SanDisk Wants To Get You Back Into Stores To Buy Music

Flash memory card maker SanDisk with four major recording labels have a new proposal to get people back into stores to buy their music. The initiative called SlotMusic sells MicroSD cards loaded with music and CD cover art. The proposed standard puts high bitrate MP3's onto the memory cards with no Digital Rights Management.

With most new cell phones having MP3 playback and MicroSD slots. There may be a new business model here but with very few of the dedicated MP3 Players with MicroSD slots then SanDisk is missing one important device that most turn to play music on.

With online music download stores well entrenched it will be an uphill struggle to get music buyers off their computers and back into stores. While SlotMusic uses no DRM for songs purchased on the cards, many of the music download stores have DRM free music.

The only retailers that have pledged support for SlotMusic are Wal-Mart and Best Buy, which will make any market adoption even more difficult. SlotMusic maybe an interesting idea, only five years too late.