Is pre-bundled content the future for Flash drives?

by Sylvie Barak on 15 October 2009, 08:27

Tags: Kingston

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Consumers content with no content?

"For arguments sake," Leathem told HEXUS, "imagine that a USB drive costs seven dollars and then a film studio charges us another $10 per drive to add a film on there, plus the licensing fee. That's a big investment and a significant risk for us if that drive doesn't sell."

Therefore, unless the conservative film industry becomes slightly more flexible either in terms of licensing or pricing, or even simply agree on a per sale price basis, Kingston is stuck between a bit of a rock and a hard place where pre-loaded content is concerned.

The challenges and hurdles involved haven't put the company off, though. Kingston's VP of Flash sales and marketing, Darwin Chen, is optimistic about his firm's potential in the content bundling market.

"Flash memory is not so much the future as it is the present," he told HEXUS. "It continues to replace traditional media such as film, floppy disks and one-inch hard drives.  It's a natural migration and is a convenient device that can be used as a delivery vehicle."  A good example, he said, is the netbook market. "As netbooks become more prevalent, the need to use Flash to replace the optical drive is evident in delivering content," he declared. 

What do you think? Is preloaded content the way forward for Flash marketing, or is it doomed to failure? Let us know in the HEXUS.community discussion forums.

 



HEXUS Forums :: 8 Comments

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Here's a thought, is it perhaps the reverse idea that's more relevant, that content providers should be bundling useful technology with their product? For example, that $10 or $15 film, comes with a reusable branded 2GB flash drive.
Thing is, you can't just sell it as a “USB drive with free film” or everyone will just think “another thing to delete”.

If you stood at the counter and had the choice between film on disc or film on USB, it would probably be more sensible. A complete flop, but more sensible.
Sorry but memory keys are storage….

Yes it would be nice to buy a 32gb memory key that had a load of albums/ movies / tv series on that I want… but unless I get to choose what fills that key I ain't interested.

As for 1/2/4/8gb sticks… I ain't interested they are too small to be worth the effort. I don't want to have a bag full of small memory keys that will inevitably get lost/confused, I want 1 or 2 big ones that I ain't going to loose.
Agreed with the above, trying to sell a few USB drive by bundling a film is foolish. Selling USB drives to film companies in order to distribute their film is a much better idea.
This is a totally flop idea. But, we wouldn't mind bundled software.