The first sign of trouble came early in the hands-on review of the SanDisk slotMusic memory card: Wolfgang Gruener, a writer for TG Daily, could not find the product in his local Best Buys or Wal-Marts. Employees hadn't heard of it, and there was no information in the MP3 player, music or flash card sections of the stores. Finally he found an employee familiar with the slotDisk. "Is this that strange flash music?" the employee asked as he led Gruener to the CD section of the store.

"If you do not know that SlotMusic is hiding in those aisles and if you are not specifically looking for that white border on the left side and the bottom of the packaging, I am sure you won’t even notice it." Later Gruener would write, "The packaging is virtually invisible when placed between regular CDs... It almost seems as if Best Buy has no interest in selling SlotMusic."

That's a problem. Poor merchandising will kill a product's chances. Retailers will need to get on board for the format to stand a chance. The review turns fairly positive after that but shows issues with actual usage of multiple slotMusic cards.

There is no magic when playing the music – the USB adapter was instantly recognized and the music was instantly available on my PC and my Blackberry Pearl phone. Depending on the music player you use, you can attach the USB device for instant recognition and playback in that software as well. Using these cards, potentially more than one, with a cellphone could be rather inconvenient. At least in my case, switching the microSD card means removing the back cover and the battery to insert the card. The Blackberry Pearl is not especially known for its fast boot times: If you switch your music card, you will have to simply deal with rebooting the phone.

The packaging was found to be wasteful -- keep the booklet or throw it away with much of the rest of the packaging?

I have to wonder what kind of debate was put into the decision on which store section to sell slotMusic. It's a music title, and the music section has its vendors and the computer section has its vendors and the two do not overlap. One section acts quite independently of another. Retail often works like this. But I wonder if slotMusic buyers associate the product with music and CDs, or if they associate it with computer/mobile technology and expect to find the product there. Will it sell better if associated with those technologies? Are Best Buy and Wal-Mart CD shoppers the type of early adopters who will be interested in slotMusic? Without previous awareness and in an absence of in-store signage, only CD shoppers would even find the slotMusic titles.

To understand the merchandising strategy, one can go back (a mere two years) to Warner Music Group's experiment with DVD albums. Like the slotMusic, a DVD album contained audio tracks as well as remixes, photos and other extras. In an effort to get consumers used to the format, labels encouraged retailers to stock the DVD albums with CDs (sound familiar?). From a value point of view, a DVD album offered much more than a standard CD. Retailers like Trans World were on board but the experiment never gathered enough momentum to bring more titles and more labels.