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Technology

Buy Your CDs From Your PCS Phone 130

Posted by Hemos from the interesting-commericial-application dept.
guido_sst writes: "SprintPCS has inked a new deal with *CD to allow its users to buy CDs with their PCS phones. Basically, you hear a song on the radio, dial *CD (*23) on your PCS phone, type in the station's call letter and your credit card number, and viola, you just bought that band's CD. The service is also available for wireless members of the 3Com Palm family. Read more at starcd.com."
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Buy Your CDs From Your PCS Phone More

Buy Your CDs From Your PCS Phone

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  • Maybe in the next 6 months i'll be able to order PCS service through my discman.
  • I am wondering how they will figure out which song you were listening to, when using the service. Most radio stations I know about can not even seem recall their play lists from the past five minutes... then add on the problem of which cd - the single? the album? the muchmusic compilation? the japanesse import? the movie sound track? on top of it all, add in the problems with timing - I meant to get song x, but I was too slow and got song y instead... I really have a hard time seeing how this will work on the old analogue radio.
  • It'd be even cooler, if you didn't need to enter a credit card number. You could just dial the number, and automatically have it put on your PCS phone bill, and have it sent to your mailing address.

    Man this song on the radio is awful...
    ... can I borrow your phone to call a friend...
  • If a tele-fucker calls you up on a cellular line, YOU CAN SUE THEM. If they refuse to pay up, the FCC can fine them, something along the lines of $50k.


    How? It's happened to me, and I'd love to get my pound of flesh out of the bastards.

  • I'd like they put the charges on my cell phone bill directly.

  • I don't get this whole WAP = Wireless internet hype. It's a phone. It's got a tiny screen, it is hell to navigate, and it is SLOW. For less money than the typical WAP junky pays every month, I have wireless and mobile (up to 70 mph!) 128kbps TCP/IP connection via Ricochet.

    WAP and the things it makes possile may be a cool service, but I'd rather download the .mp3s and preview the entire disc wirelessly before buying it.

    I use a Ricochet 128kbps wireless modem [rirochet.com] to connect to Napster and download music. I just pulled down an 8MB file in a few minutes, wirelessly, listened to it, and decided that the album wasn't for me.

    Go ahead and use this impulse-buying tool if you want, but Ricochet is a lot more useful for those of us who don't wish to spend money indiscriminately every time the record companies say boo.

  • Wow. I'm impressed.

    It used to be that the big music companies got all the radio time. Now they get to have direct sales from their radio times. A better example of corporations being able to contrl the opinions of the populace, I have not heard.

    This means that the corporations get to pick what sheeple like, while those of use that are self-thinking MUST relly on shoutcast or other similar non-mainstream systems to be able to pick music on our own. [shoutcast.com]

    Let's just say this is one system I won't be using.

    t14m4t

  • This has been around for european ppl with wap-access for quite some time now. It's called WeeZap, or something (created by FramFab), and does pretty much the same, only better. Once the next step of GSM is made avalible (no, not UTMS but GPRS) this will be a much smother, and cheaper, sollution.

  • FINALLY! (Score:3)

    by DoorFrame ( 22108 ) on Friday November 10, 2000 @08:42AM (#631291) Homepage
    A non-embarassing way to order "Who let the dogs out" without haveing to know the name of the band or the name of the album.

    Jackpot.
  • But aren't bots banned on Napster? :-)
  • I tried it out last Tuesday. I ordered (I thought) Al Gore's "Macarena", but somehow got a Pat Buchanan single of "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" instead.
  • This has been around for european ppl with wap-access for quite some time now. It's called WeeZap, or something (created by FramFab), and does pretty much the same, only better.

    I guess Europe is indeed better than America.

    Sorry about all the socialism hig price of gas trolls.

  • And what do you want to bet that their database is chock full of Backstreet/Nsync/Britney-alikes and won't have anything that the local college station plays?

  • Yeah it sounds great and all, but what if you press the final "Buy" button a second too late?

