My ace has joined the recent crowd of iTunes wa a-be's. My ace a ounced Friday that before the end of 2006 it will give u igned, independent bands a place to sell their music. Musicia will be able to sell tunes on their own My ace pages and on fan pages. And here's the best news--the MP3's sold at My ace will not be shackled by DRM and will work on the iPod and other music players. Prices will be set by the individual bands, who will pay a "small" distribution fee to My ace.My ace co-founder Chris DeWolfe told Reuters: "The goal is to be one of the biggest digital music stores out there. Everyone we've oken to definitely wants an alternative to iTunes and the iPod. My ace could be that alternative."
Whether a My ace music store is a real threat to iTunes Music Store is anybody's gue , but I'd say it's unlikely. On the one hand, independent, u igned artists, no matter how good they are, are not direct competition for established musicia who have the backing of the powerful music industry. And iTMS is so entrenched as the place to go for music downloads that it will be hard to u eat.
On the other hand, in its favor, My ace has a huge potential customer base for indie music. It's been ranked as the #1 most visited site on the Web and is wildly popular with tee , who are a great market for undiscovered bands. It will have lots of music to offer from three million independent bands. My ace differs from other iTunes challengers, like Microsoft Zune, and the newly a ounced Samsung music su cription service, because its offerings won't be locked up by DRM, and My ace is not controlled by the recording industry (although it is backed by powerful parent company News Corporation).
Should A le be watching its back? What do you think?
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