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Traditional music shops go tech
Record stores are facing the music and going high-tech to appeal to younger consumers who are turning to the Internet to buy songs. Several technology and traditional music distributors on unveiled digital kiosks at a trade show for record stores that will enable music fans to preview, purchase, and create
| Consumers have higher expectations and want
a customized product and satisfying retail experience. The kiosk lets
traditional retailers leverage Internet music to expand their product
line while maintaining their current storefront real estate. Fleischman of Liquid Audio |
custom compact discs while shopping
in traditional brick and mortar record stores. “Consumers have higher
expectations and want a customized product and satisfying retail experience,”
said Richard Fleischman, spokesman for software company Liquid Audio (LQID),
which has developed music kiosk software. “This kiosk lets traditional
retailers leverage Internet music to expand their product line while maintaining
their current storefront real estate,” said Fleishman.
Liquid Audio is competing with music distributors Valley Media and Alliance
Entertainment (ATTEQ), who are also tapping into the kiosk market. Valley
Media (VMIX) has teamed up with New Media Network, a provider of digital
music, and expects to roll out prototypes of its media stations in the
summer of 2000.
Chris Bartow, a marketing manager with Valley Media, said the company
services 6,400 retailers, or 40,000 storefronts, which should give it
a leg up in this sector. He said Valley has already signed up 60 independent
labels to the network and is talking with major record labels about providing
content. “Major record companies would be resistant because of piracy
questions,” he said. “But Valley’s a huge customer for
these labels and we expect to move forward in these talks in coming months.”
He noted the venture was committed to following guidelines of the Secure
Digital Music Initiative, a forum of technology and record companies developing
a piracy-safe standard for distributing digital music.
Separately, SDMI said it was seeking proposals for the next phase in developing
its standard. Another major player in the fledgling kiosk market is music
distributor Alliance Entertainment, which recently acquired Digital On-Demand,
which provides content to retail stores through its proprietary RedDot
Network. “There’s a real effort on the part of music retailers
to hang on to their business. They’re afraid they’ll be out
of the picture due to the Internet,” said Dan O’Brien, an analyst
with Forrester Research “The effort to put these kiosks in stores
is a way to have more control over digital distribution, but I don’t
think there’s a natural fit there,” he said.