    I have a feeling that you'll see a 10,000% increase in the sales of the new "Annoying Local Car Dealership Radio Ads Volume 3" cd...

    (yes, it's sarcasm, no need to point out that it probably reads the title back to you first, smartguy!)

  • They should build it for video (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I could see a lot of impulse britney spears buying...
  • Ebay.
    Amazon.
    AIM.

    And thats just the beginning, now that I can punch in a stations call letters, (like i'm going to remember what they are) and order a CD, my bill is going to get quite a bit bigger, just the fact that you can be on I-20 and AIM at the same time is disturbing.

  • Oh God (Score:3)

    by BluedemonX ( 198949 ) on Friday November 10, 2000 @11:14AM (#631299)
    Another impending sign of the Apocalypse... Britney Spears CDs on speed dial....

    Part of me wishes to be abducted by aliens and taken off this godforsaken rock of a planet... then I remember that 99.9% of the time they get their abductees from places like Pig Jowl, Arkansas.
  • i'm buying 'can' on my phone! oh shit i just bought air supply!
  • I hope they don't make it too easy to order.

    Imagine sitting in a meeting, when your phone starts playing a Brittney Spears song, and in your frantic attempts to make it stop, you accidentally order 10 copies...

    I'm pretty sure that's a scene from Dante's Inferno...

  • Yeah, right (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You try to punch in all that while driving, and you're going to crash your car. Maybe your friends will slip the new CD into your coffin.
  • Corporate America has been trying for ages this experiment where they see just how far they can push you before you snap. Are our jobs any different?

    Whether you are working for the company, or you are 'consuming' their products, you are simply a part of the grand experiment. "How much can we fuck with them before they just completely lose it?" seems to be the most important question in the business world today. Sometimes they are unlucky and someone does lose it (the government, i.e. post offices, seems to be the worst at this), but it is suprising just how good businesses are getting at walking that thin line between sanity and insanity. Of course, a lot of that can be attributed to the fact that the businesses in question make the laws in this country (let's face it, 'the people' haven't been in charge for a long, long time) and can adjust what 'seems' to be proper behavior over time. Sad, but true.


    Slow moving marsupials and the women that love them

  • Impulse Buying (Score:3)

    by jjr ( 6873 ) on Friday November 10, 2000 @08:27AM (#631304) Homepage
    This is made for impulse buyers. I can some ex-girlfriends of mine using this service. "I loooove that song let me order the CD"

  • What *I* want is a way to buy a cell phone by using my CD player.

    I'm wondering how long it takes to see our car stero come with a button marked BUY, so when you hear a song you like, it will do it auto-magically. (I would say one-touch-cdpurchacing, but we all know how quickly the patent police would strip search me with a cactus.)

    even better :P radios that charge you .10 (taken from your bank account .. with wireless tech.) for every song the radio plays ..

    I just got a Great idea! Lets take some music, and engrave it onto a semi-flexable surface about 12" around, preferabally made of plastic for durability. We could play it back using a needle to read the grooves! The nostalgic hippies would EAT IT UP !

    i'm not sure i need yet ANOTHER excuse to never leave my house .. hell .. last week I blinked and it was thursday!

  • If you don't like your cds, yopur buying the wrong cds ... :) I have a (measly) collection of about 250 cds and I can honestly say there are 2 or 3 bad ones in the whole lot.

    Strategy: buy cds from ARTISTS, not money grubbing mtv whores :)

    Strategy: download mp3's of money grubbing mtv whores if you REALLY need to hear their music.

    My feeling is that what music companies are really afraid of with mp3 is, consumers finding out exactly how awful an album is BEFORE we've dropped 20$ for it.

