On my way back from PCC, I heard some guys on my local NPR station talking about Weed, a new online music retailer, and they made the direct comparison to iTunes. Figured I would check it out.
Weed – Download Weed V2.0 Now:
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Windows PC, running Windows 98, or more recent platform. Or Macintosh with Virtual PC emulator software and Windows.
Well, that’s a buzzkill. iTunes is platform-neutral and has been for quite some time.
And part of their claim for iTunes overthrow was that you can embed a link to a track at their store and sell it on your website, with the implication being that you can’t do that with iTunes Music Store tracks. I’ll concede that you need the (free) iTunes application to get the track, but it’s not quite true that by going through iTMS you’ll end up being waylaid and not getting what you came for. If you were to click on that link, you’d go right to the track I linked to (which is also free this week).
And the fact that the files are not mp3 or mp4 — Windows Media are all I see — doesn’t do much for me.
Now playing: Western Stars by k.d. lang from the album “Shadowland” | Get it
Interestingly, I worked at one time with the President of Shared Music Licensing (the recurring use of the word “weed” made me suspicious, so it was no great surprise to see his name there).