Amazon.com launched Amazon MP3 yesterday to very little fan-fare. As another contender to Apple's iTunes, it does appear to have some interesting points.
All songs are in MP3 format and can play on just about any portable music device on the market including the iPod. All music is encoded at 256Kb and sells for as little as 89 cents per song. There is no DRM protection and songs can be burned to CD or copied without restrictions.
Amazon's service runs its own program to download songs and place them in iTunes or WMP if they're on your computer.
So is this service a true contender for Apple's iTunes? Not really. Not yet. There are only 2 million songs available versus iTunes' 6 million. In addition, Universal Music, the only company mentioned that's selling their music without DRM protection, reserves the right to discontinue selling music on Amazon MP3 if they see no advantage to selling music without DRM. That can happen as early as January 2008 and would devastate the Amazon MP3 online catalog.
If anything, this may help Apple sell more iPods, or at least make them more attractive. The iPod has the best user interface of any portable music device on the market. There's no disputing that.
Providing consumers with higher quality music at the same or even a lower price will help sell more portable devices. Apple sells more of these than anyone else due to the quality and ease of use. I've never met anyone that hated their iPod.
So keep buying music. Try Amazon MP3 if you're curious. I suggest Foo Fighter's Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace. I just downloaded it from iTunes today and I can't wait to listen to it on one of my Apple iPods.
Erik