  • Napster Integration (Score:3)

    by hanway ( 28844 ) on Friday November 10, 2000 @08:47AM (#631307) Homepage
    How long before some enterprising hacker figures out how to use starcd.com to look up live playlists and then queue up the song for downloading via Napster? It's a shame that this would be of questionable legality because otherwise this would be perfect. Even curmudgeons like me sometimes like a catchy pop tune now and again but I don't want the other 12 crappy songs on the band's CD.
  • I'm not paying per song download on Napster unless I get a $0.10 per song upload CREDIT.
  • At least the * makes sense here, since it's referring to something you'd dial on a cell phone.
    Kind of like *BAM (for Bell Atlantic, now Verizon, customer service) and some other * services that I can't remember specifically.

  • Re:Radio? WTF? (Score:3)

    by TheTomcat ( 53158 ) on Friday November 10, 2000 @08:51AM (#631310) Homepage
    I think it's rather closed-minded to expect the target market of this service to be only geeks. 'Regular' consumers are used to dialing *[anything] for various services from traffic emergencies, to weather info, to call forwarding.

    I suspect that the general target market for this service is the market who currently already buys the most radio-played CDs, and with the most disposable income. Teens, and 20-30 yr. olds.
  • When will you people ever learn French clichés correctly?

  • Similar, but safer (Score:3)

    by Lawbeefaroni ( 246892 ) on Friday November 10, 2000 @08:54AM (#631312) Homepage
    This [cnet.com]device is similar, but safer in two ways. You press just one button and you have to upload to your PC, giving you precious time to stop that impulse buy.

    More info/links here. [bottomquark.com]

  • Is it any wonder that the aliens haven't bothered to take out the Earth yet? Every few years they pop down, pick up some southern hick, and put him back, saying to themselves, "Yep, no worries about intelligent life on this planet. It must be something in the air." And of course they wouldn't consider living on a planet that only produces such stupidity (you want proof of said stupidity, check out our esteemed president Billy C.) ;-)


    Slow moving marsupials and the women that love them
  • I work for a group of radio stations. Our streaming audio provider wanted to do a "now playing" thingy on our station's web site, but the only way they could do it required that I attach our audio server computer directly to the internet. Needless to say, I declined.

    I hope Sprint has at least figured out how to run it through a firewall...

  • You hear one song, you like it, you punch keys on your phone and before you know it you have whole CD - probably full of songs you don't like (they allways play the best song on the radio, don't they?). That's a great deal indeed.

  • Sorry, your pirated music isn't worth any money legally. However, paying $0.10 to download a song from, say, BMG's library isn't too bad. You could otherwise try your luck at downloading it for free from someone else's library.

    Fact of the matter is, I wouldn't mind a micropayment for one song provided that it transfers at an actually decent rate. Napster kiddies on upload-capped cable modems and DSL lines can't match that. Not even your average college MP3-monger can top that, if he/she's serving ten people at once.
  • Of course not, plastic will rule the world, a simple solution like pcs.e-gold.com (oops, I mentioned it) just can't be found! We have to trust Sony and the giant corps instead!

    Ok, so I'm sarcastic today.
    JMR


  • Not quite. Raped would be violé (violée for women).

    A viola is a musical instrument, a little larger than a violin

    At least these are better than the average "your argument has no absolutely merit because you misspelled a word" post :)

  • These guys are using some patented song identification software. They monitor the stations and "fingerprint" each song. They use this fingerprint to query a database that they've compiled of major label releases (pretty weak on indie stuff).

    When you call them and key in the radio station, they tell you the most recent song's title and start playing a 30 sec clip of it. If it's right, you can buy it or listen to other songs from the album. If it's wrong, you can check the song before that, etc. You can also specify a specific time from earlier in the day.

    If the song appears on multiple albums, they make some executive decision based on album popularity, but you can hit a button to order a different album from customer service.

    All this and more is discussed in their faq [starcd.com]www.starcd.com [starcd.com] and choose "about" and "faqs". Stupid web design)

  • Inform them that it is a cellular line, and ask for the operator's name. If he refuses to give it, thats an automatic fine. Then, ask for the company's name, address, and telephone number. If they dont give it up, just ask for a log from your cellular operator. Send the FCC a letter, telling them you would like compensation for the abuse, and if the company refuses to give it, they get a big fat $50k fine in the mail.
  • "Imagine sitting in a meeting, when your phone starts playing a Brittney Spears song, and in your frantic attempts to make it stop, you accidentally order 10 copies... "

    or if a group has two or three distinct 'sounds' to it, buying multiple copies of the same CD.

