"First music store" in Facebook is fool's gold
The hype around Facebook's application platform has created a mad rush to grab potential riches, but like many a Forty-Niner, developers are bound to find mountains barren of gold. In the case of MediaMouth, formerly Digital Kiosk Technologies, they are staking their claim to the "First Music Store Inside Facebook." The only problem? MediaMouth's store is not what you would think.
MediaMouth is trying to shift out of its failed business of burning CDs via kiosks, an efforts that will remind some of K-Tel Records attempts to reinvent itself as a dotcom. Its "Music Store" doesn't sell digital tracks. Instead, it creates a playlist which the company then burns to a disc and mails to the purchaser. CD-burning kiosks didn't work, so why would this? As they say, the problem with instant gratification is that it's not fast enough. By adding the extra step of sending a CD in the mail, MediaMouth has, improbably, made a bad business model worse. Why dig yourselves deeper?