It was with some sadness and nostalgia that we read that Tower Records (and Video) was finally going out of business. The company, which started as a record department in a Sacramento drugstore, was sold to a liquidator on October 6th. There is no final date announced, but it’s coming...soon.

Alas, Amazon’s low prices for physical CDs and Apple’s iTunes did Tower in. Here’s an example of a bricks and mortar store totally unable to see the digital business coming. Could they have taken advantage of the Tower brand and made headway as an online presence ahead of the more nimble cyber-competition? We’ll never know.
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In my line of work, I get to see (and sometimes trial) quite a few media-related products. I have to say, I am very impressed with the Sonos music system which offers music portability throughout the home. You can set up 32 different music listening posts if money is no object (and you have a home the size of the Grand Canyon). The setup was fairly straightforward (made easy if you have a home WiFi network). Within 30 minutes, I was playing Capital FM, a London-based radio station in my bedroom while playing Steely Dan in my office.

One of the cool things about the Sonos system is how it plays the Rhapsody music service even if your computer is turned off. So, I am waiting to be able to port our XM Radio service throughout the house...I imagine that’s coming soon.

As Siskel & Ebert would have said, two thumbs up!
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