Comments on: SanDisk, record labels announce new music format

"SlotMusic," backed by four major music labels, is a record album sold on a compact memory card that can be immediately played on MicroSD-enabled phones.

I have already experienced a similar effort from the British reggae band UB40. I went with the family to a reggae festival concert in upstate New York and they sold a USB bracelet for $20. It included 10 new "dubbed'" tracks, 3 videos and links to various parts of their website. It was quite kool!

[cyberDJ-2038765336053745013836]

Well, it's about time!
Anyone who didn't see this coming is surely naive.
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I agree with all of the previous posts about LOSING this thing.
They should have used jump drives instead. They are fairly large and come with lanyards.

Ditto on the pushing a physical media on a generation that takes databased music catalogs for granted.

[Randys2cents]

While SanDisk is currently promoting the music side of these MicroSD cards,
I think the real point is that these tiny little solid state cards are getting to the
point of really being useful. The new generation of LapTops only have one
power eating motor left, and that is the CD/DVD motor. Would sure love to see
this last motor dumped in favor of solid state.

[svend007]

What a DUMB idea!! This is another last ditch effort of the record companies trying to save their 1950's to 1980's "control the media" business model. This business model is SO OVER!! And to think these CEO's are being paid millions of $$$$. And so nice of them to make a nod to the older generation by including elvis - did they mean the REALLY OLDER generation?? The Beatles would have been more appropriate!

Anyway... the iPod/itunes & p2p business model is here to stay! It can't really be improved upon...
Like an earlier poster said... record company's should put their money into developing great bands like the Eagles/Aerosmith/Queen/Pink Floyd and a million others that spent quality time in recording studio's creating masterpieces. Nowadays, record company's want the artist to walk in the door with a finished master, so they don't have to invest any money in the recording side of the equation... then they push it out their outdated business model and see if they can make their huge percentage.

Record company's... you need to think outside the box, and get back to the music!! Create events for showcasing upcoming talents... create "consumer recording studio's" where young (and old) people can go in create an album or a song... and they can share these with friends and family, and you can review to seek hidden talent??? Put these in all malls around the country.... lol... we need new crazy ideas like this!

Here's another idea. Create a multitrack version of songs, where the user can create their own mixes of popular artists... you want more bass, pump it up... want a drum solo, do it :)... want to do your own backing vocals, go for it! I think this would be FUN!! Artists like NIN and Peter Gabriel have done this from their web sites.

Come on record company's - where's the beef??

[pugster]

This will go away just like Sony tries to promote the PSP's UMD's for movies.

[Brandonius Maximus]

To bad I can't short Sandisk stock right now. . . This is a stupid and guaranteed money-losing idea.

[jypeterson]

Music on Mini SD's? Why??? So you want to listen to your favorite album, remove your micro SD card, pop in the album card and listen. Want to listen to another album, take out the micro SD card, put another one in. All the while, some phones only store PIM info on the micro SD card so you don't have access to your address book.

This whole distribution model is very weak and won't go far. Its too much of a niche format that you can't play on your stereo unless you have an adapter.

Not to mention, these things are so small you can loose them very easily.

[streamOG]

Not to pee on SanDisk's Picnic but this effort will bomb. Consumers can barely get their phones to answer calls and now SanDisk want's them to use their phone to play MP3's?

This coming from the company that lost nearly 20Million on the TakeTV effort with the FanFare store?

It's one thing to recognize that the entire DRM-Free movement is a total failure. It's another to just pile on more expense and wasted effort trying to push the sale of memory cards. From Steve Jobs in the New York Times this past week: ""The iTunes market share is just growing since they started this."

I wish the DM's at Companies like SanDisk would actually recognize the reasons the music industry is failing and address it. Until someone forces Apple to license FairPlay, the entire DRM-Free movement, whether it be OTA downloads, On MiniSD Cards, Free on CD's or any other mode, is DOA.

[roboto-san]

The only reason for a "new format" is to either reduce the cost of the media or improve the sound quality. This does neither. They should have chosen to use wav files with at least CD quality. Better yet, it should have 24 bits / 96kHz and 5.1 channel surround with lossless compression. Something like a DVD-audio but on a memory card. (And I agree that being able to buy one song at a time online is much nicer than buying a whole album of mostly crummy songs.)

