... or a complete rip off with no real value at all?
That is the question that is posed with the launch of the "revolutionary new way to buy music" Please welcome..... Datz.com
Revolutionary??? Really is it going to deliver me key recommendations? Work out my music taste - however eclectic
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, and deliver me a new and exciting mix of old classics and the hottest new "unsigned" bands??
No sadly not??
This, for those that don't know or haven't heard about it is the pay £99.99 per year and lets you download as many tracks as you want from a choice of millions. Sounds good, but how, where, why...?
Here is the main hitch "Please note — in order to run Datz Music Lounge software you must have the secure USB dongle that is supplied in the retail pack. If you have lost this dongle or need a replacement please contact us..." I mean WTF???? It hails itself as a DRM free environment and can sync to your iPod - but is also not yet compatible with Macs.
But hold on a second - looking for a specific album we come across the traditional WMA DRM files - and upon checking the format information we see that the old DRM rules still apply with conviction (you will comply, you will only transfer 5 time, you must register up to 5 devices, no more or you will be taken to court and jailed for 20 years!!)
The UI and experience is not designed to set the world on fire - and a severe lack of any additional rich metadata or actually any other content at all. Less is obviously more!!
The business model and plan is that Datz.com allows the user unlimited access and as a subscriber get to download MP3s of any song on the site. There are no restrictions, no protections or so they say - however as just highlighted I've seen a few. You get to keep everything you download - so this is not the old traditional subscription / rental service that the DRM expires each month.
So in essence what else does it do... well not a lot really to be honest - you can have a look if you really know what you're after for tracks, albums and artists via the search box - and then you have the hassle of downloading one track at a time. The catalogue cannot be viewed, browsed or grouped - in context quite messy really - which will of course scare you average Sainsbury customer (that are selling the USB dongles) If you then move in to the uber sounding "Datz Music Lounge" here you may uncover or surface exactly what you are looking for - but this area really is for the hearty and less time conscious - rather than type, search, see , buy and download...
So far Datz trumps almost 1.5million tracks - roughly the same amount of tracks that iTunes, Napster, Virgin & HMV had back in 2005. The site has a lot of the traditional POP tracks - but only a selected few - more deeper catalogue (here we go in the "perceived value" or not of the long tail again!!) which means that in the end the site is not really aimed at the mass mark later adopter - but the very same digital music freaks that for them a one-year subscription would indeed be well worth the £99 in probably 2 days of downloading - and when the year is up - will no doubt have cleared the catalogue of all perceived value to them - and in turn that business model has just in one simple business model reinforced that in fact the music industry still has no idea on how to fluctuate and embrace their own long tail!