    Eric Gearman
    --
  • Or you dial 1-800-777-BUZZ and do the same.

  • Let's see... (Score:3)

    by Siqnal 11 ( 210012 ) on Friday November 10, 2000 @08:58AM (#631323) Homepage
    *23, the station's call letters (if you happen to know them), & a sixteen digit CC# (plus expiration date?) while driving?

    I see a FuckedCompany in the making.

    --

  • I still think I would see people downloadig the one song they want instead of paying 17 bucks for an entire cd. I also see the birth of a lot of acidents if people decide to use this. JUST pulling out the credit card *crash* .
  • Whoops, I posted links below before I saw this comment.

    eMarker [emarker.com]
    C|Net Article [cnet.com]

  • I'm waiting until you learn the difference between a cliche and a word.

  • I've used this before - Very Bad! (Score:3)

    by marks ( 12185 ) on Friday November 10, 2000 @09:07AM (#631327) Homepage
    It was Cellular One. I participated in the beta test for them. I only bought one CD (whuch they gave me for free for testing). The service really sucked. It took about 5 mins to complete the order, and the process was quite cumbersome. VERY dangerous if you were driving. And worst of all, after the beta period, they were going to charge AIRTIME for the call! Plus, the CD was $22 from them ($14 at local store, $11 online). Buyer beware.

    -mark
  • What if the DJ doesn't name the artist and song title?
    ----------
  • I've got two to sell. Off topic, yes and no. This *CD deal is not enough to keep me with Sprint PCS service. They cannot provide me a good signal in my house, effectively making the cell phone useless for Long Distance calling from my residence or even answering pages. AT&Greed's mobile services will reach even my wee little hovel in the basement of a huge brick house. Sprint can't do that. Anyone in a SprintPCS city who lives on an above ground floor want a cell phone?
  • is that they have software that monitors stations, and looks up the songs in a database to find out what it is. And there's *great* music like the most cutting edge station I know of -- WOXY in Cincinnati... better than LA's cheesy KROQ. Anywho... I've bookmarked their live playlists 'cause I always want to know what is on that station.

    Wow. live playlists. -- from real radio stations too.

    ----

  • Maybe...

    Freetantrum [freetantrum.org]?

  • much better... I don't want to buy the CD without at least getting a list of the other songs first! (so I can try them out using napster, of course) For all I know it's from the soundtrack of Really Boring Movie Except For That One Song.

  • Why a credit card (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why do you need to use a credit card? Why not just bill it to your Sprint PCS account. Maybe instead of entering your credit card, you enter a password.
  • yes, there's a karma cap. Refer to the whole signal 11 or shoeboy or whoever melodrama a while back.
  • I think maybe someone has finally realized why people prefer Napster and MP3's to going out and purchasing CDs: it's not money, it's convenience. It's much easier to hop online, search for something, and download it, than it is to go hunt down the physical goods at your local store.

    I'm not sure that this is easier, at least not yet. But perhaps it's a step in the right direction.
  • That was his point. The content on a single cd does not rate paying $18 for it. Nice job understanding what he wrote.

    Ass.
  • This is cool, but I have a better idea. Let's buy the CD through *CD ... download it via MP3 to my phone and listen to it ON THE SPOT.

    Now THAT would be cool.

  • According to the FAQ there is nothing for the station to do. A device monitors the station and uses some sort of "music recognition" software to compare it against their database.

    Pretty amazing...
  • Well,
    It might take you a few tries to punch in your credit card number and the radio station number while the phone is in your pocket.

    I do have trouble with my phone though. Alot of times I sit weird and it will press buttons and end up calling someone. Once it called my mom's co-librarian at 1AM while I was doing something I didnt want anyone to hear. They called back :/
  • according to their FAQ, a device samples the music and compares it to a database of "masters" obtained from the record companies.

