Where is the Amazon mp3 Music Download Service?

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal article really caught my eye. The article, "Music ServiceFrom AmazonTakes On iTunes" covered the hype over the iTunes killer announced by Amazon this week. There were rumblings that Jeff Bezos was courting the music industry several months ago, trying to piece together this ultimate business model - selling digital content that millions of iPod users could use - mp3 music downloads. mp3's are the perfect product - no inventory, immediate revenue, easy fulfillment, unlimited stock of each product, small file sizes which translate to fast downloads and a great user experience.

Hype can be hype, so I tried to see for myself if Amazon really has a chance over Apple's iTunes.com, but I couldn't find it at all.

Where is Amazon's mp3 Music Download Service you ask? The answer: they "PLAN" to do it, it's not available yet! That's now "news," that's the future! What about now? today?

Here's some things that are relevant to you TODAY:

• Amazon "announced it" not "opened the store to the public": Every song and album in the Amazon.com digital music store will eventually be available exclusively in the MP3 format without digital rights management (DRM) software. But NO date is set for this service. It's a PLANNED service, not a reality yet!

• Amazon.com Does Offers Free Music Downloads TODAY: Don't be fooled by the limited offerings on the "Free Music Downloads" page. USE THE SEARCH FEATURE to find music tracks you can download. TIP: search for category of music (jazz, christian, rock, etc) or artist or keywords (like instruments, genre, etc).

• As the WSJ states, just like Amazon's announced service, "eMusic sells only MP3s that are almost universally playable" which means any iPod and all other mp3 players. By the way, eMusic has the largest number of subscribers for it's type of online music service.




• The Wall Street Journal also pointed out that "eMusic. . .can work out to as little as 25 cents a song". If you want to save as much as 75% off Apple's prices for mp3 songs with less restrictions than iTunes yet can still be used with iPods, try eMusic.
  
  
• eMusic gives you free credits for your choice of 25 free mp3 songs to download immediately.

• And I previously revealed the secret to getting the 60% off iTunes rate ($0.40/song price) at eMusic.

Just like the old commercial shouting the urgency, "I want my MTV!". I want my MP3...TODAY, not next year.