CDNow has merged with Amazon. Not that they call it that — it’s always “teamed with.”

I’m slightly sad because I used CDNow as an alternate interface when I couldn’t find the title (or, equally as important, sound clip/format) I wanted from Amazon. (Of course, now there is less diversity of clips as everyone just licenses from Muze.)

Sadness aside, I don’t understand why these deals are smart. Sure, Amazon will take care of “fulfillment, inventory, content and customer service” (News.com) for CDNow’s customers, but doesn’t this just do the brand in? This isn’t Borders, where you can focus your attention on the stores. This is a Web site that loses all its original look-and-feel and even its domain name as it folds into another site.

Just to confuse things, they have the CDNow Preferred Buyers Club, which is one of those buy-one-and-then-another-in-12-months deals. Bertelsmann owns CDNow and BMG Music Club, so this is no surprise. Unfortunately, it just further fragments the brand and destroys the user experience: now you have two different-looking CDNow sites, with a need for a separate username/password on each.

They should have just sold it, a la Egghead.com.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 6th, 2002 at 2:37 am and is filed under Business.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.