SlotMusic may be a good play for those brought up on cassettes and CDs

SanDisk’s plan to use memory cards as vehicles for digital music has drawn derisive snorts from Apple fanboys and techier-than-thou types who dominate industry blogs and message boards. But for those who have yet to use their phones as music players – which is to say, just about everybody – slotMusic may serve as an usher into the world of mobile music.
Carriers and their music-industry partners have thrown just about everything at the wall in an effort to push full-track downloads, but nothing is working – and there is no shortage of reasons why. Browsing through immense music libraries on a feature phone is a painful experience, and sideloading is simply too cumbersome. Nobody wants to pay a premium for the novelty of receiving an over-the-air download – not many people know it’s even possible – and few are warming to the idea of renting music via a subscription rather than buying it. Even buying tunes doesn’t mean music lovers can use them as they’d like, thanks to DRM “solutions” that Torquemada would have found merciless.
SanDisk’s plan may address many of those hurdles. The company has struck deals with all four major music labels to offer music free of anti-piracy software, allowing users to simply plug in the MP3-loaded cards and listen without sitting through a download or entering a password. The tracks can be played back at up to 320 kilobytes per second – ensuring reasonable sound quality – and can be moved between portable devices or computers, thanks to the inclusion of a small USB sleeve. And the 1GB cards will not only include extra goodies such as album art, liner notes and videos, they’ll have extra room so users can add their own content, personalizing their little “albums.”
But slotMusic’s most attractive feature may be its most archaic: the way it’s distributed. Cards will be sold at brick-and-mortar stores like Best Buy and Wal-Mart, allowing users to pick up a card or two at the same time they buy a new phone. And retail staffers can walk them through slotMusic, eliminating the confusion and ignorance that seem to plague most mobile full-track services.
That may not be much of a selling point for 20-somethings with kabillions of songs on their Macs. But for entire generations brought up on cassettes and CDs, it may be a comfortable concept.
There are plenty of reasons slotMusic may fail, of course. SanDisk has yet to disclose price points for its music play, and microSD cards may prove too small for users to manage. Not all phones support removable memory, and many of the older users slotMusic seems created for may have stopped spending much money on music long ago.
But unlike many mobile music offerings, slotMusic may not suck. For a recording industry desperate for a hit in wireless, that would be a good start.