A few amendments to my post a few days ago on Amazon.com's initiative to launch some kind of MP3-based music download service...

The LA Times' Jon Healey emailed to point me to a LA Times article (written by Healey and Jeff Leeds) from way back in June of 2003 that mentioned some companies -- Amazon.com being one of them -- that were expected to launch music download stores in the wake of iTunes' arrival. Healey believes it was the first report that Amazon.com was considering a music download store.

When iTunes sprinted out of the gate, other companies were expected to follow its lead. Said Universal Music Group's Doug Morris at the time, "Yahoo has an enormous number of people coming through all the time. Amazon sells a ton of content. MTV certainly is an enormous bull's-eye for people who like music. This is an amazing moment."

So why did AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft and MTV jump in while Amazon.com waited on the sidelines?

After that post, a person intimately familiar with Amazon.com (I can vouch for the level of knowledge) emailed with some thoughts on the company's push for MP3s. The person said since the early part of the decade, Amazon.com has consistently pushed for the MP3 format even though label reps were trying hard to sell them on the protected Windows Media format that is all but dead by now. Talks were about using MP3 for both promotional and eventual sale, the person insisted. This person believes Amazon.com's refusal to sell protected music files is the main reason it has not yet entered the music download market.

Good call, Amazon.com. Waiting was a good strategy. In the meantime, protected Windows Media failed to gain traction and looks to be the big loser in the interoperability quagmire. See what reading market research can do?

[music jobs] HR Manager at EMI NA; New York, NY.