best-buy-music

About a week ago, I found myself driving around with some time to spare and figured it was as good as time as any to go and grab a few of the albums that dropped this year worthy of the monetary support. Problem is, I was centrally located…from the neighboring Best Buys in my area. Do I drive 15 miles north or hit the freeway for a 20 minute trip southeast? The thought of inadvertently paying a gas tariff just to buy a couple of CDs was rather taxing (pun intended) to say the least. How did it get this bad to where opposing major retailers are scarce in location? It’s to be expected as mom & pop’s tighten up in the face of a recession and with Best Buy comfortable in their established landmarks across the city. But with the demise of slacker Circuit City, is no one willing to step up and be #2?

With that kind of power, Best Buy is shaking the game up. Going beyond just selling you a TV, they’re trying to design it too.

The retailer is pushing suppliers to use standardized software and digital services so consumers can listen to music or watch movies on any device. And Best Buy has set up its own venture capital fund to pour millions of dollars into startups from Silicon Valley to Asia. The goal is to shape development of new technologies in promising fields such as green vehicles, digital health and home monitoring.

“We want to become a digital playground where people come in, experience it, try it and find out how all these things can work together around their life,” says Brian J. Dunn, who became Best Buy’s chief executive officer in June.

When you have money to blow à la Birdman, you can experiment with to your heart’s content. The article even states that next year the company will introduce a toothbrush that wirelessly reports to a PC the number of brushstrokes that a child uses. What’s next? A…actually that is about as a ridiculous scenario as you’re going to get. It’s sort of reminiscent of Demolition Man when the only restaurant chain standing was Taco Bell. The Walmart of technology is trying to become Walmart, period. Guitar Center and Sam Ash better watch their backs.

Best Buy: ‘The 1,000-Pound Gorilla’ [Money Central]