Interscope And Best Buy Team Up To Give You A Free Twitter Application For Free (With Purchase)

from the well,-hot-damn dept

Dear major record labels: when we suggested you learn how to embrace “free” in your marketing and promotions, this isn’t quite what we meant. Consumerist points out that Interscope (part of Universal Music) has put together a promotion with Best Buy, whereby if you buy a CD from certain Interscope artists, you get a free copy of the software Tweetdeck. Well, that’s nice… other than the fact that Tweetdeck is already free. Great deal! Now, to be fair, the copy of Tweetdeck you get is a special “customized” version that automatically has you following 16 Interscope artists (even if you only bought a CD from one of them). Of course, you could also just follow any of those artists yourself (again, for free), so it’s not quite clear what the promotion is. But, they sure seem to suggest it’s a big deal in the Best Buy newspaper ad:

Now, I guess, to some extent, we should note that it’s a good thing that a major record label is admitting publicly that “free” can act as a good promotion — so kudos to Interscope for taking that big step. It’s also nice to see Interscope recognize that an infinite good (software) can potentially help sell more scarce goods (CDs). But, on the whole, it definitely seems like this promotion could have been handled a lot better. Pumping up the “free” aspect of something that’s already free just doesn’t seem that compelling.

Filed Under: , ,
Companies: best buy, interscope, tweetdeck

Rate this comment as insightful
Rate this comment as funny
You have rated this comment as insightful
You have rated this comment as funny
Flag this comment as abusive/trolling/spam
You have flagged this comment
The first word has already been claimed
The last word has already been claimed
Insightful Lightbulb icon Funny Laughing icon Abusive/trolling/spam Flag icon Insightful badge Lightbulb icon Funny badge Laughing icon Comments icon

Comments on “Interscope And Best Buy Team Up To Give You A Free Twitter Application For Free (With Purchase)”

Subscribe: RSS Leave a comment
20 Comments
Anonymous Coward says:

The only things big corporations know how to do is to take something that should be free or cheap and make it cost (more) money. They often accomplish this by lobbying the government (ie: for monopolies, such as patents and monopolies on who can use existing and build new cableco/telco infrastructure and also for monopolies on public airwaves). This is just another attempt to take something that’s already free and monetize it. They also do it by buying up small businesses that offer a decent product for a decent price and making the free offering suck (ie Hamachi VPN) or taking away the free offering altogether. Just be thankful this particular example doesn’t involve government lobbying.

Add Your Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here

Comment Options:

Make this the or (get credits or sign in to see balance) what's this?

What's this?

Techdirt community members with Techdirt Credits can spotlight a comment as either the "First Word" or "Last Word" on a particular comment thread. Credits can be purchased at the Techdirt Insider Shop »

Follow Techdirt

Techdirt Daily Newsletter

Ctrl-Alt-Speech

A weekly news podcast from
Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw

Subscribe now to Ctrl-Alt-Speech »
Techdirt Deals
Techdirt Insider Discord
The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...
Loading...