James Delahunty
7 Feb 2005 7:54
MSN music is countering Apple's iTunes service's Pepsi promotion by offering MSN music customers a free song in the run up to the Grammy Awards. Apple and Pepsi currently have a free track promotion for anyone who gets a winning Pepsi bottle cap, which they hope will lead to more than 200 million track give-aways. The major difference however is that iTunes will allow you to select whatever song you want for free when you have a winning cap, whereas the free MSN music will be picked by the MSN music team.
"This is also an excellent opportunity for people to discover songs they might not have tried before - so pop fans can check out an outstanding country song, or rock fans can discover some of the year's best hip-hop," Rob Bennett, senior director of MSN Entertainment said. The picks will come from the following categories: Feb. 8, Best Male Pop Vocal Performance/Best Female Pop Vocal Performance; Feb. 9, Best Rock Song; Feb. 10, Best Rap Song; Feb. 11, Best R&B Song; and Feb. 12, Best Country Song.
Somehow, the Apple iTunes/Pepsi promotion sounds a bit better to me. It seems like MSN music is hoping to pick songs to feed to their customers hoping they will like the artist they hear and go purchase more from the music store. However, they would probably pick the artists best work so I can imagine a lot of MSN music customers being disappointed after purchasing extra. Still though, it's nice to see competition is still rampant in the online legal music download market.
Source:
BetaNews