Tower Records debuts digital download service

Although there are already numerous options on the market for filling up your non-iPod DAP with digital content, Tower Records has managed to find what it thinks is an untapped niche of music aficionados who are looking for both better sound quality and more variety than current solutions are offering. Enter Tower.com/Digital, a Puretracks-powered service going live today that company executives say will leverage the experience and industry connections of the nationwide retail chain to give music fans access to a "broad and deep catalog" with tunes not available from other sites -- even if the other sites offer more total tracks than Tower's 1.2 million. Plus, the WMA-formatted downloads are said to be encoded at a higher bit rate than songs from competing services, and can be burned to disc for playing on "many existing CD players." Despite their supposedly higher sound quality, Tower.com/Digital (they've got to rethink that name) tracks will still sell for the usual 99 cents, with whole albums also adhering to generally-accepted pricing and going for $9.99.

[Via Cnet]

[Andrew @ Jun 26th 2006 3:09PM]

Another player enters the market to play with about 20% of the market, how could this be profitable for them?

[three60 @ Jun 26th 2006 3:38PM]

*Yawn*

Andrew, agree with you. I give it less than 8 months before they realize the offering isn't competitive nor wanted. Why would anyone want to offer music in a format that you cannot play on an iPod, which has like over 80% of the MP3 player market?

[wtf @ Jun 26th 2006 5:11PM]

their site is absolutely pathetic. searching by artist is a complete waste of time. It wasn't even in alphabetical order.

[wtf indeed @ Jun 26th 2006 5:41PM]

um, yeah, they should've done more testing or something. The search doesn't work if you hit the enter key, trying to preview tracks is non-existent!

[idude135 @ Jun 26th 2006 8:44PM]

The iPod, phenomenom, unlike the Walkman is capitalizing on a proprietary content source, built-in to the UI. I think iTunes needs to address the AAC bitrate quality issue.

However, I think the very essence of Tower's success is the nostalgic holding on by its customer base, who still see in CDs and vinyls, the true source for quality music.

I don't think the conversion to digital music is going to be fast, given the fallible nature of the computers which archive it. We're really in a point in which we're beginning to scrutinize the real value of all the impulsive buys of singles on iTunes, that I still think Cds have 5-10 more years of life left.

[George Nimeh @ Jun 26th 2006 10:52PM]

"We apologize, but digital.towerrecords.com is only available to USA residents."

Global medium.
Local strategy.
File under: tragic.

[Stanley Shih @ Jun 27th 2006 8:10PM]

This would have been a great idea in 2001.
With apologies to Mr. Nimeh,
File under: Too little, Too late.

[Laurie @ Aug 12th 2006 7:52AM]

I think Tower igital will do well. There are other competitors to Apple's IpOd that are better priced. Tower has a new deal with one company in particular(Klegg Electronics) and will be showcasing their Klegg Mini's any day now. The mini's are under 100 dollars and the sound quality is fantastic. One gripe I have with my IPOD and ITUNES is the quality of the music download, if I turn it up high I can hear a tinny sound from percussions in my left ear piece only. It's gotten to where it annoys me. I don't get this from Tower's download site, the quality is much better. ITUNES is th Microsoft of the download industry now, but in time other competitors offering higher quality sound such as Tower will move in on the monopoly.