RSSWal-Mart Offers Custom Music CDs
By Ed Oswald | Published April 26, 2005, 12:31 PM
Wal-Mart on Tuesday launched a new service exclusively through its Web site that will allow users to create their own custom CDs from the company's 500,000 song library. Customers will also be able to select their own packaging options to personalize the purchase.
The base price is $4.62 and includes the CD, packaging and three free songs. Each additional song will cost 88 cents, which is what Wal-Mart currently charges its music downloads. A maximum of 20 songs is allowed on one CD, meaning the most a custom CD from the service would cost is $19.58.
"We recognize music is not only important, but incredibly personal to our customers," Kevin Swint of Walmart.com said in a statement. "Our new online custom CD service delivers a convenient entertainment solution for customers to easily experience and enjoy music in a personalized format."
Finished CDs will be shipped to the customer's home. Wal-Mart's standard online shipping rates will apply.
While custom music CD services have been around for years, Wal-Mart is the first to do it on a wide scale and with popular commercial music. With the advent of peer-to-peer file sharing, users have become more apt to download or buy individual tracks rather than entire albums.
A service like Wal-Mart's gives a user the opportunity to create their own albums with only music they already know they like, a common complaint about buying music CDs.
First, I would have to buy from Walmart, which means I get only the Walmart edited versions of CDs. Second, I can buy a CD with 13 songs that I want from Rhapsody for 11.44 (vs. 13.42), label it myself (or just put it on my music player) and own it then and there (not wait for snail-mail delivery). I just don't see the up-side here.
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|Talk about new fashion. Get rid of cd players and their moving parts altogether.
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|Finally a business that thinks about what the consumer wants, and not how to suck up old fashion profit. As technology evolves, so should business models.
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|They just suck up new fashion profit. :)
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|One of the problem with burning your own CDs is the labelling. InkJet Labelled CDs have a pathetic lifespan and shouldn't be used at all. If they'll print your name and photos on your CD cover, I'd consider paying a little for that.
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|Pathetic lifespan? Can you elaborate?
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|Depends on how you label it. I print directly on printable CDs and they look and act just like store-bought.
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|...this sounds like a good idea to me Wal-Mart.
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|Will they be copy protected?
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|Kinda hard if they are burned CD's--most copy protection relies on the fact that players can read "weak sectors" on pressed CD's but not on burned ones. Weak sectors cannot be burned on a CD-R or CD-RW (some recorders can come close enough to appear to work) so no, little if any copy protection.
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|What not just go ahead and burn them to flash or to your usb dongle... Am I mistaken or wasn't there another large retailer - I am thinking Target - that tried this very business model (cd's not flash) - and failed?
I think that Wal-Mart is trying to cut their pricepoints from $12ish/cd down to $nish/song and thereby increase overall volume... Wouldn't it just be as beneficial for them to allow a bring your own media and save a buck?
Hal (http://hal.lco.net)
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|Someone here know what format they use? If they're not using a lossless encoding process from the get-go, they are efectively downgrading wuality twice before it even reaches you (the original encoding, and then re-encoding to audioCD format).
I haven't used Wal-Marts service, so can't comment first-hand on quality, but it seems you'd end up paying for 3rd-rate quality. Even worse if you intend to rip the audio CD once you recieve it, thus downgrading the quality once again.
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