As lojas de discos passam a ser virtuais?

Não demorará muito tempo até que toda a música seja virtual e que os formatos fisicos sejam para revivalismo. Isto significa uma revolução a muitos níveis - por exemplo, o que acontecerá às lojas de discos?

A FNAC, em França, já vende downloads. E agora é a Tower Records:

«Tower Records will soon deliver a digital download store, according to early information received by Digital Music News. The store is officially slated for launch on Tuesday, though a sneak peek can be found at tower.com/digital. The store will carry a catalog of 1.2 million tracks, all encoded in a higher bitrate of 192 kbps. That edges the compression level of 128 kbps found on competing stores like iTunes, which sometimes draws complaints from audiophiles. And unlike iTunes, Tower Records Digital will be web-based, and optimized for the IE browser. That approach is decidedly low-tech, but will allow Tower to mimic a "standard e-commerce site," according to the company.»

fonte: «Tower Records Prepares Digital Download Destination», Digital Music News, 23/6/06