The idea of a digital music kiosk, where customers can walk up, press a few buttons on a screen, and download music to some sort of portable storage medium (disc, phone, flash card), has been around for a few years now. Starbucks ended a two-year experiment with in-store CD burners back in 2006, and U.K. music retailer HMV began offering free downloads to USB drives from in-store kiosks in 2007.
Even if the trend hasn't exactly taken off, companies continue to try them out. Earlier this week, Seattle-based start-up MOD Systems entered the fray, announcing that it had signed deals with all four major labels, allowing it to package more than 5 million DRM-free songs for digital distribution via in-store kiosks.
There's a bit of irony in the announcement, as MOD co-founder Anthony Bay used to lead Microsoft's Windows Media Division, whose business model relied heavily on DRM (digital rights management). Microsoft hoped to convince content owners that it had a robust DRM system so they'd use Windows Media technologies to encode and host their content. But that was almost 10 years ago, and now that the recording industry has come around to the idea of selling DRM-free tracks on iTunes, Amazon, and countless other online stores, there's no reason to restrict retail kiosks from doing the same.
So is there any future for digital music kiosks? It's hard to imagine shopping at a digital-only record store when it's so much easier to buy MP3s over the Web on my home computer--which is where I store them anyway--or over the air from a phone or wireless-connected player. But kiosks might find a place in multipurpose retailers and big-box stores, where they'd take up a lot less space than the CD racks currently in place, or in other places with lots of foot traffic--hotel lobbies, malls, university campuses, and so on. I can even imagine a jukebox that not only lets you play songs, but also lets you download them to a flash drive--great for those late-night impulse buys.
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Yesterday's New York Times story about Starbucks losing credibility among music fans has attracted a lot of commentary. The gist of the story: Starbucks went too mainstream by stocking artists like Alicia Keys and James Blunt, so its customers figure they might as well shop at Wal-Mart, which stocks the same CDs at lower prices. The record industry, which once looked to Starbucks as a potential savior, is having second thoughts.
The best music I ever heard from Starbucks was a compilation of the Rolling Stones' favorite songs.
(Credit: Amazon.com)Why is anybody surprised? Look at their history in the coffee business. Espresso used to be a niche product that was hard to produce properly and varied widely in quality. Starbucks' great triumph was turning it into a assembly line product (push-button espresso machines!) with much better margins (sugar and milk!), then packaging it in a non-threatening imitation of cafe culture. The ambience in Starbucks has always been carefully calculated to soothe and comfort rather than challenge or provoke. And I have it on good authority that one big key to their success was getting Pepsi to distribute their bottled coffee drinks to convenience stores nationwide. It was only a matter of time before their music, like their beverages, aimed squarely for the lowest common denominator.
Go to a true Seattle coffee house and you might not feel as comfortable with the black-painted walls and ugly art and urban-weirdo clients. But the coffee will almost certainly be stronger, and you'll probably hear more interesting music as well--personally, I have Seattle baristas to thank for introducing me to '70s soul act MFSB, Seattle dance combo United State of Electronica (yes, "State"), and Yann Tiersen's beautiful soundtrack to the movie Amelie. The best music I ever heard from Starbucks was a compilation of the Rolling Stones' favorite songs--a solid set, but nothing too surprising or new.
The Times Online reports that U.K. music retailer HMV is opening the first of a new type of store in Dudley, west of Birmingham. The highlight: in-store kiosks with USB ports that will allow users to download free music and video files to a memory stick, for later transfer to their computer or other device. There are lots of other ambient-futurist touches, like big plasma displays, a mini Apple store, iMacs to play with, and a juice bar. As well as old-fashioned CDs and DVDs for sale.
Combine this idea with the Apple-Starbucks partnership announced on Wednesday, and I think you can get a good idea where music retailing is going. Instead of big open spaces with racks of physical music, clever retailers will create in-store experiences pervaded by, but not dominated by, music. Imagine an Internet cafe with a bar menu, a great sound system, and occasional live music performances. A Wi-Fi network is a must, with a "now playing" feature that lets you buy the currently playing song from an affiliated online music store--you could access the store from your own device or from one of the connected computers in the place. And of course, no DRM or proprietary formats, so the technology stays in the background where it belongs.
This sounds more appealing to me than a lot of other alternatives, like online music services where you have to listen to an ad before each song. I'd rather nurse a beer or two for the privilege of grabbing my music for free.
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