Amazon Muscles In On Music

Amazon.com just announced that its opened its own MP3 Music Shop and its currently offering affiliates a whopping 20% commission on music sales.

I haven’t bought music for years (mainly because the music I listen to is from the 80s and 90s and I have all the albums) and I don’t even know anyone who buys music on a regular basis. (yeah, I’m getting old). But if you’re one of those people who buy music online, Amazon’s store looks pretty good. Most of the songs are $0.89 so you’re saving $0.10 per song. Maybe $0.10 doesn’t sound like much (and it isn’t) but it still represents a 10% saving off iTunes!

It doesn’t match Walmart.com’s $0.88, but Walmart won’t let users running any OS apart from Windows XP/Vista download music off their site. Amazon atleast lets everyone (including Mac and Linux users) buy and download music. I bought a “free” song on Linux, so I know it works. [Check out The Apples In Stereo: Energy].

They have a pretty wide collection, especially for new music. But while you can buy older albums like Bon Jovi’s ‘Slippery When Wet’ for only $5.99, Def Leppard’s album are totally missing. Atleast they have all of Pink Floyd!