Coolfer was just having a conversation the other day about the lack of music available on online stores. Even though stores offer upwards of a million songs, the search for rare, lost or out-of-print tracks can be frustrating for collector types. The reality of digital music is that songs just don't magically appear at online stores. There needs to be enough of a financial incentive to go through the steps involved in reviving the music and getting them to stores. (Rarities placed on peer-to-peer networks don't have this problem, but that's another discussion altogether.)

Now the long tail has a chance to stretch out ever more. Yesterday came news that Universal Music Group is going to digitize 100,000 previously deleted European recordings and make them available at online stores. "This program will offer material that, in some cases, goes back to the early days of recorded music," said Barney Wragg, senior vice president of Universal's eLabs division. He continued to say the company's "digital archeology" program is a "serious commitment" to use the unlimited storage space of the Internet for the good of artists and their fans.

That's very altruistic, but this wouldn't have happened if Universal didn't think it was an investment that would pay off. Obviously it believes there will be adequate demand to unearth all those tracks. Coolfer believes such a move could spark a new movement to online stores by consumers groups hesitant to move beyond CDs and LPs.