Amazon MP3
September 27, 2007 9:07 AM
Amazon just launched their new Amazon MP3 Store
If you go to this page and download their client (available both for Mac and Windows, woohoo), they’ll also give you a free song to download. I tried this out and I must say it’s very impressive what they’ve done.
Each song seems to be about 89¢, which is 10¢ less than what Apple’s store offers. It’s also encoded in 256kbps DRM-less MP3. iTunes tracks are generally DRM-wrapped 128kbps AAC, but some songs are available for 256kbps DRM-less MP3 for 30¢ more. The Amazon client even added the song I downloaded to my iTunes immediately after it was finished downloading. You can clearly see that Amazon has really pulled out their cards in offering a clearly better deal.
What’s even more exciting to me is how streamlined Amazon is into daily web searches and in some ways, our mind. It’s an extremely trusted source, and most often when you search for some band or album name, you’ll get an Amazon link (akin to IMDB for movie searches). The idea of searching in Google for a band, previewing it quickly on Amazon, then one-click downloading and it’s yours is really attractive.
Overall from my brief experience, I’m really happy with the new service. I’m glad that people (those people) are finally realizing what people want and are finally rolling out reasonable solutions to their own problems (piracy and all that). How Amazon broke a deal this good with the record companies, I have no idea. But if you’ve been looking for a clean, legal but digital way to get your music, the Amazon MP3 Store