BM Vs. iTMS: Is Anyone Home at BuyMusic.com?

C

ompetition breeds a better product. Look at the battle for the best MP3 player, and how far the iPod is pushing its competitors. Unfortunately, when BuyMusic.com (BM) decided to toss their hat into the online music distribution game, they threw their heads in as well.

We want to give BM a fair shake. They are filling the gap for PC users who want to "purchase" music online, while Apple prepares the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) for non-Mac users. The services are, on the surface, similar. BM has "borrowed" ideas for organizational design down to the shape of the "download" button and the sidebars with the current most popular songs and artists. As it usually is when companies copy Apple, the similarities are superficial.

The first thing we noticed was that the search function at BM doesnit work. We find it interesting that with a catalogue of 300,000 songs, BM wouldnit have a functioning search engine upon launch. It was difficult to find artists to make price and availability comparisons with iTMS without a search tool. We finally decided to use many of their front page links and use the search function in iTMS instead.