Amazon Music Store

[BarTopDancer]

And so it begins.

This is a mixed blessing for Apple. It has benefited from the closed system, forcing every iPod buyer to buy music through iTunes. But it still has an advantage in that most every iPod user installs iTunes, which has Apple’s music store built in. Now Apple does have to compete in the market, so if an album is cheaper on Amazon, people may well flip over and buy it there.

Apple is generally charging $1.29 for its MP3 files, in an attempt to differentiate them from its 99-cent restricted files. Amazon, however, will charge 89 cents and 99 cents for most songs, and it will offer albums at significant discounts. Indeed, to test this out, I purchased an MP3 download of a Philip Glass album for $6.93 from Amazon. It would have cost $11.99 to download from iTunes in Apple’s DRM format and $18.99 to buy as a CD from Amazon. Moreover, Amazon’s software put the music right in my iTunes folder, so there was almost no convenience sacrifice.

I see this as the first true competition to the iTunes Music Store. Sure, you could lease music from Napster, Rhaposdy or that new frog something-or-other but besides it being tied to the monthly $ervice, it was a PITA to get it on your iPod.

It will be interesting to watch things play out.