[hawkeyeaz1]

Nice idea, but auto fail.

Firstly, most devices do not make the SD Micro slot easily available, and rightly so. Secondly, the slot for the SD Micro card has a limited insert/eject life (admittedly, it is high, but still limited). Thirdly, it is all too easy to lose the cards with that much insert/eject going on as obviously the cards will be read only, so you cannot consolodate the albums into once or two cards, and there will definately be DRM so you cannot copy the files over to your device, or if you can, then selling it in SD Micro is pointless, because then it is just a loading medium just like the good ol USB connection and your favorite tunes store.

[man290663]

Whats New?
this is a Micro SD card with pre-installed Music in MP3 Format?

I use that every day on my Phone!!!

This is an original and newsworthy as 'Tuesday to Follow Monday'

[jimfisheye]

What an incredible rip-off! MP3 audio for the price of a CD?!? And the industry wonders why there's pirating... There's absolutely no excuse for not offering the audio in at least CD quality. Higher res would be even better. This is 2008 after all.

[jennbrooks]

Seems easy to lose. I think it's much easier to just buy the music by plugging in your phone or iPod not by buying a separate plug in device.

[Andrew517]

For those of you unable to click on links, the "SlotMusic" link at the top of the page says that the SanDisk slotMusic provides DRM-free music at up to 320 kbps, which still doesn't even come close to that of a CD (or vinyl), for us few who still care. I think the main concern about quality is how long the disk will maintain its sound quality due to the fact that it is compressed via lossy methods. That said, can it truly be called "physical media" when you simply have a physical chip storing digital music? Nonetheless, the slotMusic will provide the highest standard MP3 bit rate attainable, thereby giving the highest fidelity digital sound without turning to lossless compression, which would be a far less marketable process. The 1 GB card will allow artists to add interesting features in addition to the album itself. Obviously, it would be very long, if ever, before they replaced "true" physical media (i.e. compact discs, CD-ROM, etc.), so I think it's worth the effort to see just what slotMusic will be capable of. And svend007, thank you for spewing your personal musical taste and biased 14 year old angst on an otherwise reasonable message board. Cheers, SanDisk! I anxioiusly await to see whether the slotMusic will truly deliver.

[gtmcg]

this is such a bad idea that i had to write a sarcastic blog about it:

http://snowghostmusic.com/blog/58-stocking-stuffers

[jayxem]

This actually a smart idea.
People just don't understand and needs some tweaks.

For $15 you get a 1Gb MicroSD card with an album on it.
The bit rate on the albums are 256kb.
They are completely 100% DRM Free.

Lets cover some basics here.

You say you'll lose them?
BACK it up on your PC or external! They are DRM Free for a reason.

Digital downloads you say easier?
Yeah almost all of them have DRM and are locked to that device.
Also that means you can't store them anywhere else.
Lets not forget that most of those places rip you off.

What needs to be fixed?
- It'd be nice if they offered multiple albums on them from the artist.
- They up the bit rate on these to at least 320kb
- Since space isn't an issue, start producing 5.1 channels!!! I'm sick and tired of stereo still being alive in 2008. We have 7.1 TrueHD & DTS-MA on Blu-rays!!! For god sakes DVDs support 5.1 audio tracks. When is this stereo generation going to end!!!

[Staifen]

My MicroSD card is pissing me off terribly.
My phone can't format it for some reason, and it freezes whenever I put it into my phone. Any suggestions are extremely helpful.
[e-mail]

thx =)

[goldenchile]

Argh!! I had this exact idea today!! So I checked the web and there it was. Darn. I wonder by how long I was late. Ah well, back to the drawing board.

I see this developing much like the Ipod did. By that I mean with dedicated players with internal memory that you can transfer the music onto instantly. The advantage is of course that you have a physical back up that you can keep. So you can have sleeve art etc. Man! I reckon this could really take off and it would've made me a whole load of wonga.