Roundup: Verizon Pre not coming too soon, the fall of Vidoop, and more
Here’s the latest action:
Verizon won’t be offering the Palm Pre within half a year — Lots of coverage on Techmeme.
“The Fall of Vidoop” – A fascinating, in-depth look at issues inside the secure storage company, as told by former employee and web developer Chris Messina.
Facebook gets SMS – Receive text messages about your friends’ latest status updates (yes, kinda like how Twitter works).
How should Twitter, the company, use Twitter, the service? — ReadWriteWeb explores the idea.
Best Buy… Continue Reading
Best Buy’s new Napster: Five bucks, five downloads per month, won’t stream to iPhone
Here we go again. Napster, the peer-to-peer song sharing system that flooded the Internet with ripped MP3 tunes in 2000, is long gone. But the brand name is back for yet another relaunch as a music service approved and blessed by the major labels. I’ve lost count of the number of Napster relaunches, which says something about the lack of impact by any of them.
Later today, around 5 pm Pacific time, Best Buy will throw… Continue Reading
Best Buy breaking into movie downloads?
Anyone who has stepped into a Best Buy retail store has seen its rows and rows of DVDs. But as the physical media market starts to wane, Best Buy is setting its sights on a new frontier — digital downloads. Sources close to the studios say the electronics retailer is preparing to launch a movie download service as early as this summer, reports Variety.
Details are still sketchy, but Variety’s sources say Best Buy will probably… Continue Reading
The mad rush into used games
Amazon.com launched a used game sales service today where gamers can trade in used games for store credit. Toys ‘R Us is also starting to test sales of used games in its stores. And so is Best Buy.
The Amazon news prompted a 14 percent drop in GameStop’s stock price today, falling $3.84 a share to $23.46. That’s because GameStop gets about 25 percent of its sales from used games. The practice draws the ire of… Continue Reading
The next Microsoft and Apple battleground: retail
This is set up almost too perfectly. We’re in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, retail sales are plummeting, consumer spending is way down and so what does Microsoft decide to do? Open retail stores. Insert two paragraphs of punch-line here.
But I’m going to surprise you here and go the other way. I think this is actually a smart move by Microsoft — in theory, at least.
Now’s the time to… Continue Reading
Wal-Mart confirms iPhone 3G for Sunday, $2 off
No real surprise here, but Wal-Mart has finally confirmed that it will, in fact, be selling Apple’s iPhone starting this Sunday. The retail chain plans to have the 8 gigabyte model available for $197 and the 16 gigabyte model for $297 — yes, a full $2 off what the device normally costs through Apple and AT&T.
My favorite part of the Reuters story is the following:
Numerous websites had previously speculated that Apple would offer a 4-gigabyte… Continue Reading
Best Buy buys Napster in part for its “excellent” mobile capabilities?
Consumer electronics retail giant Best Buy purchased Napster, the digital music distribution company, for $121 million in cash today. (Though the deal will actually only cost $54 million net when you take out Napster’s cash and investments.) The obvious reaction is: Why?
The $54 million price tag for a service that is perhaps still best remembered as the one-time largest hot zone for music piracy seems a bit high. The problem is that while Napster may… Continue Reading
Is Hollywood forming DECE to wage a digital content war against Apple?
Digital rights management (DRM), for better or worse, is still the cornerstone of digital content. But the name has such a negative connotation now that major players in the entertainment and electronics industry appear to be trying to change it.
According to Reuters, some of the Hollywood studios are working on a consortium with various retailers, service providers, and consumer electronics/information technology companies that’s set to be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January… Continue Reading
Have a Best Buy gift card laying around? Wait a few weeks and buy an iPhone
The iPhone is about to become much more ubiquitous on the U.S. retail sales scene. Best Buy, the nation’s largest electronics retailer, is set to announce that it will begin selling the device next month, according to AppleInsider and confirmed by MacNN. This marks the first retailer outside of AT&T stores and Apple’s own stores that will sell the device.
Best Buy’s 970 stores across the U.S. (and 16 Best Buy Mobile specialty outlets) will stock… Continue Reading
Amid the coronation of iTunes as digital music king, the sound of war
The trend has been clear for a while: Digital music is the future of the industry. Now we have the data to prove it. Apple’s iTunes music store has surpassed Wal-Mart to become the number 1 retailer of music in the United States.
Okay, so a digital store is the top seller of music in the United States, now what? War.
As was reported yesterday, MySpace is entering the fray with MySpace Music (our coverage). Amazon, already… Continue Reading