Amazon's new music 'stores': What, no Blasters?
November 18, 2008

Proving once again that you don't pay rent for more cyberspace, Amazon.com is trying to boost music sales heading into the holiday season by launching what it says are 100,000 music "stores" dedicated to particular musical artists.

The Internet giant yesterday started promoting the new section by trumpeting (sorry) features such as pre-sales of a new EP in the Coldplay store, a photo gallery/retrospective in the Bob Dylan store and -- brace yourselves -- a drawing to win tickets to an Il Divo concert in London in that group's section.

U.S. music sales have lagged as millions of consumers have switched over to buying single digital recordings from services such as Apple's iTunes instead of purchasing entire albums. Amazon, which doesn't break out music sales, has seen the growth rate of its media division, which includes music, books and movies, lag that of general merchandise and electronics.

The company in September made a similar move by creating separate "pages" dedicated to about 500 television series as part of an effort to highlight the new Amazon Video On Demand streaming service the company launched to all customers earlier that month.

As for the new music stores, there are certain notables missing from the 100,000 listed, as much as that number would appear to cover everyone imaginable. For instance, there is a Bow Wow section but no Bow Wow Wow; Moby but no Moby Grape; and, stunningly, yes on David Hasselhoff, but no on David Cassidy.

Or Shaun, for that matter.

Posted by Danny King on November 18, 2008 | Comments (0)