just plain dumb on this service, which added value to the traditional CD model... You can't stop people from getting music instantly (ex: stream any song/album anytime from http://www.deezer.com ) or sharing files privately with friends (ex: http://www.gigatribe.com which has no size limit on file or folder downloads)...
Can't wait to see what Michael Robertson launches next!
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