Are retailers looking at file sharing or other similar technologies as a promotional tool?
There has certainly been a lot of talk about ways to use instant messaging, for example. We recognize that word-of-mouth marketing was actually an important part of how records got started. It’s a fact that we want to keep word-of-mouth alive and well and living on the Internet. But we want to harness it so it can build careers. We haven’t completely figured that out yet. Do you see specific promising signs for retailers online? This is the year where there really are a couple of vehicles that are retail-driven for digital distribution. There was the (subsequently terminated) Alliance acquisition of Liquid Audio. There’s the Echo (retailers’ digital distribution) group. Those are two that come to mind. As general rule of thumb, there is now more of a recognition that this isn’t just about throwing a buy button on a Web site, that there is a value to what retail has added to the equation. What then is the likely sequence of events? It took a while to get to the place where retailers fel
