slotMusic vs. CD: The Ultimate Comparison

[harrymccracken]

slotMusic is an innovative new format format for music distribution. The tried-and-true Compact Disc is a quarter-century old. I compared 'em point by point and found that the CD stacks up surprisingly well for an invention that predates memory cards, MP3s, iPods, iTunes, and music phones. Is it going too far to say that if the CD were introduced today, folks would hail it as a breakthrough. Maybe. But I know that if it went away right now, I'd miss it--and that I think it beats slotMusic hands down. Chart after the jump...

	slotMusic	Compact Disc
Introduced	2008	1982
Size	So small you might run it through the laundry by accident	Conveniently hand-sized, yet incredibly thin
Music selection	29 albums	Untold millions of albums
Availability	Major merchants like Best Buy and Wal-Mart	Every music store on the planet
Backed by	Four major labels	Every label
Price	About the same as a CD	Exactly the same as a CD
Sound	CD quality "high quality"	CD quality
DRM	None	None
Use on your PC?	Yes, with an adapter	Yes, either directly or by ripping
Use with a CD player	Yes, by transferring music, then burning CD	Yes, directly
Use with an iPod	Yes, by transferring music to PC and then to iPod	Yes, by ripping and synching
Use with a phone	Yes	Yes, by ripping and transferring
Chances you'll be able to play it in 20 years	Not good	Reasonably good
Chances your spaniel will eat it	Alarmingly high	Reasonably low

Fair comparison? You tell me...

[Jeff Hayes]

I'm just getting around to reading these forum posts, Harry.

I got a real kick out of this one -- especially the last bit about the chance your spaniel will eat it! I've never owned a spaniel, but our neighbor across the street used to, and YEAH, they'll eat just about ANYTHING that will fit! We used to tell his Spaniel Rascal to SPEAK! while holding a piece of driveway "gravel," when I was a teenager, and when he did, we'd toss it to him, and he'd gobble it right down -- I mean a decent-sized piece an inch or so across. I don't know HOW MANY ROCKS that crazy dog ate!

He lived many years after that, too! Considering this post is a year old and I haven't heard pretty much ANYTHING about this product, you MUST have been right.
Jeff

[Sr. Mina, BSP]

Some CDs are DRM'd and sometimes DRM technology wrecks your computer. The only reason why I prefer mp3 is because you can make a folder of music or custom-make your own music CDs. Many CD players will play mp3s. The pain in making a custom one, however, is that you have to make your own song titles/tags for proper display in your player's display. In the end, I ended up just keeping my music either on my computer and an mp3 player.

I still have CDs and though I like them immensely, there's no way to edit out tracks you don't want. Secondly, they're easy to hurt and destroy. There's one way to improve on the technology; start packaging CDs into a readable case. You insert the case into the player. Easier to clean and you're not wrecking the disc.