    I guess it's "music recognition". Music fingerprinting... interesting...

    Robert

    ---

  • Re:Impulse Buying (Score:4)

    by John Jorsett ( 171560 ) on Friday November 10, 2000 @09:37AM (#631341)
    . I can [see] some ex-girlfriends of mine using this service. "I loooove that song let me order the CD"

    You forgot the last part: "What's your card number?"

  • Of course, you shouldn't be using a cell while driving anyhow. I think my bumper sticker applies to you:

    Hang up the cell phone and DRIVE*

    *before I cram it up your tailpipe.

  • I wonder how much I can squat asteriskcd.com and asterisk-cd.com, considering I just bought them.
    By the way, anybody else use dirt-cheap <a href="http://joker.com">joker.com</a> for buying domain names? I do, and every time the Euro falls, I laugh, because it makes my domain names cheaper (always 12 Euros per DN, now that's like $10 and falling)



  • Hey! Why do you have to be rippin' on Barry Manilow? Just for that, I'm going to use company bandwidth & Napster so I can be listening to some Manilow at work! ppphhhhhthhhhh!!

    =steve
  • Hey! That's very far from the truth.

    Radio geeks, such as myself, are an old breed that's as geeky, or geekier, than the rest of you.

    Sure, shortwave DXing is the most common, but we've all dabbled with medium-wave DXing and FM broadcast band DXing as well.

    Perhaps you're saying that not many of us listen to the broadcast bands of the radio for music, and that's only slightly true.. but, don't forget, radio listening encompasses a lot more than listening to your car radio on the way to work.

  • Spam alert! (Score:3)

    by billcopc ( 196330 ) <vrillco@yahoo.com> on Friday November 10, 2000 @09:43AM (#631347) Homepage
    This seems like a nice little concept, but here's something for you paranoid cypherpunks out there. Let's say you actually buy that stupid "Who let the dogs out" cd with this service, what do you think will happen when their next album comes out, or any similar band, or any band whose promoter sucked off the radio station's manager ? In ordering the cd, you've given them your name, address, but most importantly your *cell phone number!* Now they can call you anwhere, anytime to tele-harass you. They will manage to annoy you at the worst possible time (imagine being in a meeting and you answer your cell thinking it's important, only to end up stuck arguing with a stupid telemarketer who just won't give up - watch your executive reputation go through the basement). If you really want to buy whatever top40 crap's playing on the radio, just listen to the announcer when he/she says the title and group and stop by the mall to buy it. Cheaper, safer, and anonymous. Just tell them your personal info is none of their fucking business and they don't need it to sell you the damned cd. Something you just can't do on the phone when shipping is involved.
  • http://www.cdnow.com/cgi-bin/mserver/SID=593819804 /pagename=/RP/CDN/FIND/album.html/artist id=DR.+DRE/itemid=366355

    Here yo go my friend.

    =steve
  • It's a little broader.... the FAQ says it gets the masters from the large record companies.

    My guess it's anything the major records companies produce ( and the site trys to sell ).

    Give them a break... the technology sounds pretty amazing, but there are limits. How do you expect them to recognize the college garage band? ( and why would they want to, since they are trying to sell records.)

    I bet they would be willing to accept a MP3 of the garage band to put in their database.

  • Using a cell while driving is illegal now in quite a few US states

    Only if you define 0 as quite a few.
  • What about 1-tone buying? :-)
  • Why, I wonder, is Quicktime loading the png in your sig. I am so fucking sick of the fuckwit companies stealing extensions just so that their stupid plug-in gets a bit of fucking airtime. And why the fuck can't I list plug-ins by extension rather than some assholes conception of how they should be described. Fuck Fuck fuck fuck fuck. F.u.c.k. And why do they insist on installing icons in the fucking windoze system tray? Burn in hell assholes.
  • What's "compensation for abuse" when cellular is selling for $0.03/minute or less on many plans?

