In the wake of Apple's success with digital music downloads, hopeful competitors are stumbling over themselves to get a product out that can emulate and, presumably, surpass the iTunes Music Store.
First up to bat is Buy.com's Buymusic.com, which opened its virtual doors this week. The Buymusic.com Web site offers customers a wider selection of music from all the major labels, cheaper prices, and the important ubiquity of Windows support, but it is also almost too visually similar to Apple's offering, raising issues of impropriety. Perhaps more alarming, the music on Buymusic.com is saddled with more restrictions than that offered by Apple.
"[Apple CEO] Steve Jobs is a visionary, but he's on the wrong platform," notes BuyMusic.com founder Scott Blum, referring to the fact that the iTunes Music Store serves less than 1 percent of all computer users, because it requires Mac OS X. BuyMusic.com, meanwhile, reaches almost 98 percent of all computer users, he says.
Naturally, BuyMusic.com isn't the first player in this market, but then the iTunes Music Store wasn't first either; MusicNet, MusicNow, pressplay, and Rhapsody have been plying the digital delivery of music for some time now.
News source: WinInfo
