Music Boulevard
Founded1995
Defunct1999[1]
FateAcquired by CDNow[1]
March 17, 1999
Headquarters
United States
ServicesOnline Retail Music Store

Music Boulevard, or musicblvd.com, was a retail music information and sales website founded in 1995 by Telebase Systems.[2] In 1997 the Music Boulevard website, operated by N2K, became among the first websites to offer piracy-protected music singles for direct download.[3] The website used Liquid Audio's single-delivery system.[4][5] Originally associated with Telebase Systems and its president Jim Coane, who was the CEO of the company, MusicBlvd went public in October 1997.[6][7] The website offered more than 300,000 music titles and generated more than 80 million views in its first quarter.[8]

In 1998 Music Boulevard was described by The Boston Globe as one of the "big three" online music sellers alongside CDNow and Amazon.com, and it was lauded for its extras including artist biographies, reviews, and feature stories from national music publications.[9] By 1999, the company was ranked 9th among all electronic commerce sites, with around 2.7 million visitors in the month of December.[10] MusicBlvd was also partnered with CBS Cable[11] and hotlinked to sponsors, including Billboard magazine.[12]

On March 17, 1999 MusicBlvd was acquired by CDNow, at which time its website became defunct and customers were redirected to the CDNow website.[1][13] According to the book The Cdnow Story: Rags to Riches on the Internet, Music Boulevard was CDNow's "number one competitor."[14]

CDnow was acquired by Amazon.com in 2002.[15]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Wolverton, Troy (May 18, 1999). "CDnow, N2K strike first note after merger". E-Business. CNET News. Retrieved 10 December 2013.
  2. ↑ "Now Open! Music Boulevard at MusicBlvd.com". Business Wire. 1995-08-16. Archived from the original on 2016-03-05.
  3. ↑ "An Online First for a Music Source". Ad Week. 1997-07-14.
  4. ↑ Tedesco, Richard (10 June 1996), N2K Inc.'s Web site devoted to jazz: Jazz Central Station on fast track - Web site offers information, entertainment, shopping., Broadcasting & Cable, N2K['s] first effort online was Music Boulevard (www.musicblvd.com), a multigenre online market with 30-second sound samples from its 145,000 titles, on a Web site launched late last summer.
  5. ↑ "Entertainment/Weekend/Spotlight: Capitol Song Hits Internet". Rocky Mountain News. 10 September 1997.
  6. ↑ "Silicon Investor Technology Stocks". Silicon Investor 1/2/1998.
  7. ↑ "Facing The Music". NY Daily News. October 8, 1996.
  8. ↑ Row, Heath (1998-11-30). "Music Boulevard | Fast Company | Business + Innovation". Fast Company. Retrieved 2013-09-02.
  9. ↑ Anderman, Joan. "Wired for sound shopping Web site music retailers offer guidance, discounts, and even some rarities". The Boston Globe. 25 December 1998.
  10. ↑ Wieffering, Eric. "Business: K-tel posts loss, but still avoids Nasdaq delisting; Retailer loses $6 million as 2nd-quarter sales drop 9.5 percent.." Star Tribune. 11 February 1999.
  11. ↑ Szadkowski, Joseph (23 February 1998), Business Times: The Browser - TV broadcasters, advertisers chase consumers to Internet., The Washington Times, CBS Cable, a programmer of country entertainment through the Nashville Network and Country Music Television cable networks, is moving into on-line country music sales through a strategic partnership with N2K's Music Boulevard (www.musicblvd.com).
  12. ↑ Music Boulevard: Telebase launches WWW multimedia music service., Information Today, 1 September 1995, At the trendy @ cafe in New York last month, Telebase systems launched what they're touting as "the ultimate record store, as close by as the nearest computer." Music Boulevard, "the Internet's largest multimedia music store," is now open for business. Located on the World Wide Web at www.musicblvd.com, Music Boulevard is a one-stop service ... "In constructing Music Boulevard we have capitalized upon our 11 years of experience in the design and support of online services," said Jim Coane, CEO and president of Telebase Systems.
  13. ↑ Haring, Bruce (May 12, 1999). "Music merger seeks harmonious blend of sales, sounds". USA Today. p. 8D.
  14. ↑ Olim, Jason; Olim, Matthew; Kent, Peter (1999). The Cdnow Story: Rags to Riches on the Internet. Top Floor Pub. p. 19. ISBN 978-0966103267.
  15. ↑ Kane, Margaret (December 4, 2002). "Amazon, CDNow make it official". CNET.
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