    The other issue is that many, many phone solicitation businesses are businesses owned in some corporate structure that resembles a Rube Golberg machine. When the FCC fine rolls in, that particular entity quickly evaporates into thin air and suddenly the FCC is chasing an entity that no longer exists.

    What needs to happen is that the carrier providing the abuser's telecomms needs to get a $100k per incident fine with a 1.25 multiplier for each subsequent incident.

    If Sprint, MCI, AT&T, et al got their hands slapped every single time they enabled spammers they'd quickly stop enabling the sleazier ones.
  • That's funny. I'm a geek. I listen to the radio. Quite extensively, in fact. Any time I'm in the car, I have the radio on. It sounds better than MP3 and it's less expensive than CD. Oh, and you get a little bit more variety than any changer will give you. As much as I love listening to Dark Side of the Moon every day, it's nice to hear stuff from other artists once in a while -- it keeps things interesting, lets you try out new stuff, and reminds you of stuff you haven't listened to in ages (since you forgot to add it to your collection the last time through).

    Plus, I don't want to spend a couple hundred on fancy speakers for my computer -- it's a computer, not a stereo. And, since I *am* a geek, I've spent my money on my computer... not home entertainment equipment. So music is in the car and on the radio, the way it was meant to be.

    And now I'll be able to find out who the heck is playing that long lyric-less Steve Vai/Eddie Van Halen-esque piece that's weaseled its way onto the play list!

    -Chris
    PS. Why the heck did moderators make that whiney little post a 4? POWER TO THE PEOPLE WHO PUNISH BAD MODERATION!
    ...More Powerful than Otto Preminger...
  • The "how will they know what song I was listening" problem is a relatively simple integration task. Goes like this...

    1. Service provider (such as *CD) contracts with one of a couple providers of radio info - BDS or Real Networks.
      BDS is super expensive but has most big stations in most big markets, while Real networks have information only about stations that are already broadcasting over the net.
    2. Both providers tell you, for each song played,
      • name of song
      • artist
      • album
      • timestamp
      • radio station

      All this info goes in your database as it becomes available.
    3. When a user visits your site, you present her with a list of the stations in her location. The location is ideally known from their previous visit, or it can be guessed based on where the call originated from, etc.
    4. The user picks the station from the list, and is told the last n songs played on that station, and can keep requesting the previous n songs.
    5. Once the user finds the song they're interested in, they can buy the CD, buy a ticket to the artist's concert, buy a tshirt, blah blah blah.
  • Tom Leykis is a syndicated guy out of LA. He isn't bad, but he is mostly a Stern ripoff. He did "innovate" the 405 flash, meaning you flash your headlights while on the 405 and women in other cars are supposed to flash their tits at you. As if the traffic on the 405 isn't fucken horrible enough.
  • Welcome to a brave new world of impulse shopping.

    I'm not impressed, but I'll admit that it's a damn sight better than one of the other ideas that I've heard about: walk too close to a store, and it auto-dials you to relay a recorded spiel. I swear, if that ever happens to me, I'll happily walk into the store, and explain quite thoroughly why they've permanently lost my business. Gods help 'em if they suggest that I turn my phone off...

  • From http://www.starcd.com/starcd/sound_tech?p_web_sess ion=413048&p_acct= HOW WE DO IT

    *CD uses a patented computer technology to monitor radio broadcasts and identify songs as they air.

    Before new music is released, a master recording is obtained from the record companies and scanned into the system's computer -- creating a unique digital fingerprint or "pattern" for that song.

    *CD's computers monitor local radio stations every second of the day, every day of the week -- processing the digitized broadcast and comparing it with thousands and thousands of patterns.

    Once a song is recognized, the system records the exact time, date, and station on which it played.

    You can access this information by calling *CD-the call for music.

  • Yeah, but most consumers can't figure out how to program their VCR or store a number in their cell phone's memory. *something, entering a time, choosing a CD -- seems like too many steps to be used by most people.

