I nternet Magazine, a UK general interest Web site we are not familiar with, is reporting that Apple and MP3.com Europe are working together to promote the iPod. According to the site, MP3.com Europe will send out e-mails to its members touting the iPod, and free music that will be available to them. The site also suggests that there are some 300,000 owners of the 30 GB iPod, a number that bears little relationship to anything Apple has claimed, so take the article as you will.
The article quotes Leanne Sharman of MP3.com Europe, and says that the promotion is similar to one the two companies worked on in December of 2002 to promote the then-new 10 GB iPod. The implication is that Apple is working with MP3.com Europe to promote digital song buying for iPod owners in a market where Apple doesnit offer the iTunes Music Store (iMS). The iMS is not yet available outside the US. From the article:
Thankfully, leading audio portal MP3.com Europe, will at least get the ball rolling for frustrated iPod owners with its latest marketing campaign. All 300,000 registered owners of the natty little 30GB version of the ithin white jukei are about to receive e-mail from MP3.com featuring exclusive tracks.
[...]
"With the launch of iTunes Music Store in the US and now the new iPod, Apple is leading the industry in the delivery of pay-per-track online music," said Leanne Sharman, VP of sales & marketing, MP3.com Europe. "This represents a resounding vote of confidence in our European marketing and distribution mechanism that theyive chosen to market this exciting new product on our sites on the back of the successful campaign we ran for the company at the end of last year."
The full article is brief, but there is more information we did not quote.
For those keeping score at home, "The Thin White Duke" was a nickname for David Bowie in the late 1970s. Though we donit know anyone in the US calling the iPod the "Thin White Juke," our European cousins may be that much more hip.