Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"Earlier this year SanDisk introduced a new format to deliver music called slotMusic. This is simply a 1GB microSD card with DRM-free digital files on it. This format is backed by some of the major record labels such as EMI, Sony BMG, Universal, and Warner. To go along with this new format SanDisk has introduced the slotMusic player. This memory-less and screen-less player relies solely on microSD for music playback. The idea is that non-tech savvy users will be able to swap out their purchased slot music albums. I don’t believe that slotMusic will revolutionize the music industry, but may do well in certain niche markets. Aside from the new music format, the player itself is an interesting story."

Given that there are similar flash based MP3 players with 1 GB of storage for around the same price, the market seems pretty limited. This looks more like an MP3 player designed for people without a computer. But if you are into hacking hardware, check out the article. From the hardware side, it actually looks pretty well made so there might be some interesting DIY projects based on this in the future.

"SanDisk on Wednesday unveiled the Sansa slotMusic Player, its new MP3 player for listening to music on the go. According to the company, the plug & play, portable music player was specially designed for use with the new slotMusic cards available today in the United States. The company rolled out both a Sansa-branded player and new personalized, branded slotMusic players for popular artists such as Robin Thicke and ABBA -- both of which are shipping to U.S. stores today, including Best Buy and Wal-Mart and are expected to be available from retailers in Europe and other regions of the world in 2009."

Well, it looks like slotMusic wasn't just empty industry hype - we posted on it back in September, but I wasn't sure if this was really going to happen or if it was one of those "let's make this public and watch the reaction" scenarios. SanDisk has released the Sansa slotMusic player, and it will sell for a mere $19.99. For that price, you get the Sansa slotMusic Player, slotMusic player shell, earbuds, an AAA Battery, and a Quick Start Guide. That's right, SanDisk is pulling us back into the world of disposable batteries - a very curious move considering the "Go Green" mantra that many people are now chanting. They even tout this as a feature, stating "Free yourself from the hassle of charging". The single AAA battery will apparently give you 15 hours of playback, which is impressive, but who wants to have the hassle of manging a collection of rechargeable AAA batteries? File support for the player is MP3, OGG, FLAC, WMA without DRM.

I'm more positive about slotMusic as a whole than I am this SanDisk player. Do people really want a cheap, low-end player like this? Is listening to your new album on slotMusic worth buying a special player just to do so? I kind of doubt it, but I guess we'll see. What's your take on this new player from SanDisk?

"For most of recorded music's life, delivery was tied to a physical medium of some sort. Physical formats included the vinyl record, cassette tape and the CD many of us still use today. With the advent of the digital age and digital music, the physical medium for music is a dying breed. The lack of interest in physical media for music has led to sharp declines in profits for music publishers. Most every music publisher sells digital tracks today, but the profit margins on digital music are much slimmer than what music companies see on CDs and other physical mediums."

This is one of the very rare posts that belong on all four Thoughts Media sites, but it's applicable to everyone because it involves music. Looking at the companies involved (Universal, Sony BMG, Warner, EMI) it's easy to see that this is a major initiative. The question is, will it succeed? I think it has a very slim chance of success if they execute the launch flawlessly, and hit a few major issues properly: first, price. If this format is any more expensive than CDs are at retail, it will fail. They also have to add value to the format - pictures and videos are a nice way to do that. If I could buy a slotMusic album of a favourite artist and get their last six music videos included, that would create value for me. And if they encode the MP3s at 320 kbps, higher than the major online music stores, that also creates some value - although only for the people that actually know what the term "bit rate" actually means. Read more...