    I say they're more likely to just use the service to find out the song name/artist and then disconnect the call and stop at their local store to buy it.
    ---
    seumas.com

  • I know exactly how Star CD is pronounced. The * is still an asterisk. Call it what you like, that's what the character is called.

  • Re:Spam alert! (Score:5)

    by Vegeta99 ( 219501 ) <rjlynn AT gmail DOT com> on Friday November 10, 2000 @09:50AM (#631361)
    To tell you the truth, they CANNOT. If a tele-fucker calls you up on a cellular line, YOU CAN SUE THEM. If they refuse to pay up, the FCC can fine them, something along the lines of $50k. It's no joke. If a telemarketer calls you up on a land line and refuses to identify themselves and give their number, you can easdily get $500 out of them.
  • Except mp3.com already tried that, and got slapped. I bought some discs from Cheap-cds.com [cheap-cds.com] on the premise that I would be able to listen to them immediately on my.mp3.com, even before they arrived. And I could, for a couple of weeks; it was neat. And of course I'd already payed for the music. Of course, the RIAA paid no mind to this really neat, non-money-losing idea when they had all the major-label content shut off.
  • I think mainstream DJs that play their own selections went out in the 70's.

    On second thought I take that back, I think then they had payola. But back in those days, it was illegal.

  • better idea (Score:3)

    by ActionListener ( 104252 ) on Friday November 10, 2000 @09:52AM (#631364)
    I've got a better idea:

    Hit *CD (*23) on your PCS phone, type in the station's call letter, get the name of the band and song, and then ... hang up.

    Start up napster, type in the name of the band and song, and download the mp3 :)

  • Alrighty. Now if there was anything worth listening to on the radio, I'd be ready to go!
  • I'd rather wait a few days to get the merchandise and save myself the trip down to whatever store sells it. Even though I live in a very large city (i.e. I can get almost everything locally), I buy a lot of stuff online for the convenience factor. Order it, forget about it, and have a nice surprise in the mail after a week or so. This service fits right in with my purchasing habits. Too bad I don't listen to music on the radio...
  • can't wait until someone steals my phone...

    wonder if they've thought of the implications.
  • Could this move to a per song purchase, downloaded at your convience? The song information would be e-mailed to you, and you could get the song later from Napster, with your .10 fee (example). For those of us who like single songs...
  • I think this is a fantastic idea. Combine it with only charging $5 for a cd, and I would probably own all the music I listen to.

    I mean really, is $18 worth one cd?? Half the cd's I have now I only listen to 3 tracks, that was back when I listened to my cd's. But seriously I get ideas for what music to download off of the radio. This would increase sells dramatically I would imagine.

  • Great (Score:4)

    by Sharkey [BAMF] ( 139571 ) on Friday November 10, 2000 @08:30AM (#631370) Homepage
    Another reason to stay off the road....SUV DRIVER: "Oh MAN! Carribean Queen by Billy Ocean! I love this song, I gotta get it! Let's see... B-I-L-L... Oops, cut that guy off, sorry... Y.. O-C-E *SCREEEEEECH* SHIIIIIIT! *BOOM*Sharkey
    badassmofo.com [badassmofo.com]
  • What's "compensation for abuse" when cellular is selling for $0.03/minute or less on many plans?


    What's your time worth? What's it worth to you to be needlessly interrupted, wherever you happen to be. I think compensation would be hard to measure if I'm in a conference call working out the technical specifics for a multi-million dollar software deal, but waiting for a call from the customer's CIO and instead get a telemarketer's voice. If that telemarketer isn't giving me a free formula for making diamonds out of Crystal Sugar, then he deserves to compensate me for more than my $0.13/minute.


    And don't even try to interrupt me talking to my wife.

  • Nice to see someone doing something interesting with wireless
  • What's your time worth?

    IANAL, but from the conversations I've had with them it's very hard to collect compensation for incidental losses.

