SanDisk makes the worst medium for music since the 8 Track

Recently it was announced that SanDisc, a maker of memory card and flash hard drives was going to release music on micro SD cards. The content is backed up by major labels, and Universal will be releasing nearly 30 titles on the format.

Okay, now that you're out from under the rock you've been under since the end of last week. The idea of a new non downloadable format has been floating about for the past few years. CD technology was invented in the early 1980s and is nothing new, but the idea people are going to purchase memory cards with music is a bit absurd.

WHY THIS IS BAD! People who know me know that I always back up my opinions with concrete facts. An article I read about this said that 75% of people still value music as a hard good, but I wonder if they polled the 12 -24 year olds who make up a majority of the music buying audience. I can't imagine anyone getting really excited about going to Best Buy to buy a brand new black piece of plastic containing songs they can download at home and put on there Ipods. The value of CD or album is seeing the artists expression in the artwork, the logos, the liner notes, the lyrics, etc. You can't get any of this with a black piece of plastic.

WHAT I WOULD HAVE DONE! I'm sorry for yelling, but the marketing people are really, really, bad. I'm not one of THOSE guys who thinks he's the greatest thing since sliced bread, but they are really missing the obvious. CELLPHONE CONTENT. Most every new cellphone has a microSD slot built right into the thing. I wouldn't find much value in paying 7 bucks for an album on this thing, but I do find value in buying ringtones, wallpaper, ringbacks, games, and other content from a favorite artist. How many 15 year old girls would buy a Katy Perry, Cherry Chapstick wallpaper for there cellphone? I can only imagine millions. How many die hard Metallica fans would appreciate this sort of content supporting 'Death Magnetic'? I can only imagine millions.

I love that a 20 year old can see what executives don't. There isn't much of a future in buying albums in microSD format if there isn't a better medium for playing it or content not added to a CD. I might consider paying $7 for an album and a concert movie on a card.

What do you all think? MicroSD music, a bad idea or a big idea?