Scott Blum, founder and CEO of Buy.com, is at it again. Now he's launched BuyMusic.com, an Apple Music clone. He's the king of taking other people's original business ideas and duplicating them but cheapening them and then going after those innovators with obnoxious marketing campaigns. Think of Blum as a guy who makes knock-off Ray-Bans and peddles them on NY city streets with a megaphone.
But that's not what rubs me the wrong way. After all, people are like that are part of what make the market efficient. It's the cheap (but expensive) publicity stunts masquerading as advertising campaigns which give me the same reactions that coolhunter Cayce Pollard has to the Michelin Man logo in William Gibson's novel Pattern Recognition: nausea, dizziness, difficulty breathing.
His latest is the knockoff of the Apple Music Store commercials. A bunch of random folks dance around singing to songs playing on their MP3 players. Those Apple commercials weren't my favorite, but they were novel. The BuyMusic.com commercials are just, well, embarrassing.
I actually thought about trying out BuyMusic.com, but I can't in good conscience, such is my revulsion. It's the same reason I cringe in the face of pushy salespeople.
Footnote: You also have to use Internet Explorer to access BuyMusic.com; make that a salesperson who spits in your face when he talks.