    Just because you're a self-important consultant and my telemarketing call disrupts your important business plans you can't hold me responsible for your screwed up business. Plan your communications over more reliable or redundant systems than a single-line cell phone. Should the cell company be held responsible for transmission problems that cause your business to fail?

    You can only hold people responsible for direct liabilities, in other words, the cost of the call. Your "time" doesn't have a clear value and any inconvenience incurred is due to your inability to plan, not to the telemarketer.

    Now don't get me wrong, I think they suck, too, and I'm glad they don't call my cell phone. But you can't demonstrate a loss of more than a single minute of phone service.

  • I'll bet it's cheap (Score:4)

    by ajs ( 35943 ) <{moc.sja} {ta} {sja}> on Friday November 10, 2000 @09:26AM (#631384) Homepage Journal
    They probably offer big deals, since usage is what they really want. Think about it. The big win here is that they're turning into a demographic database of what people listen to on the radio. They can then turn around and:

    * Sell info to the stations on *when* people listen.
    * Sell info to the labels on what radio stations sell the most CDs

    Oh yeah, this is a great business model for them. For the consumer, it's only a lose becuase it's one more thing feeding the cycle that's homogenizing entertainment "content" down to a gruel that doesn't offend anyone "much".
  • There are several dozen stations in the broadcast bands in this area and every one of them repeats their playlist after about two or three hours.

    I prefer to listen to a variety of music (my choice of music) rather than what some radio company is being paid or otherwise compensated to over-expose to its audience.

    I'll listen to a few good streaming radio stations online though -- but they don't broadcast on the airwaves anyway.

    If it turns out that this service offers a larger variety of music (not just the stations that play the Top40) then they might have a chance at something successful. But I'm not going to hold my breath.
    ---
    seumas.com

  • Well, a +4 (Interesting) would be one thing. Something can be interesting and also wrong/annoying/not-agreeable -- but +4 (Informative)? I don't think I informed anyone of anything... sheesh.

    Hey, on another note -- anyone notice that after your karma gets to a certain point, positive moderations of posts no longer increase your karma?
    ---
    seumas.com

  • Buy a CD because of one catchy tune on the radio? This is obviously targetted at rich kids without bills to pay.

  • if you could have the mp3 placed in an idrive for you or something. that would be a viable mp3 biz model.

  • But which stations? (Score:3)

    by No Such Agency ( 136681 ) <abmackay AT gmail DOT com> on Friday November 10, 2000 @08:32AM (#631397)
    I can't imagine my local college station (CFRC [queensu.ca], Queen's University radio) being equipped for this scheme any time soon. It seems like a big-media-franchise station thing, and as others have said already... lots o' Britney, Boyzone, classic rock. Not exactly too hard to buy those CD's now - they're at every Wal-mart and tiny mall music store.

  • just tried it (Score:5)

    by tdrury ( 49462 ) on Friday November 10, 2000 @08:34AM (#631398) Homepage
    Pretty cool. You enter in the number of the station; for example, "961#" is 96Rock in Atlanta. Then you can hit 1 to hear what was most recently played or you key in the time of the song. You can preview the song first so you don't accidentically buy Barry Manilow.

    You can hear samples of other songs on the CD too. Not bad.

    -tim

  • Radio? WTF? (Score:3)

    by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Friday November 10, 2000 @08:34AM (#631399)
    I don't know any geeks who listen to Radio -- other than some talk radio here and there. Too busy listening to actual CD's and MP3's.

    I guess on the "Hey, neat idea!" scale, it rates a couple points. But on the "How many people will use it?" scale, I think it's pretty much DOA.


    ---
    seumas.com

  • Actually, this service was tested in Philadelphia about a year ago. I'm not too sure which cell company sponsored it (Bell, AT&T, etc), but they were promoting the hell out of it on the radio. The only problem was that in order to use the *xy service, you had to be a member of their service. IE, an AT&T wireless customer couldn't use it if Bell sponsored the *xy service.
    If I recall correctly, it disappeared due to lack of funds..*Shrugs*

    -kris

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