National Geographic has added itself to the short list of niche-oriented music download stores by launching a world music section at the National Geographic website. It is a collaboration with world music download site Calabash Music, Link TV, Afropop Worldwide and Global Rhythm magazine.

At 99 cents a track, National Geographic has adopted the standard price point for a la carte downloads. There is no price point for an album, however, so consumers lose out on the savings that can be found in the standard $9.99 album price point. Like Calabash, the files are available in MP3 format.

Content is organized by artist, region and genre, and guest DJs (such as Chris Blackwell) offer recommendations. There are video clips and a news page with, sadly, infrequent news links. In all, the browsing experience is adequate. It is highly focused on just a few artists per page, so the act of discovery isn't as rich as it is at a site like Calabash.

The site has much of the same content as eMusic, which also offers MP3 files and a good (and always improving) selection of world music. In a random sample of 20 albums, Coolfer found that 12 out of 20 were also available at eMusic (with more overlap in African music than Asian titles). For frequent downloaders, eMusic's subscription model offers a far better deal. For infrequent downloaders -- say five to ten tracks a month -- National Geographic is a good source for music.