Institute For The Future

slotMusic Pre-Loaded SD Cards: The New 8-Track

 

A friend sent me this today: slotMusic.

 

Pluses: DRM-free, apparently, and they bundle it with a USB "sleeve" to ensure "seamless interoperability with all computers."

 

Minuses: You might think, "At least they're trying," but how many people do you know with MP3 players that take SD cards, one of their big "selling points?" iPods certainly don't, so you'll still need to pass the music through a computer to get it on an iPod. This is many, many years late, and at $14.99 costs as much as a CD with no real bonuses. Furthermore, do we really need to make more pieces of plastic when so many people have become accustomed to iTunes and other downloading services? Another selling point seems to be that you don't have to be near an Internet connection to download the music. But the same is true of a CD.

 

I also have some questions. Can you drag the files off of the SD card and onto your machine? Can you share it with friends to then drag the same files onto their machines? Does this make sharing new music slightly easier than lending someone a CD to burn?

 

This just really seems weird to me. It's like the 8-track of 2008.