Calcutta, Aug. 4 :
Want to procure Bon Jovi's latest chartbusting album Crush or the soundtrack of Abhishek Bachchan's Refugee without leaving home? No problem. Now, your favourite music album is at your fingertips.
Integrating pre-existing 'brick-and-mortar infrastructure' with 'the click of a mouse', RPG's MusicWorld Entertainment Ltd, the country's largest music retail chain, launched musicworld4u.com, an e-commerce venture, to facilitate online music shopping.
Inaugurating the site at the Park Street store on Friday, Sanjiv Goenka, vice-chairman of the RPG group, said: 'The strategic intent of this venture is to create, grow and dominate the music e-tailing business.'
Musicworld4u.com, developed by Planetasia.com, houses 25,000 titles, over two lakh songs and has 35,000 web pages. Customers can buy music from the site through Visa and MasterCard, cheques and drafts to start with, while other cards and pre-paid options will be added on later.
This is, however, just a sampling of the treat in store for the city's music buffs. Enthused by the overwhelming success of its Park Street store, MusicWorld is planning a second city outlet in south Calcutta.
And then, there is 'liquid' or made-to-order music. If things go according to plan, Calcutta will host the liquid music launch enabling a customer to step into MusicWorld and get a CD 'custom-burnt' with digitised titles of his choice.
Both Goenka and MusicWorld chief executive K. Dasaratharaman agreed that a logical evolution of the e-tailing venture is the concept of liquid music, likely to kick off with HMV titles.
'Yes, the technology is very much there,' admitted Dasaratharaman, 'and we are perhaps looking at a scenario where files more advanced than MP3 will be available to enable the music labels to digitise their stuff. Then of course, all the other logistics of copyright protection and royalty pattern for part reproduction must be worked out.'
Man run over: Seikh Sahabuddin, 25, was run over by a private bus at 2.30 pm on SN Banerjee Road on Friday, says a staff reporter. Eye-witnesses said he was standing on the footboard and leaning out of the door, when he suddenly lost his grip and fell. The police have impounded the bus and arrested the driver.