“Slot Off” slotMusic Music Cards

The innovation in the music industry, because of digital and mobile technology is incredible, and from a musician’s stand point, extremely inspiring.

It is sad, depressing, and almost even insulting when a company takes a dieing business model, repackages it under a different name, and tries to shove it back down our throats again.  We just spent the last ten years trying to do away with the old business model in the music industry, and SlotMusic is trying to tell us that we’ve come nowhere in that time. 

Unless SlotMusic somehow has access to data and market research the rest of us don’t, where did they possibly get the idea that selling albums on microSD cards would go over any better than the failing CD industry? Maybe they didn’t get the memo?  Maybe they’ve been living under a rock for the last 5 years?  This company frustrates and infuriates me on so many levels, because they are doing something that is actually the exact opposite of growth, innovation, development, and evolution. 

Here they were at a Mobile Focus, handing out their special SlotMusic Players, their booth cleverly positioned by the open bar, and yet so irrelevant and almost embarrassing!  I glanced around for a back door that may have been left open.  The only logical answer I could come up with was that they must have snuck in when everyone was focused on the new tray of cupcakes being brought out.

Get these guys out of here.  SlotMusic comes to us from the folks at SanDisk.  I have a SanDisk memory card in my digital camera.  It has served me well. I’ve never needed to purchase another one, and I don’t carry other cards around with me, I simply fill up the card I have, and then delete the images off of it once I have uploaded them to my computer.  Its simple and effective, and probably what SanDisk should stick to. 

How did they ever arrive at the conclusion that people would want to carry multiple microSD cards around with them, be constantly changing them in and out of their mobile phones, have access to only an album’s worth of songs, have no access to additional content, would have no ability to update or interact with the service, and then assume people would NOT find this a huge inconvenience? 

The card is tiny, and could be easily misplaced, especially when dealing with multiple cards.  I have over 500 CDs at home from the days when I still bought them.  Do I want 500 microSD cards now too? I thought we had moved past this…

They give you a tiny case to keep your card in for a specific album, but who wants to carry around a bunch of plastic cases? They offer DRM free music (probably the only aspect of their entire platform I could possibly agree with), so you can upload the music to your computer, transfer it to your mp3 player, or listen to it on your phone.  If that’s the selling point though, what do we need the physical product for then?  If it ends up digital in the end anyway, let me get it through digital means.  Don’t dress it up, and put it in a CD case, and throw it up on the shelves at Walmart and Best Buy.  That market is dying and they want to sell something to compete within a dying market? How ambitious…

The only albums they have available are from major label artists. I was literally laughed at when I asked if SlotMusic had any plans to work with Independent artists, or if they would consider it in the future.  “Why are you trying to get us to do a deal with you…hahahahaha”   Laugh it up SlotMusic!  Guess who else is laughing? – Pandora, Tunecore, CDBaby, and hundreds of other companies who are more than happy to work with independent artists.  They’re laughing all the way to the bank SlotMusic. 

The old mentality just continued to reveal itself as the SlotMusic representatives tried to explain SlotRadio to me.  “It’s about music discovery.” 

“Great!” I thought.  Discovering new artists is an excellent way to promote independent and/or newly released music, and create an interactive experience for fans.   NOPE! They missed the memo on this one too!

With SlotRadio, you must purchase their specific player, and it comes preloaded with 1000 songs organized by genre. You don’t get to pick what songs, you don’t get to pick if you would like more of a specific genre, and you don’t get to control your listening! You can only move forward on the player, not back.  If you listened to a song and 3 songs later you would really like to hear it again, TOO BAD! You have to go all the way through that genre’s playlist before you get to hear that song again.  You would have to manually skip through the entire list of songs in that genre!  But that’s not even the kicker!  The worst part of it all is that they are saying the idea of the format is for “music discovery”.  Guess what all the music preloaded onto your player is?  Billboard Top 100 listed music from the four remaining major record labels.

How in the world is listening to artists on major labels, who made it into the Top Chart positions sometime in the last twenty years, considered music “discovery”.  Give me a break. 

Pandora is music discovery.  Slacker is innovation.  Music is free and accessible on your smart phone without any $10 cards needing to be purchased.  Go home to 1992 SlotMusic.  Slacker will even let you take HOURS of a playlist that was formed based on your own musical preferences, and put it on an SD card and take it with you.  And every time you connect to Slacker, you have fresh music to listen to and actually discover, all again based on your preferences, not what Billboard and the major labels decide you should be hearing.

SlotMusic is marketing their microSD card albums in CD sized boxes.  You purchase the card, and the packaging looks just like a CD.  They even include the booklets with the liner notes.  Too bad CD sales are plummeting, and the idea of creating an “album” of music, is in itself even being called into question by some in the industry right now. 

I just truly believe this is a step backwards, not forwards, and this company is ignoring what music listeners and fans are asking for, and trying to go back to the old method of control.  They want to dictate and govern what you hear, and that mentality is dead, and rightfully so. 

So please SlotMusic, before you go spending more money, and creating more waste with your CD sized plastic cases, and infiltrating an already dying market, please just go away.  Your attempts at becoming the next evil dictator over the pure music lover, are not welcome here.